Where You Go ― Jason Grace

xx. another day, another death threat

AS THEY WALKED, Jason and Leo gave them a quick rundown of what had happened on the bridge, and it left Ophelia's head spinning.

She and Jason were supposed to be a bridge? A bridge to what? All Ophelia wanted was to remember who she was, where she'd come from, but if those memories just complicated everything even more... did she really want them back?

Of course.

Matt was in her memories, and Gianna, and there must have been others she cared about, people who were worried about her, right? She'd had a life before all of this, and it wasn't fair to the people in it to leave them forgotten. 

As complicated as her memories might have made things, she needed them back. Who was she without them?

Just an amnesiac medium with a bad temper.

Jason was tense and quiet as they walked toward the towering palace. Ophelia was worried, but she didn't think there was anything she could say to make him feel better. He'd just found his sister and then lost her again within half an hour, and Ophelia knew how painful that was. And now their deadline to save Hera was looming over them, and they didn't even know where she was being kept. They were running out of time. 

Ophelia reached for his hand, silently tangling their fingers together. He didn't say anything, but he squeezed her hand and didn't let go.

Finally, they arrived at the top of the floating island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though Ophelia didn't see how anyone could attack the place. Twenty-foot-high gates opened up for them, and a road of polished purple stone led up to the main citadel—a white-columned rotunda, Greek style, with 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 divided into four different, equally-sized sections, each of them representing a season.

The section to their right was a winter wasteland, with bare trees and a frozen lake. The section to their left was an autumn park with gold and red trees. Ophelia could see two more areas behind the rotunda, one like a green pasture with sheep made out of clouds and one with 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 wind gods," Jason guessed. "Four cardinal directions."

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

"Have at it," Ophelia told him, glad to send the satyr off. She figured having a murderous goat-man running around with his club screaming, "Die!" at everything that moved wouldn't make Aeolus too eager to help them out. 

The rest of them walked down the road to the steps of the palace, leaving Coach Hedge to his snack. 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. Ophelia couldn't guess how old she was—she could've been sixteen or thirty. Even though there was no wind, her dark hair blew in slow-motion like she was in a shampoo commercial. Her white gown billowed around her like parachute material. "Are you from Lord Zeus?" she asked. "We've been expecting you."

Rather than respond, Jason looked at Ophelia, then back at the woman, blurting out, "Are you a ghost?"

Ophelia smacked his arm lightly. He couldn't just go around asking people if they were ghosts—it was rude.