And they dropped like stones.
They hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through into darkness.
Unfortunately, Piper tried to land on her feet. Her feet didn’t like that. Pain flared in her left ankle as she crumpled against a cold metal surface.
For a few seconds she wasn’t conscious of anything but pain—pain so bad that her ears rang and her vision went red.
Then she heard Jason’s voice somewhere below, echoing through the building. “Piper! Where’s Piper?”
“Ow, bro!” Leo groaned. “That’s my back! I’m not a sofa! Piper, where’d you go?”
“Here,” she managed, her voice a whimper.
She heard shuffling and grunting, then feet pounding on metal steps.
Her vision began to clear. She was on a metal catwalk that ringed the warehouse interior. Leo and Jason had landed on ground level, and were now coming up the stairs toward her. She looked at her foot, and wave of nausea swept over her. Her toes weren’t supposed to point that way, were they?
Oh, god. She forced herself to look away before she threw up. Focus on something else. Anything else.
The hole they’d made in the roof was a ragged starburst twenty feet above. How they’d even survived that drop, she had no idea. Hanging from the ceiling, a few electric bulbs flickered dimly, but they didn’t do much to light the enormous space. Next to Piper, the corrugated metal wall was emblazoned with a company logo, but it was almost completely spray-painted over with graffiti. Down in the shadowy warehouse, she could make out huge machines, robotic arms, half-finished trucks on an assembly line. The place looked like it had been abandoned for years.
Jason and Leo reached her side.
Leo started to ask, “You okay … ?” Then he saw her foot. “Oh no, you’re not. ”
“Thanks for the reassurance,” Piper groaned.
“You’ll be fine,” Jason said, though Piper could hear the worry in his voice. “Leo, you got any first aid supplies?”
“Yeah—yeah, sure. ” He dug around in his tool belt and pulled out a wad of gauze and a roll of duct tape—both of which seemed too big for the belt’s pockets. Piper had noticed the tool belt yesterday morning, but she hadn’t thought to ask Leo about it. It didn’t look like anything special—just one of those wraparound leather aprons with a bunch of pockets, like a blacksmith or a carpenter might wear. And it seemed to be empty.
“How did you—” Piper tried to sit up, and winced. “How did pull that stuff from an empty belt?”
“Magic,” Leo said. “Haven’t figure it out completely, but I can summon just about any regular tool out of the pockets, plus some other helpful stuff. ” He reached into another pocket and pulled out a little tin box. “Breath mint?”
Jason snatched away the mints. “That’s great, Leo. Now, can you fix her foot?”
“I’m a mechanic, man. Maybe if she was a car …” He snapped his fingers. “Wait, what was that godly healing stuffthey fed you at camp—Rambo food?”
“Ambrosia, dummy,” Piper said through gritted teeth. “There should be some in my bag, if it’s not crushed. ”
Jason carefully pulled her backpack off her shoulders. He rummaged through the supplies the Aphrodite kids had packed for her, and found a Ziploc full of smashed pastry squares like lemon bars. He broke off a piece and fed it to her.
The taste was nothing like she expected. It reminded her of Dad’s black bean soup from when she was a little girl. He used to feed it to her whenever she got sick. The memory relaxed her, though it made her sad. The pain in her ankle subsided.
“More,” she said.
Jason frowned. “Piper, we shouldn’t risk it. They said too much could burn you up. I think I should try to set your foot. ”
Piper’s stomach fluttered. “Have you ever done that before?”
“Yeah … I think so. ”
Leo found an old piece of wood and broke it in half for a splint. Then he got the gauze and duct tape ready.
“Hold her leg still,” Jason told him. “Piper, this is going to hurt. ”
When Jason set the foot, Piper flinched so hard she punched Leo in the arm, and he yelled almost as much as she did. When her vision cleared and she could breathe normally again, she found that her foot was pointing the right way, her ankle splinted with plywood, gauze, and duct tape.
“Ow,” she said.
“Jeez, beauty queen!” Leo rubbed his arm. “Glad my face wasn’t there. ”
“Sorry,” she said. “And don’t call me ‘beauty queen,’ or I’ll punch you again. ”
“You both did great. ” Jason found a canteen in Piper’s pack and gave her some water. After a few minutes, her stomach began to calm down.
Once she wasn’t screaming in pain, she could hear the wind howling outside. Snowflakes fluttered through the hole in the roof, and after their meeting with Khione, snow was the last thing Piper wanted to see.
“What happened to the dragon?” she asked. “Where are we?”
Leo’s expression turned sullen. “I don’t know with Festus. He just jerked sideways like he hit an invisible wall and started to fall. ”