IT WAS HARD to stay calm when thick sheets of sleet were pelting the window sheild. Frost was building up around the edges of the glass pannel and slushy waves of ice blotted out of their veiw.

  "An ice storm?" Piper shouted over the engine and the harsh winds. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"

  Blaire was no genius— but she was almost sure it wasn't. And it was clear Piper knew that as well. Something was off about this storm. It was like some malicious force had brewed it only to take them out.

  Jason woke up quickly. He crawled forward, grabbing their seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close."

  Beside him, Piper too was gripping Leo and Blaire's seats for dear life, to stabilize herself.

  Leo appeared to be struggling with the gears of the copter, struggiling to control the large machine. It's movements were jerky and sluggish. The whole machine shuddered against the icy air current and the Hephaestus boy looked paniced.

  Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.

  The sudden movements, sharp and miscalculated made Blaire feel sick, her stomach wavered madly.Though, it probably wasn't mere motion sickness fueling her naseua, but instead, nerves. For, a small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. The wolf house.

  Leo aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around them were flashes of light that reminded Blaire of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.

   He set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. They were all ready to relax when they heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.

  "Out!" Leo commanded, not without urgency.

   In the knick of time, they leapt from the hellicopter, hardly skimming the roots before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Blaire off her feet and coating her and the others in a sheet of icy sludge— snow.

  When she rose shakily, stunned but not injured by the impact, she saw that a large chunk of ice, almost like a snowball had flattened the machine.

  Leo joined her side— he too looked fine— cold, but fine. "Blaire, are you OK?" His eyes surveyed her for any injuries, and he seemed joyed upon finding none.

  She nodded breathlessly. Then, Piper and Jason limped over, speckled in snow and dirt.

  Leo shivered, wrapping his arms snugly around his frame. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter."

  Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there." Then she frowned. "No ... it's all around us."

  She was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.

  Behind them loomed Jack London's dream home—a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. Blaire could imagine how it had looked before it burned down—a combination log cabin and castle, like a billionaire lumberjack might build. But in the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel. She could totally imagine the ruins being cursed. Not only by the supposed wolves, but also by the haunting narrative of Jack's past life.

  "Jason!" a familiar girl's voice called.

  Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre—one of the Earthborn—burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.

  "Look out!" Leo yelled. They rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.

  "Ooo-kay," Blaire murmured, hand slowly drifting away from her sword she was about to draw.

  Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the point had snapped off. "That was my last one." She kicked the pile of clay resentfully. "Stupid ogre."

  "Nice shot, though," Leo complimented.

  Thalia ignored him as usual, earning a pitiful glance from Blaire. The Zues girl breifly hugged Jason and nodded to the others. "Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any minute."

  "By Earthborn?" Jason asked.

  "Andwolves—Lycaon's minions." Thalia blew a fleck of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits—"

"But we gave them to Aeolus!" Piper protested.

"Yeah," Blaire huffed. "And he tried to fucking kill us. So—-"

"Maybe he's working for Gaea again," Leo offered.

"I don't know," Thalia admitted helplessly. "But the monsters keep re- forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we're surrounded. I don't know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera."

"Where is she?" Jason asked.

"Inside," Thalia told the quartet. "We tried to free her, but we can't figure out how to break the cage. It's only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that's the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don't free Hera soon—"

She didn't need to finish the thought. They followed Thalia into the mansion.

Though, a large portion of Blaire was aching to turn and run the other direction. The cursed kin of magic shall discover her truth and suffer the curse which tarnished her youth. That couldn't have been good.
Chances were, this aforementioned curse would be fatal.

Before Blaire were fully able to ponder upon fleeing, Jason collapsed.

"Hey!" Leo caught him. "None of that, man. What's wrong?"

"This place ..." Jason shook his head weakly. "Sorry ... It came rushing back to me."

"So you have been here," Piper concluded.

"We both have," Thalia said. Her expression was grim, like she was reliving someone's death. "This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared."

"She gave me to the wolves," Jason murmured. "At Hera's insistence. She gave me to Lupa."

"That part I didn't know." Thalia frowned. "Who is Lupa?"

An explosion shook the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billowed up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.

  "Maybe this isn't the time for questions," Leo suggested nervously. "Show us the goddess."

  Once inside, Jason seemed to get his bearings. The house was built in a giant U, and Jason led them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.

  One of the spires was much bigger—a solid dark mass about twenty feet high, and to Blaire it looked like a stone body bag. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils he could make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature was stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck—rising.

  On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire was smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril was as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that Blaire doubted she could've gotten his arm through. Still, he could see inside. And in the center of the cage stood Hera.

  She had dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes.

  She didn't glow or radiate any sort of power. She looked like a regular mortal woman trapped in this cage.

  Leo dropped into the pool and approached the cage. "Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?" His friends stood back for a second, warily watching the encounter.

She crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!"

Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste—or maybe she was looking at the goddess. "We tried everything we could think of, Leo, but maybe my heart wasn't in it. If it was up to me, I'd just leave her in there."

"Ohh, Thalia Grace," the goddess said. "When I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born."

"Save it!" Thalia snapped. "You've been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. You sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth—"

"She was disrespectful!"

"You dropped a statue on my legs."

"It was an accident!"

"And you took my brother!" Thalia's voice cracked with emotion. "Here—on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!"

  "Hey," Jason intervened. "Thalia—Sis—I know. But this isn't the time. You should help your Hunters."

  Thalia clenched her jaw. "Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn't worth it."

  Thalia turned, leaped out of the pool, and stormed from the building.

  Leo turned to Hera with grudging respect. "Intestinally challenged cows?"

"Focus on the cage, Leo," Hera grumbled. "And Jason —you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well."

"I'm not your champion, lady," Jason said. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what's going on with that?"

He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king-size granite body bag. Was Blaire imagining it, or had it grown taller since they'd gotten here?

"That, Jason," Hera informed, "is the king of the giants being reborn."

"Gross!" Blaire scoffed.

Something seemed to spark deep within the godess' eyes, as if she'd only just taken notice of Blaire and found great intrest in her presence.

  "Indeed, Cursed Kin of Magic," Hera said. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again —my power. For weeks I've grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form."

  Blaire was really starting to think these mythological beings didn't know her name, so they took to calling her her supposed title.

  "So you're like a heat lamp," Leo guessed. "Or fertilizer."

  Hera glared at the boy, but he didn't seem to care. He just glared back at her sternly with just as much hostility.

  "Joke all you wish," Hera began in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken."

  Blaire looked over to the giant's spire with a frown, "What if we just blow it up, or something?"

  "Without me, you do not have the power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."

  "We already did," Blaire remarked dryly, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  "Just hurry up and let me out!" Hera demanded, obviously fed up with the teenagers' untimely humor.

  Jason scratched his head. "Leo, can you do it?"

  "I don't know." Leo's tone made it obvious he was trying not to panic. "Besides, if she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?"

  Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. "Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you're intelligent. Once trapped, a god's power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg—beghim for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus."

  "Sounds fair," Leo reasoned.

  Hera gave him the godly stink-eye. "I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you."

  "But it's not a machine. It's like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and ..." Leo suddenly looked like he was going to be sick ."Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I'm going to need your help. And we're going to need time."

  The air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, Blaire's lips cracked and her breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rushed in —but instead of winged men, these were shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning. Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.

Blaire's hand immediately flew to her wrist, where her bracelet was. And the others seemed to have the same thoughts, because they all drew their respective weapons.

Except Leo, who produced a tin of breathmints from his tool belt— he looked around to make sure no one saw it and caught Blaire's eye. She fondly rolled her eyes before turning away and toward their enemy.

One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human-size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for them to see—an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.

"Thalia!" Jason rushed forward, but Piper and Leo both grabbed one of his arms, pulling him back.

The ground around Thalia's statue was already webbed with ice. If Jason touched her, Blaire thought he might end up frozen too.

"Who did this?" Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity. "I'll kill you myself!"

From somewhere behind the monsters, came the sound of a girl's laughter, clear and cold. She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regarded them with those deep brown eyes that had given Blaire chills in Cubec.

"Bon soir, mes amis," said Khione, the goddess of snow. She gave Leo a frosty smile. "Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time? I'm afraid time is one tool you do not have."

Shit.

"What have you done?" Jason pleaded, obviously referring to the frozen statue that was his sister.

"Oh, so many things," the snow goddess purred. "Your sister's not dead, if that's what you mean. She and her Hunters will make fine toys for our wolves. I thought we'd defrost them one at a time and hunt them down for amusement. Let them be the prey for once."

The wolves snarled appreciatively.

"Yes, my dears." Khione kept her eyes on Jason. "Your sister almost killed their king, you know. Lycaon's off in a cave somewhere, no doubt licking his wounds, but his minions have joined us to take revenge for their master. And soon Porphyrion will arise, and we shall rule the world."

"You're crazy," Blaire scoffed.

"You're one to talk!" The ice princess was quick to retort.

"Traitor!" Hera shouted. "You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren't worthy to pour my wine, much less rule the world."

Khione sighed. "Tiresome as ever, Queen Hera. I've been wanting to shut you up for millennia."

Khione waved her hand, and ice encased the prison, sealing in the spaces between the earthen tendrils.

"That's better," the snow goddess said. "Now, demigods, about your death—"

"You're the one who tricked Hera into coming here," Jason said. "You gave Zeus the idea of closing Olympus."

The wolves snarled, and the storm spirits whinnied, ready to attack, but Khione held up her hand. "Patience, my loves. If he wants to talk, what matter? The sun is setting, and time is on our side. Of course, Jason Grace. Like snow, my voice is quiet and gentle, and very cold. It's easy for me to whisper to the other gods, especially when I am only confirming their own deepest fears. I also whispered in Aeolus's ear that he should issue an order to kill demigods. It is a small service for Gaea, but I'm sure I will be well rewarded when her sons the giants come to power."

"You could've killed us in Quebec," Jason said. "Why let us live?"

Khione wrinkled her nose. "Messy business, killing you in my father's house, especially when he insists on meeting all visitors. I did try, you remember. It would've been lovely if he'd agreed to turn you to ice. But once he'd given you guarantee of safe passage, I couldn't openly disobey him. My father is an old fool. He lives in fear of Zeus and Aeolus, but he's still powerful. Soon enough, when my new masters have awakened, I will depose Boreas and take the throne of the North Wind, but not just yet. Besides, my father did have a point. Your quest was suicidal. I fully expected you to fail."

"And to help us with that," Leo voiced his realization aloud, "you knocked our dragon out of the sky over Detroit. Those frozen wires in his head—that was your fault. You're gonna pay for that."

"You're also the one who kept Enceladus informed about us," Piper added. "We've been plagued by snowstorms the whole trip."

"Yes, I feel so close to all of you now!" Khione spoke. "Once you made it past Omaha, I decided to asked Lycaon to track you down so Jason could die here, at the Wolf House." Khione smiled at him. "You see, Jason, your blood spilled on this sacred ground will taint it for generations. Your demigod brethren will be outraged, especially when they find the bodies of these two from Camp Half-Blood. They'll believe the Greeks have conspired with giants. It will be ... delicious."

Blaire's theory concerning another Camp, one where Jason was presumably from, made alot of sense. As Khione spoke, the peices fell into place.

Jason was Roman. There was another camp where Roman demigods lived. And Percy, her only living friend, was most likely residing at this camp.

"You'll set demigods against demigods," Jason said.

"It's so easy!" boasted Khione. "As I told you, I only encourage what you would do anyway."

"But why?" Piper spread her hands, the effects of her charmspeak echoing through the ruined house. "Khione, you'll tear the world apart. The giants will destroy everything. You don't want that. Call off your monsters."

Khione hesitated, then laughed. "Your persuasive powers are improving, girl. But I am a goddess. You can't charm-speak me. We wind gods are creatures of chaos! I'll overthrow Aeolus and let the storms run free. If we destroy the mortal world, all the better! They never honored me, even in Greek times. Humans and their talk of global warming. Pah! I'll cool them down quickly enough. When we retake the ancient places, I will cover the Acropolis in snow."

"The ancient places." Leo's eyes widened. "That's what Enceladus meant about destroy the roots of the gods. He meant Greece."

"You could join me, son of Hephaestus," Khione offered. "I know you find me beautiful. It would be enough for my plan if these other three were to die. Reject that ridiculous destiny the Fates have given you. Live and be my champion, instead. Your skills would be quite useful."

The princess's words made Blaire's blood run cold. She was right, Leo did find her beautiful, anyone with eyes could see that. With that being said, it would make total sense for the boy to join her— to abandon his friends.

It's not like Blaire cared. She didn't. Of course she didn't... it would just really suck. Blaire had grown to not completely despise the boy and his presence.

Leo looked partially stunned, his brown irises blowing wide and his mouth falling open. He even glanced behind him, as if checking there was no other son of Hephaestus in the area.

Then, he laughed. He laughed so hard, he doubled over and clutched the fabric of his jeans. Leo's scrawny frame wracked with each thunderous laugh he inhaled.

"Yeah, join you. Right. Until you get bored of me and turn me into a Leosicle? Lady, nobody messes with my dragon and gets away with it. I can't believe I thought you were hot."

Blaire exhaled in great realief.

Khione's face turned red with anger. "Hot? You dare insult me? I am cold, Leo Valdez. Very, very cold."

She shot a blast of wintry sleet at the demigods, but Leo held up his hand. A wall of fire roared to life in front of them, and the snow dissolved in a steamy cloud, leaving nothing but smokey exhaust in it's wake.

Leo grinned maniacly. "See, lady, that's what happens to snow in Texas. It—freaking—melts."

Khione hissed. "Enough of this. Hera is failing. Porphyrion is rising. Kill the demigods. Let them be our king's first meal!"

Obeying Khione's demands, the monsters charged.

LYN SPEAKS // calm lil short chapter because i haven't updated in forever and i am trying to put off something really terrible. really terrible. but, i hope u guys liked this :) unedited!