AS MIA FELT herself sinking into the mud, she found that she was sinking into a memory.

She was in a large banquet room, the familiar feeling of her hair being in a tight updo and a dress clinging to her body as she was being whisked around the room. Everyone was talking about her — the new CEO of the Starfury corporation, ready to take over the world.

"Can you believe it?" Someone familiar asked her, and she just realized that her arm was wrapped around someone's else's. And that person was very, very familiar to her. "Us, being here, right now? Me being the trophy boyfriend? I kind of expected that, but still."

"Percy," Mia breathed out, looking up to see him smiling down at her, as if the second Titan war hadn't happened. As if she hadn't left him. As if they were still a couple.

Something was wrong here.

"I know, I can't believe it myself," he grinned at her easily, and it made her heart ache. A part of her would always be in love with him, which was absolutely stupid. Then he looked over her shoulder, and he said, "I'd better go, someone else wants your attention. I see my mom over there, though. Come over when you need me."

He left, and someone else showed up in his place, making Mia even more breathless.

"Soph," she stared at her sister. Her alive, breathing, not transparent sister.

"Mia! Congrats!" Sophia grabbed both of her hands in hers. "I knew that you'd be a better CEO than me. You deserve this. I just hope that you'll give me some benefits."

"You're not real," Mia choked out, yanking her grip away. "You're dead."

She tried to dispel the illusion, but she was too into the illusion to get rid of it. The whispers of her name, telling good things about her, was intoxicating. It was the party after she'd been sworn in as the CEO of her rightful company, and the world seemed full of possibilities. Mia could almost believe she had a bright future.

"What is real?" Sophia's face turned dazed, her eyes milky white. That voice — Gaea. "Is your life real, Amelia? You're suffering through a fate worse than death, running away from your family and your friends. Is it real that you're sinking into a bog, suffocating?"

"Let me go!" Mia tried to dispel the illusion, feeling a hand grab hers. But that touch, the reality that she was supposed to be in was fading, and that felt like the illusion now.

Sophia offered her a plate of cookies, winking. "You deserve it."

No, Mia thought. This isn't my sister. This is Gaea tricking me.

"You want your old life back," Gaea said. "I can give you that. This moment can last for years. You can rule the world in your rightful spot, and have status mortals have dreamed about. You don't have to live in this reality where you betrayed all of your friends. You can have Percy Jackson again to be yours. You can spend time with your sister again—"

"This is an illusion," Mia said. "Sophia's dead, and Percy's not mine anymore."

"You will be dead if you wake up. What will Percy think about you when he gets his memories back? You're the traitor that cowardly ran away instead of facing consequences for your actions. What will Hazel and Frank think about you? They've always liked him better than they've liked you. No one can save you, not even your mother or your stepfather. Not even Nico, because I captured him."

Mia felt the room get colder. "You what?"

Gaea smiled, eating one of the cookies that she'd offered Mia. "The boy should have known better than to search for the Doors. But no matter — it's not really your concern. Once you release Thanatos, you'll be dead. Your friends will all kill you because you betrayed them. All of them. Your brother will die under my watch, and you can do nothing about it."

"No," Mia gritted her teeth. "Your son took my sister from me. I will not let you take my brother from me too."

"You can have them both," Gaea said. "I have you in my embrace, Mia. You'll die anyway. If you give up, at least I can make it pleasant for you. Forget saving Percy Jackson. He belongs to me. I'll keep him safe in the earth until I'm ready to use him. You can have an entire life in your final moments — you can have Percy, and Sophia, and Nico. All you have to do is let go."

Mia bit her lip. She contemplated that decision. Then she let out a loud laugh. "Oh, did you think that I'd really fall for this? I will never go down this route ever again. I will never join you. You made the wrong move taking my brother, and I will get him back. Now, LET ME GO!"

When her eyes snapped open, she was lying near the side of a road, covered in muck. Her questmates's faces were hovering over hers.

"Holy fuck," she breathed out, covering her face, bringing more mud to her face, but she didn't care. Then she coughed out a mud clot.

As she gingerly tried to get the mud off of her, Hazel explained about the muskeg, and the vision she'd seen while she was under. She told them about Gaea's offer of a fake life, and the goddess' claim that she'd captured Nico. Mia shuddered. That vision was so eerily alike to hers.

"You saved me, Hazel. You saved us," Mia glanced at Percy, before quickly looking away. Looking at him hurt, especially after her vision. "We'll figure out what happened to Nico, I swear it. On my life, and on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed in the sky, yet it was still incredibly sunny, which brought her warmth, but she was still shivering.

"Does it seem like Gaea let us go too easily?" Hazel asked.

Percy plucked a mud clod from his hair. "Maybe she still wants us as pawns. Maybe she was just saying things to mess with your mind."

"She knew what to say," Hazel agreed. "She knew how to get to me."

Frank put his jacket around her shoulders. "This is a real life. You know that, right? We're not going to let you die again."

She shakily stood up. "We should get going. We're losing time."

Percy gazed down the road. His lips were returning to their normal color. "Any hotels or something where we could clean off? I mean . . . hotels that accept mud people?"

"I'm not sure," Hazel admitted. She stared at the horizon, and right when Mia was about to pipe in that she could get them to a nice hotel, Hazel said, "I might know a place we can freshen up."

* * *

Mia stumbled her way through town, barely paying attention as she scraped dried mud off of herself with her nails and accidentally cutting many scratches into her skin. She didn't care, didn't really care about anything, just getting this filth off of her skin because she felt so dirty and she didn't want to be anymore.

Eventually, they stopped at a very rusty, old building. It was leaning over the water on barnacle-encrusted piers. The roof sagged. The walls were perforated with holes like buckshot. The door was boarded-up, and a hand-painted sign read: ROOMS — STORAGE — AVAILABLE.

"Come on," Hazel said.

"Uh, you sure it's safe?" Frank asked.

Hazel found an open window and climbed inside. The rest of them followed. The room hadn't been used in a long time. Their feet kicked up dust that swirled in the buckshot beams of sunlight. Mouldering cardboard boxes were stacked along the walls. Their faded labels read: Greeting Cards, Assorted Seasonal. Why several hundred boxes of season's greetings had wound up crumbling to dust in a warehouse in Alaska, Mia had no idea, but it felt like a cruel joke: as if the cards were for all the holidays she didn't care about anymore — Christmases, Easters, birthdays, Valentine's Days.

"It's warmer in here, at least," Frank said. "Guess no running water? Maybe I can go shopping. I'm not as muddy as you guys. I could find us some clothes."

Hazel climbed over a stack of boxes in the corner. An old sign was propped against the wall: GOLD PROSPECTING SUPPLIES. She moved the sign and revealed a wall of pinned photos and drawings. There were crayon drawings of what had to have been New Orleans. A woman who looked like Hazel stared out from one photograph, smiling in front of a business sign: QUEEN MARIE'S GRIS-GRIS xx CHARMS SOLD, FORTUNES TOLD. Next to that was a photo of a boy at the carnival. He had a crazy grin, his curly hair, and dark eyes.

Frank's fingers hovered over the latter photo. "Who . . .?" He saw that Hazel was crying and clamped back his question. "Sorry, Hazel. This must be really hard. Do you want some time—"

"No," she croaked. "No, it's fine."

"Is that your mother?" Mia pointed to the photo of Queen Marie. "She looks like you. She's beautiful."

Percy studied the picture of the boy. "Who is that?"

"That's . . . that's Sammy," Hazel stammered. "He was my — uh — friend from New Orleans."

"I've seen him before," Percy said.

"You couldn't have," Hazel said. "That was in 1941. He's . . . he's probably dead now."

Percy frowned. "I guess. Still . . ." He shook his head, like the thought was too uncomfortable.

Frank cleared his throat. "Look, we passed a store on the last block. We've got a little money left. Maybe I should go get you guys some food and clothes and — I don't know — a hundred boxes of wet wipes or something?"

"That would be great," she said. "You're the best, Frank."

Mia hummed in agreement, haphazardly swinging her backpack off her shoulders and finding her wallet in a pocket, tossing it to Frank. "Don't spend all my money," she warned.

The floorboards creaked under his feet. "Well . . . I'm the only one not completely covered in mud, anyway. Be back soon."

Once he was gone, Mia, Percy, and Hazel made temporary camp. They took off their jackets and tried to scrape off the mud. They found some old blankets in a crate and used them to clean up. They discovered that boxes of greeting cards made pretty good places to rest if you arranged them like mattresses.

Percy set his sword on the floor where it glowed with a faint bronze light. Then he stretched out on a bed of Merry Christmas 1982.

"Thank you for saving me," he said. "I should've told you that earlier."

Hazel shrugged. "You would have done the same for me." She glanced over at Mia. "Both of you."

"Yes," he agreed. "But when I was down in the mud, I remembered that line from Ella's prophecy — about the son of Neptune drowning. I thought. 'This is what it means. I'm drowning in the earth.' I was sure I was dead."

"Percy," Hazel said, "that prophecy might not have been complete. Frank thought Ella was remembering a burned page. Maybe you'll drown someone else."

He looked at her cautiously. "You think so?"

Hazel nodded. "You're going to make it back home. You're going to see your girlfriend Annabeth."

Mia stiffened at that name, but she continued taking out her warmest clothes to put on.

"You'll make it back, too, Hazel," he insisted. "We're not going to let anything happen to you. You're too valuable to me, to Amelia, to the camp, and especially to Frank."

Hazel picked up an old valentine. The lacy white paper fell apart in her hands. "I don't belong in this century. Amelia and Nico only brought me back so I could correct my mistakes, maybe get into Elysium."

"There's more to your destiny than that," Mia said, looking over at Hazel. "We're supposed to fight Gaea together. Percy's going to need you at his side way longer than just today. And Frank — you can see the guy is crazy about you. This life is worth fighting for, Hazel. And I can't—" Mia's voice cracked, and she looked away. "I can't disappoint another sibling. Not when Nico's captured gods knows where."

"Amelia," Hazel said, concerned, but her voice held curiosity in it. "I—"

The window creaked open. Frank climbed in, triumphantly holding some shopping bags. "Success!"

He showed off his prizes. From a hunting store, he'd gotten a new quiver of arrows for himself, some rations, and a coil of rope.

"For the next time we run across muskeg," he said.

From a local tourist shop, he had bought two sets of fresh clothes, some towels, some soap, some bottled water, and, yes, a huge box of wet wipes. It wasn't exactly a hot shower, but Mia ducked behind a wall of greeting card boxes to clean up and change. Soon she was feeling better. Not good, but better.

"So," Hazel said. "Now we find a boat to Hubbard Glacier."

Frank patted his stomach. "If we're going to battle to the death, I want lunch first. I found the perfect place."

He led them to a shopping plaza near the wharf, where an old railway car had been converted to a diner. The food smelled amazing. While Frank and Percy ordered, Mia and Hazel wandered down to the docks and asked some questions. When they came back, Mia needed cheering up. Even the cheeseburger and fries didn't do the trick.

"We're in trouble," Hazel said. "We tried to get a boat. But . . . I miscalculated."

"No boats?" Frank asked.

"Oh, we can get a boat," Hazel said. "But the glacier is farther than I thought. Even at top speed, we couldn't get there until tomorrow morning."

Percy turned pale. "Maybe I could make the boat go faster?"

"Even if you could," Mia said, "from what the captains told us, it's treacherous — icebergs, mazes of channels to navigate. You'd have to know where you were going."

"A plane?" Frank asked.

Mia shook her head. "I asked the boat captains about that. They said we could try, but it's a tiny airfield. You have to charter a plane two, three weeks in advance."

Unless I tell them to give us a plane, she thought to herself. But none of them knew what her last name meant. And she wanted to keep it that way.

They ate in silence after that. Mia's cheeseburger was excellent, but she couldn't concentrate on it. She'd eaten about three bites when a raven settled on the telephone pole above and began to croak at them.

She stared at her cheeseburger, pursing her lips. The raven made her think of Nico, but she couldn't tell whether he was captured or not. Maybe it was because of Alaska, or maybe Gaea had placed him too far from her power range. But she was worried for him. They'd become really close in the months they've been together. She couldn't let his story end now.

Suddenly, the raven's cawing changed to a strangled yelp.

Frank got up so fast that he almost toppled the picnic table. Percy drew his sword.

Mia followed their eyes. Perched on top of the pole where the raven had been, a fat ugly gryphon glared down at them. It burped, and raven feathers fluttered from its beak.

Hazel stood and unsheathed her spatha, Mia right behind her with Regulus.

Frank nocked an arrow. He took aim, but the gryphon shrieked so loudly the sound echoed off the mountains. Frank flinched, and his shot went wide.

"I think that's a call for help," Mia warned. "We have to get out of here."

With no clear plan, they ran for the docks. The gryphon dove after them. Percy slashed at it with his sword, but the gryphon veered out of reach.

They took the steps to the nearest pier and raced to the end. The gryphon swooped after them, its front claws extended for the kill. Mia raised her sword, but an icy wall of water slammed sideways into the gryphon and washed it into the bay. The gryphon squawked and flapped its wings. It managed to scramble onto the pier, where it shook its black fur like a wet dog.

Frank grunted. "Nice one, Percy."

"Yeah," he said. "Didn't know if I could still do that in Alaska. But bad news — look over there." About a mile away, over the mountains, a black cloud was swirling — a whole flock of gryphons, dozens at least. There was no way they could fight that many, and no boat could take them away fast enough.

Frank nocked another arrow. "Not going down without a fight."

Percy raised Riptide. "I'm with you."

Mia nodded, holding her sword between her arm and her shoulder as she raised her hands. "Hell yeah."

Suddenly, Hazel cried out desperately, "Arion! Over here!"

A tan blur came ripping down the street and onto the pier. The stallion materialized right behind the gryphon, brought down his front hooves, and smashed the monster to dust.

Hazel grinned and literally jumped up and down. "Good horse! Really good horse!"

Frank backed up and almost fell off the pier. "How—?"

"He followed me!" Hazel beamed. "Because he's the best — horse — EVER! Now, get on!"

"All four of us?" Percy said. "Can he handle it?"

Arion whinnied indignantly.

"All right, no need to be rude," Percy said. "Let's go."

They climbed on, Hazel in front, Mia, Frank, and Percy balancing precariously behind her. Percy wrapped his arms around Mia, and she tried not to stiffen, but she did.

"Run, Arion!" Hazel cried. "To Hubbard Glacier!"

The horse shot across the water, his hooves turning the top of the sea to steam.