The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

told him Odysseus had made. He had a sneaking suspicion Odysseus had been thinking about this island when he constructed it, but unfortunatelyLeo had left it back on the ship with Buford the Wonder Table. Besides, the dwarfs had told him the astrolabe didn’t work. Something about a missing crystal …
    He walked the beach, wondering why Khione had sent him here – assuming his landing here wasn’t an accident. Why not just kill him instead? Maybe Khione wanted him to be in limbo forever. Perhaps she knew the gods were too incapacitated to pay attention to Ogygia, and so the island’s magic was broken. That could be why Calypso was still stuck here and why the magic raft wouldn’t appear for Leo.
    Or maybe the magic of this place was working just fine. The gods had punished Calypso by sending her buff courageous dudes who left as soon as she fell for them. Maybe that was the problem. Calypso would
never
fall for Leo. She
wanted
him to leave. So they were stuck in a vicious circle. If that was Khione’s plan … wow. Major-league devious.
    Then one morning he made a discovery, and things got even more complicated.
    Leo was walking in the hills, following a little brook that ran between two big cedar trees. He liked this area – it was the only place on Ogygia where he couldn’t see the sea, so he could pretend he wasn’t stuck on an island. In the shade of the trees, he almost felt like he was back at Camp Half-Blood, heading through the woods towards Bunker Nine.
    He jumped over the creek. Instead of landing on soft earth, his feet hit something much harder.
    CLANG.
    Metal.
    Excited, Leo dug through the mulch until he saw the glint of bronze.
    ‘Oh, man.’ He giggled like a crazy person as he excavated the scraps.
    He had no idea why the stuff was here. Hephaestus was always tossing broken parts out of his godly workshop and littering the earth with scrap metal, but what were the chances some of it would hit Ogygia?
    Leo found a handful of wires, a few bent gears, a piston that might still work and several hammered sheets of Celestial bronze – the smallest the size of a drink coaster, the largest the size of a war shield.
    It wasn’t a lot – not compared to Bunker Nine or even to his supplies aboard the
Argo II.
But it was more than sand and rocks.
    He looked up at the sunlight winking through the cedar branches. ‘Dad? If you sent this here for me – thanks. If you didn’t … well, thanks, anyway.’
    He gathered up his treasure trove and lugged it back to his campsite.
    After that, the days passed more quickly, and with a lot more noise.
    First Leo made himself a forge out of mud bricks, each one baked with his own fiery hands. He found a large rock he could use as an anvil base, and he pulled nails from his tool belt until he had enough to melt into a plate for a hammering surface.
    Once that was done, he began to recast the Celestial bronze scraps. Each day his hammer rang on bronze until his rock anvil broke, or his tongs bent, or he ran out of firewood.
    Each evening he collapsed, drenched in sweat and covered in soot, but he felt great. At least he was working, trying to solve his problem.
    The first time Calypso came to check on him, it was to complain about the noise.
    ‘Smoke and fire,’ she said. ‘Clanging on metal all day long. You’re scaring away the birds!’
    ‘Oh, no, not the birds!’ Leo grumbled.
    ‘What do you hope to accomplish?’
    He glanced up and almost smashed his thumb with his hammer. He’d been staring at metal and fire so long he’d forgotten how beautiful Calypso was.
Annoyingly
beautiful. She stood there with the sunlight in her hair, her white skirt fluttering around her legs, a basket of grapes and fresh-baked bread tucked under one arm.
    Leo tried to ignore his rumbling stomach.
    ‘I’m
hoping
to get off this island,’ he said. ‘That is what you want, right?’
    Calypso scowled. She set the basket near his bedroll. ‘You haven’t eaten in two days. Take a break and
eat
.’
    ‘Two days?’ Leo hadn’t even noticed, which surprised him, since he liked food. He was even more surprised that Calypso
had
noticed.
    ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘I’ll, uh, try to hammer more quietly.’
    ‘Huh.’ She sounded unimpressed.
    After that, she didn’t complain about the noise or the smoke.
    The next time she visited, Leo was putting the final touches to his first project. He didn’t see her approach until she spoke right behind him.
    ‘I brought