Where You Go ― Jason Grace

xv. ophelia & co. break into a mansion

LEO AND PIPER were fast asleep when Ophelia finally woke from her involuntary nap.

She blinked at the starry sky around them, trying to remember what the sky had looked like when she'd passed out. How long had she been asleep?

She shifted, and she felt Jason move behind her, his arms tensing around her waist for a second before relaxing again.

"How long was I out?" she asked tiredly.

"Couple hours," Jason answered. "Are you okay? You passed out right after Medea's store exploded. We were worried about you."

"'M fine," Ophelia mumbled, bringing a hand up to rub her eyes. "I manifested a couple of ghosts at her place. Guess that takes a lot of energy."

Jason was silent for a moment. "I'm sorry, you... you manifested ghosts? What does that mean?"

Ophelia shrugged. "I brought them into the real world long enough for them to grab Medea and help me kill her. Don't really know how, but I don't think it was the first time I've done something like that."

Jason told her what she'd missed while she was asleep, which wasn't much. Festus had managed to grab the two canary cages containing Coach Hedge and the storm spirits, and now they were following some kind of vapor trail in the air that only Jason could see, which they assumed led to Aeolus.

He also told her about Piper's strange behavior, and that made Ophelia's stomach knot with worry. She remembered the way her chest had tightened at just the possibility of her friend working—willingly or not—for an enemy. But it wasn't just a general worry or sense of betrayal, it was something familiar and awful.

As if this was a scene Ophelia already knew the lines for.

Unfortunately, Ophelia didn't get much time to wonder about her friend's weird behavior—because at that exact second, Festus dropped out of the sky for the second time in forty-eight hours.

Leo and Piper startled awake as they spiraled through the dark in a free fall, still on the dragon's back. Festus's hide was cold, his eyes dim.

"Not again!" Leo yelled. "You can't fall again!"

Leo's fingers were a blur as he tugged at wires in the back of the dragon's neck, trying to figure out the problem and fix it, but they kept plummeting—fast.

"Jason!" Leo screamed. "Take the girls and fly out of here!"

"What?"

"We need to lighten the load! I might be able to reboot Festus, but he's carrying too much weight!"

"What about you?" Piper cried. "If you can't reboot him—"

"I'll be fine," Leo yelled. "Just follow me to the ground. Go!"

It took an agonizingly long second for Jason, Piper, and Ophelia to undo their harnesses. In a flash they were gone—shooting into the air as Festus and Leo continued to fall.

Ophelia screamed in horror as something shot Festus down, tearing the metal dragon to shreds. He crashed into the yard of some kind of private compound with a horrific BOOM, Leo still on his back, and Jason was quick to follow them down.

Leo was thrown from Festus, rolling hard for a few moments before landing in the snow. The canary cages had rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly intact.