The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

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.

LEO
     
    ‘H OLY H EPHAESTUS,’ L EO 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.
    On the right were neat beds of vegetables and herbs, arranged like spokes around a big sparkling fountain where bronze satyrs spewed water into a central bowl.
    At the back of the garden, where the footpath ended, a cave opened in the side of a grassy hill. Compared to Bunker Nine back at camp, the entrance was tiny, but it was impressive in its own way. On either side, crystalline rock had been carved into glittering Grecian columns. The tops were fitted with a bronze rod that held silky white curtains.
    Leo’s nose was assaulted by good smells – cedar, juniper, jasmine, peaches and fresh herbs. The aroma from the cave really caught his attention – like beef stew cooking.
    He started towards the entrance. Seriously, how could he not? He stopped when he noticed the girl. She was kneeling in her vegetable garden, her back to Leo. She muttered to herself as she dug furiously with a trowel.
    Leo approached her from one side so she could see him. He didn’t feel like surprising her when she was armed with a sharp gardening implement.
    She kept cursing in Ancient Greek and stabbing at the dirt. She had flecks of soil all over her arms, her face and her white dress, but she didn’t seem to care.
    Leo could appreciate that. She looked better with a little mud – less like a beauty queen and more like an actual get-your-hands-dirty kind of person.
    ‘I think you’ve punished that dirt enough,’ he offered.
    She scowled at him, her eyes red and watery. ‘Just go away.’
    ‘You’re crying,’ he said, which was stupidly obvious, but seeing her that way took the wind out of his helicopter blades, so to speak. It was hard to stay mad at someone who was crying.
    ‘None of your business,’ she muttered. ‘It’s a big island. Just … find your own place. Leave me alone.’ She waved vaguely towards the south. ‘Go that way, maybe.’
    ‘So, no magic raft,’ Leo said. ‘No other way off the island?’
    ‘Apparently not!’
    ‘What am I supposed to do, then? Sit in the sand dunes until I die?’
    ‘That would be fine …’ The girl threw down her trowel and cursed at the sky. ‘Except I suppose he
can’t
die here, can he? Zeus! This is not funny!’
    Can’t
die here
?
    ‘Hold up.’ Leo’s head spun like a crankshaft. He couldn’t quite translate what this girl was saying – like when he heard Spaniards or South Americans speaking Spanish. Yeah, he could understand it, sort of, but it sounded so different that it was almost another language.
    ‘I’m going to need