WORTH | jason grace¹

26

╔═══════════════╗

26. Aeolus' Palace

╚═══════════════╝

The closer they got to Aeolus's palace, the harder climbing got. The winds struggled, rumbling and bumping around. The only one who seemed 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!"

"Oh my gods, goat man!" Lorna would exclaim.

As they climbed, Leo, Piper and Lorna left Jason in his silence. He was obviously in a bad mood. Lorna kept glancing back, worried. Because Jason looked really troubled and what Thalia said really bothered her.

They'd told her what Thalia had said on the bridge—how they could save both Piper's dad and Hera—but Lorna didn't really understand how they were going to do that, and she wasn't sure if the possibility had made Piper more hopeful or just more anxious.

Leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs that his pants were on fire. He wasn't steaming anymore

Finally they arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though Lorna couldn't imagine who would 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, D.C. —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 this guy's front yard."

The rotunda sat in the center 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 Lorna 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, Lorna 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 huge 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," Lorna said. She was actually relieved to send the satyr off. It would be hard enough getting on Aeolus's good side without Coach Hedge waving his club and screaming, "Die!"

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

"Hello!" A woman floated up to them.

Literally floated. She was pretty in that elfish way Jason associated with nature spirits at Camp Half-Blood—petite, slightly pointy ears, and an ageless face that could've 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. Jason couldn't tell if she had feet, but if so, they 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."

"Are you a ghost?" Jason asked.

The smile turned into a pout. "I'm an aura, sir. A wind nymph, as you might expect, working for the lord of the winds. My name is Mellie. We don't have ghosts."

Piper came to the rescue. "No, of course you don't! My friend simply mistook you for Helen of Troy, the most beautiful mortal of all time. It's an easy mistake."

Wow, she was good. The compliment seemed a little over the top, but Mellie the aura blushed. "Oh ... well, then. So you are from Zeus?"

"Er," Jason said, "I'm the son of Zeus, yeah."

"Excellent! Please, right this way."

She led them through some security doors into another lobby, consulting her tablet as she floated. She didn't look where she was going, but apparently it didn't matter as she drifted straight through a marble column with no problem.

"We're out of prime time now, so that's good," she mused. "I can fit you in right before his 11:12 spot."

"Um, okay," Jason said.

The lobby was a pretty distracting place. Winds blasted around them, so Lorna felt like she was pushing through an invisible crowd. Doors blew open and slammed by themselves. The things Lorna could see were just as bizarre. Paper airplanes of all different sizes and shapes sped around, and other wind nymphs, aurai, would occasionally pluck them out of the air, unfold and read them, then toss them back into the air, where the planes would refold themselves and keep flying. An ugly creature fluttered past. She looked like a mix between an old lady and a chicken on steroids. She had a wrinkled face with black hair tied in a hairnet, arms like a human plus wings like a chicken, and a fat, feathered body with talons for feet. It was amazing she could fly at all. She kept drifting around and bumping into things like a parade balloon.

"Not an aura?" Jason asked Mellie as the creature wobbled by.

Mellie laughed. "That's a harpy, of course. Our, ah, ugly stepsisters, I suppose you would say. Don't you have harpies on Olympus? They're spirits of violent gusts, unlike us aurai. We're all gentle breezes."

"That's mean." Lorna said.

Mellie ignore her and batted her eyes at Jason.

"'Course you are," he said.

"So," Lorna prompted, "you were taking us to see Aeolus?"

Mellie led them through a set of doors like an airlock. Above the interior door, a green light blinked.

"We have a few minutes before he starts," Mellie said cheerfully. "He probably won't kill you if we go in now. Come along!"