lacuna [connor stoll]

III. Stealing Phones

CHAPTER THREE: STEALING PHONES

Ellie had never seen Olympus before.

Of course, she knew Percy and Annabeth had, but she wasn't like them. They would go down in history, and Ellie had accepted her role as a supporting character, which even that title was generous.

The truth was that she was in the background of her own life. People loved her, told her stories, asked for advice, but that didn't make her special. It made her average. She wanted to go on quests like Percy Jackson, fight the Titans, and save the day. Besides, what kind of hero didn't even know their own parentage?

The battle would give her that chance. She would be able to prove herself.

She took the first elevator up to Olympus, and was speechless when the doors dinged open.

They stood on a narrow stone pathway in the middle of the air. Below her was Manhattan, from the height of an airplane. White marble steps wound up the spine of a cloud into the sky.

From the top of the cloud, rose the decapitated peak of its mountain, its summit. There were dozens of multileveled palaces clinging to the side, a city of mansions. All with white-columned porticos, gilded terraces, and bronze braziers glowing with a thousand fires. Roads wound up to the peak, where the largest palace gleamed brightly. Gardens bloomed with with olive trees and rosebushes.

She realized the mountain was silent—no music, no voices, no laughter, different what Annabeth had told her about Olympus when she was there last.

The demigods made our way across the sky bridge into the streets of Olympus. The shops were closed. The parks were empty. A couple of Muses sat on a bench strumming flaming lyres, but their hearts didn't seem to be in it. A lone Cyclops swept the street with an uprooted oak tree. A minor godling spotted us from a balcony and ducked inside, closing his shutters.

"Look!" Pollux cried, pointing toward the horizon. "What is that?"

They all froze. Blue lights were streaking across the evening sky toward Olympus like tiny comets. They seemed to be coming from all over the city, heading straight toward the mountain. As they got close, they fizzled out. The group watched them for several minutes and they didn't seem to do any damage, but still it was strange.

"Like infrared scopes," Michael Yew muttered. "We're being targeted."

"Let's get to the palace," Percy offered.

No one was guarding the hall of the gods. The gold-and-silver doors stood wide open. The demigods footsteps echoed as we walked into the throne room.

Of course, "room" doesn't really cover it. The place was the size of Madison Square Garden. High above, the blue ceiling glittered with constellations. Twelve giant empty thrones stood in a U around a hearth. In one corner, a house-size globe of water hovered in the air, and inside swam the Ophiotaurus, half-cow, half-serpent.