ichor - jason grace

XVIII

They headed for the cliffs of the floating island. As they climbed, Nell noticed Jason looking back - maybe to see if he could catch a glimpse of Thalia, but she was gone.

Thalia had changed so much from the girl she first met, it warmed Nell's heart. She'd become so confident, and so much more comfortable in her life.

The only one of them that seemed to be in a good mood was Coach Hedge. He kept bounding up the slippery staircase and trotting back down. "Come on, cupcakes! Only a few thousand more steps!"

Nell rolled her eyes, she was sorely tempted to throw their backpack at his head.

As they climbed, they left Jason to his thoughts. He didn't seem to be in the best of moods since they'd left Thalia. It was best to give him time to think things through.

Leo kept swatting his legs, as though to check he wasn't still on fire. He wasn't steaming anymore, but the fact that he hadn't noticed that he was on fire in the first place really freaked Nell out. If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, it would be impossible to take him anywhere, they'd have to have an emergency fire extinguisher everywhere they went.

She wondered what Leo had meant by a bridge, and what made Thalia look so freaked out at the idea of the wolf house. Why did she say that only Jason could find it?

Finally, they arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though she couldn't imagine who could possibly attack this place. Twenty-foot high gates opened for them, and a road of polished purple stone led up to the main citadel - a white-columned rotunda, greek style, like one of the monuments in Washington DC - except for the cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers on the roof.

"That's bizarre," Piper said.

"Guess you can't get cable on a floating island," Leo said. "Dang, check out this guys front yard."

The rotunda sat in the centre of a quarter-mile circle, the grounds were amazing in a scary way. They were divided into four sections like big pizza slices, each one representing a season.

The section on their right was an icy waste, with bare trees and a frozen lake. Snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, so Nell wasn't sure if they were decorations or alive.

To their left was an autumn park with gold and red trees. Mounds of leaves blew into patterns - gods, people, animals that ran after each other before scattering back into leaves.

In the distance, Nell could see two more areas behind the rotunda. One looked like a green pasture with sheep made out of clouds. The last section was a desert where tumbleweeds scratched strange patterns in the sand like greek letters, smiley faces, and a massive advertisement that read: watch Aeolus nightly!

"One section for each of the four wind gods," Jason guessed. "four cardinal directions."

"I'm loving that pasture." Coach Hedge licked his lips. "You guys mind -"

"Go ahead," Jason said. He looked relieved to send the satyr off.

When Hedge ran off to attack springtime, Jason, Leo, Nell and Piper walked down the road to the steps of the palace. They passed through the front doors into a marble foyer decorated with purple banners that read olympian weather channel, and some that just read OW!

"Hello!" A woman floated up to them. Maybe a nymph or something. She was pretty in an elfish way that she often associated with the nature spirits - petite, slightly pointed ears, and an ageless face that could have been sixteen or thirty. Her brown eyes twinkled cheerfully. Even though there was no wind, her dark hair blew in slow motion, shampoo-commercial style. Her white gown billowed around her like parachute material. Her feet, if she had any, didn't touch the floor. She had a white tablet computer in her hand. "Are you from Lord Zeus?" She asked. "We've been expecting you."