The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus 4)

Hazel climbed out of her pile of treasure. She led Jason as far away as she dared—about fifty feet down the cliff, which she hoped was out of earshot.

“Sciron kicks his victims off the cliff,” she whispered.

Jason scowled. “What?”

“When you kneel down to wash his feet,” Hazel said. “That’s how he kills you. When you’re off-balance, woozy from the smell of his feet, he’ll kick you over the edge. You’ll fall right into the mouth of his giant turtle. ”

Jason took a moment to digest that, so to speak. He glanced over the cliff, where the turtle’s massive shell glinted just under the water.

“So we have to fight,” Jason said.

“Sciron’s too fast,” Hazel said. “He’ll kill us both. ”

“Then I’ll be ready to fly. When he kicks me over, I’ll float halfway down the cliff. Then when he kicks you, I’ll catch you. ”

Hazel shook her head. “If he kicks you hard and fast enough, you’ll be too dazed to fly. And even if you can, Sciron’s got the eyes of a marksman. He’ll watch you fall. If you hover, he’ll just shoot you out of the air. ”

“Then…” Jason clenched his sword hilt. “I hope you have another idea?”

A few feet away, Gale the weasel appeared from the bushes. She gnashed her teeth and peered at Hazel as if to say, Well? Do you?

Hazel calmed her nerves, trying to avoid pulling more gold from the ground. She remembered the dream she’d had of her father Pluto’s voice: The dead see what they believe they will see. So do the living. That is the secret.

She understood what she had to do. She hated the idea worse than she hated that farting weasel, worse than she hated Sciron’s feet.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Hazel said. “We have to let Sciron win. ”

“What?” Jason demanded.

Hazel told him the plan.

“FINALLY!” SCIRON CRIED. “That was much longer than two minutes!”

“Sorry,” Jason said. “It was a big decision…which foot. ”

Hazel tried to clear her mind and imagine the scene through Sciron’s eyes—what he desired, what he expected.

That was the key to using the Mist. She couldn’t force someone to see the world her way. She couldn’t make Sciron’s reality appear less believable. But if she showed him what he wanted to see…well, she was a child of Pluto. She’d spent decades with the dead, listening to them yearn for past lives that were only half-remembered, distorted by nostalgia.

The dead saw what they believed they would see. So did the living.

Pluto was the god of the Underworld, the god of wealth. Maybe those two spheres of influence were more connected than Hazel had realized. There wasn’t much difference between longing and greed.

If she could summon gold and diamonds, why not summon another kind of treasure—a vision of the world people wanted to see?

Of course she could be wrong, in which case she and Jason were about to be turtle food.

She rested her hand on her jacket pocket, where Frank’s magical firewood seemed heavier than usual. She wasn’t just carrying his lifeline now. She was carrying the lives of the entire crew.

Jason stepped forward, his hands open in surrender. “I’ll go first, Sciron. I’ll wash your left foot. ”

“Excellent choice!” Sciron wriggled his hairy, corpse-like toes. “I may have stepped on something with that foot. It felt a little squishy inside my boot. But I’m sure you’ll clean it properly. ”

Jason’s ears reddened. From the tension in his neck, Hazel could tell that he was tempted to drop the charade and attack—one quick slash with his Imperial gold blade. But Hazel knew if he tried, he would fail.

“Sciron,” she broke in, “do you have water? Soap? How are we supposed to wash—”

“Like this!” Sciron spun his left flintlock. Suddenly it became a squirt bottle with a rag. He tossed it to Jason.

Jason squinted at the label. “You want me to wash your feet with glass cleaner?”

“Of course not!” Sciron knit his eyebrows. “It says multi-surface cleanser. My feet definitely qualify as multi-surface. Besides, it’s antibacterial. I need that. Believe me, water won’t do the trick on these babies. ”

Sciron wiggled his toes, and more zombie café odor wafted across the cliffs.

Jason gagged. “Oh, gods, no…”

Sciron shrugged. “You can always choose what’s in my other hand. ” He hefted his right flintlock.

“He’ll do it,” Hazel said.

Jason glared at her, but Hazel won the staring contest.

“Fine,” he muttered.

“Excellent! Now…” Sciron hopped to the nearest chunk of limestone that was the right size for a footstool. He faced the water and planted his foot, so he looked like some explorer who’d just claimed a new country. “I’ll watch the horizon while you scrub my bunions. It’ll be much more enjoyable. ”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I bet. ”

Jason knelt in front of the bandit, at the edge of the cliff, where he was an easy target. One kick, and he’d topple over.

Hazel concentrated. She imagined she was Sciron, the lord of bandits. She was looking down at a pathetic blond-haired kid who was no threat at all—just another defeated demigod about to become his victim.

In her mind, she saw what would happen. She summoned the Mist, calling it from the depths of the earth the way she did with gold or silver or rubies.

Jason squirted the cleaning fluid. His eyes watered. He wiped Sciron’s big toe with his rag and turned aside to gag. Hazel could barely watch. When the kick happened, she almost missed it.