The House of Hades (Heroes of Olympus Book 4)

laugh, but she was shaking with the effort.
    ‘Not a word,’ Leo warned.
    She glanced at his bare chest, which was sweaty, bony and streaked with old scars from weapon-making accidents.
    ‘Nothing worth commenting on,’ she assured him. ‘If you want that device to work, perhaps you should try a musical invocation.’
    ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Whenever an engine malfunctions, I like to tap-dance around it. Works every time.’
    She took a deep breath and began to sing.
    Her voice hit him like a cool breeze – like that first cold front in Texas when the summer heat finally breaks and you start to believe things might get better. Leo couldn’t understand the words, but the song was plaintive and bittersweet, as if she were describing a home she could never return to.
    Her singing was magic, no doubt. But it wasn’t like Medea’s trance-inducing voice, or even Piper’s charmspeak. The music didn’t want anything from him. It simply reminded him of his best memories – building things with his mom in her workshop; sitting in the sunshine with his friends at camp. It made him miss home.
    Calypso stopped singing. Leo realized he was staring like an idiot.
    ‘Any luck?’ she asked.
    ‘Uh …’ He forced his eyes back to the bronze mirror. ‘Nothing. Wait …’
    The screen glowed. In the air above it, holographic pictures shimmered to life.
    Leo recognized the commons at Camp Half-Blood.
    There was no sound, but Clarisse LaRue from the Ares Cabin was yelling orders at the campers, forming them into lines. Leo’s brethren from Cabin Nine hurried around, fitting everyone with armour and passing out weapons.
    Even Chiron the centaur was dressed for war. He trotted up and down the ranks, his plumed helmet gleaming, his legs decked in bronze greaves . His usual friendly smile was gone, replaced with a look of grim determination.
    In the distance, Greek triremes floated on Long Island Sound, prepped for war. Along the hills, catapults were being primed. Satyrs patrolled the fields, and riders on pegasi circled overhead, alert for aerial attacks.
    ‘Your friends?’ Calypso asked.
    Leo nodded. His face felt numb. ‘They’re preparing for war.’
    ‘Against whom?’
    ‘Look,’ Leo said.
    The scene changed. A phalanx of Roman demigods marched through a moonlit vineyard. An illuminated sign in the distance read: GOLDSMITH WINERY .
    ‘I’ve seen that sign before,’ Leo said. ‘That’s not far from Camp Half-Blood.’
    Suddenly the Roman ranks deteriorated into chaos.Demigods scattered. Shields fell. Javelins swung wildly, like the whole group had stepped in fire ants.
    Darting through the moonlight were two small hairy shapes dressed in mismatched clothes and garish hats. They seemed to be everywhere at once – whacking Romans on the head, stealing their weapons, cutting their belts so their trousers fell around their ankles.
    Leo couldn’t help grinning. ‘Those beautiful little troublemakers! They kept their promise.’
    Calypso leaned in, watching the Kerkopes. ‘Cousins of yours?’
    ‘Ha, ha, ha, no,’ Leo said. ‘Couple of dwarfs I met in Bologna. I sent them to slow down the Romans, and they’re doing it.’
    ‘But for how long?’ Calypso wondered.
    Good question. The scene shifted again. Leo saw Octavian – that no-good blond scarecrow of an augur. He stood in a gas-station parking lot, surrounded by black SUVs and Roman demigods. He held up a long pole wrapped in canvas. When he uncovered it, a golden eagle glimmered at the top.
    ‘Oh, that’s not good,’ Leo said.
    ‘A Roman standard,’ Calypso noted.
    ‘Yeah. And this one shoots lightning, according to Percy.’
    As soon as he said Percy’s name, Leo regretted it. He glanced at Calypso. He could see in her eyes how much she was struggling, trying to marshal her emotions into neat orderly rows like strands on her loom. What surprised Leo most was the surge of anger he felt. It wasn’t just annoyance or jealousy. He was
mad
at Percy for hurting this girl.
    He refocused on the holographic images. Now he saw a single rider – Reyna, the praetor from Camp Jupiter – flying through a storm on the back of a light-brown pegasus. Reyna’s dark hair flew in the wind. Her purple cloak fluttered, revealing the glimmer of her armour. She was bleeding from cuts on her arms and face. Her pegasus’s eyes were wild, his mouth slathering from hard riding, but Reyna peered steadfastly forward into the storm.
    As Leo watched, a wild