The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus 4)

“Uh…” Leo noticed that she’d just picked three gods to blame, and one of them was his dad. He didn’t figure that was a good sign. “I doubt they’re listening. You know, the whole split personality thing—”

“Show yourself!” the girl yelled at the sky, completely ignoring Leo. “It’s not bad enough I am exiled? It’s not bad enough you take away the few good heroes I’m allowed to meet? You think it’s funny to send me this—this charbroiled runt of a boy to ruin my tranquility? This is NOT FUNNY! Take him back!”

“Hey, Sunshine,” Leo said. “I’m right here, you know. ”

She growled like a cornered animal. “Do not call me Sunshine! Get out of that hole and come with me now so I can get you off my island!”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…”

Leo didn’t know what the crazy girl was so worked up about, but he didn’t really care. If she could help him leave this island, that was totally fine by him. He clutched his charred sphere and climbed out of the crater. When he reached the top, the girl was already marching down the shoreline. He jogged to catch up.

She gestured in disgust at the burning wreckage. “This was a pristine beach! Look at it now. ”

“Yeah, my bad,” Leo muttered. “I should’ve crashed on one of the other islands. Oh, wait—there aren’t any!”

She snarled and kept walking along the edge of the water. Leo caught a whiff of cinnamon—maybe her perfume? Not that he cared. Her hair swayed down her back in a mesmerizing kind of way, which of course he didn’t care about either.

He scanned the sea. Just like he’d seen during his fall, there were no landmasses or ships all the way to the horizon. Looking inland, he saw grassy hills dotted with trees. A footpath wound through a grove of cedars. Leo wondered where it led: probably to the girl’s secret lair, where she roasted her enemies so she could eat them at her dining table on the beach.

He was so busy thinking about that, he didn’t notice when the girl stopped. He ran into her.

“Gah!” She turned and grabbed his arms to keep from falling in the surf. Her hands were strong, as though she worked with them for a living. Back at camp, the girls in the Hephaestus cabin had had strong hands like that, but she didn’t look like a Hephaestus kid.

She glared at him, her dark almond eyes only a few inches from his. Her cinnamon smell reminded him of his abuela’s apartment. Man, he hadn’t thought about that place in years.

The girl pushed him away. “All right. This spot is good. Now tell me you want to leave. ”

“What?” Leo’s brain was still kind of muddled from the crash landing. He wasn’t sure he had heard her right.

“Do you want to leave?” she demanded. “Surely you’ve got somewhere to go!”

“Uh…yeah. My friends are in trouble. I need to get back to my ship and—”

“Fine,” she snapped. “Just say, I want to leave Ogygia. ”

“Uh, okay. ” Leo wasn’t sure why, but her tone kind of hurt…which was stupid, since he didn’t care what this girl thought. “I want to leave—whatever you said. ”

“Oh-gee-gee-ah. ” The girl pronounced it slowly, as if Leo were five years old.

“I want to leave Oh-gee-gee-ah,” he said.

She exhaled, clearly relieved. “Good. In a moment, a magical raft will appear. It will take you wherever you want to go. ”

“Who are you?”

She looked like she was about to answer but stopped herself. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll be gone soon. You’re obviously a mistake. ”

That was harsh, Leo thought.

He’d spent enough time thinking he was a mistake—as a demigod, on this quest, in life in general. He didn’t need a random crazy goddess reinforcing the idea.

He remembered a Greek legend about a girl on an island. … Maybe one of his friends had mentioned it? It didn’t matter. As long as she let him leave.

“Any moment now…” The girl stared out at the water.

No magical raft appeared.

“Maybe it got stuck in traffic,” Leo said.

“This is wrong. ” She glared at the sky. “This is completely wrong!”

“So…plan B?” Leo asked. “You got a phone, or—”

“Agh!” The girl turned and stormed inland. When she got to the footpath, she sprinted into the grove of trees and disappeared.

“Okay,” Leo said. “Or you could just run away. ”

From his tool belt pouches he pulled some rope and a snap hook, then fastened the Archimedes sphere to his belt.

He looked out to sea. Still no magic raft.

He could stand here and wait, but he was hungry, thirsty, and tired. He was banged up pretty bad from his fall.

He didn’t want to follow that crazy girl, no matter how good she smelled.

On the other hand, he had no place else to go. The girl had a dining table, so she probably had food. And she seemed to find Leo’s presence annoying.

“Annoying her is a plus,” he decided.

He followed her into the hills.

“HOLY HEPHAESTUS,” LEO SAID.

The path opened into the nicest garden Leo had ever seen. Not that he had spent a lot of time in gardens, but dang. On the left was an orchard and a vineyard—peach trees with red-golden fruit that smelled awesome in the warm sun, carefully pruned vines bursting with grapes, bowers of flowering jasmine, and a bunch of other plants Leo couldn’t name.