BLOODSHOT . . . piper mclean

73.

EDEN THOUGHT SHE'D hated the air before.

Now? She fucking despised it.

She felt out of control, her thoughts scattered, no boundaries between her body and the rest of the world. She wondered if this was how monsters felt when they were defeated -% bursting into dust, helpless and formless.

The wind carried her into the sky above Split. They raced over the hills, past Roman aqueducts, highways, and vineyards. As Eden approached the mountains, she saw the ruins of a Roman town spread out in a valley below — crumbling walls, square foundations, and cracked roads, all overgrown with grass — so it looked like a giant, mossy game board.

The wind dude set them down in the middle of the ruins, next to a broken column the size of a redwood.

Eden's body re-formed. For a moment it felt even worse than being the wind, like she'd suddenly been wrapped in a weighted blanket times a hundred.

"Yes, mortal bodies are terribly bulky," The wind dude said, as if reading his thoughts. The wind god settled on a nearby wall with his basket of fruit and spread his russet wings in the sun. "Honestly, I don't know how you stand it, day in and day out."

Eden scanned their surroundings. The town must have been huge once. She could make out the shells of temples and bathhouses, a half-buried amphitheater, and empty pedestals that must have once held statues. Rows of columns marched off to nowhere. The old city walls wove in and out of the hillside like stone thread through a green cloth.

Some areas looked like they'd been excavated, but most of the city just seemed abandoned, as if it had been left to the elements for the last two thousand years.

"Welcome to Salona," The wind dude said. "Capital of Dalmatia! Birthplace of Diocletian! But before that, long before that, it was the home of Cupid."

The name echoed, as if voices were whispering it through the ruins.

Something about this place seemed even creepier than the palace basement in Split. Eden had never thought much about Cupid. The only thing that had happened to her was at that water park a long time ago, with Grover, Percy and Annabeth — and she hadn't gone down that slide, that was all the heroic, oh so powerful couple.

"Oh, he's not like that," said the wind dude.

Perfect Jason flinched. "You can read my mind?"

"I don't need to." The wind dude tossed his bronze hoop in the air. "Everyone has the wrong impression of Cupid . . . until they meet him."

Nico braced himself against a column, his legs trembling visibly.

"Hey, man . . ." Perfect Jason stepped toward him, but Nico waved him off.

At Nico's feet, the grass turned brown and wilted. The dead patch spread outward, as if poison were seeping from the soles of his shoes.

"Ah . . ." The wind dude nodded sympathetically. "I don't blame you for being nervous, Nico di Angelo. Do you know how I ended up serving Cupid?"

"I don't serve anyone," Nico muttered. "Especially not Cupid."

The wind dude continued as if he hadn't heard. "I fell in love with a mortal named Hyacinthus. He was quite extraordinary."

"He?" Eden shrugged. "Cool. So Cupid struck you with his arrow, and you fell in disgustingly sickening love."

The wind dude snorted. "You make it sound so simple, Eden Fairchild. Alas, love is never simple. You should know. You see, the god Apollo also liked Hyacinthus. He claimed they were just friends. I don't know. But one day I came across them together, playing a game of quoits—"