Where You Go ― Jason Grace

xii. leo interrupts a budding romance

THEY WERE IN the air for a couple hours before Jason startled awake. "Cyclops!" 

"Little late there, Jase," Ophelia murmured, her arm wrapped around his waist to keep him steady. 

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—" 

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?" 

Jason was quiet for a moment, no doubt trying to recount what had happened before he was knocked unconscious. "How did you—the Cyclops—" 

"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"  

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly. 

Piper laughed. "I'm going to tell him. Get over it." 

Piper told him about how Leo had single-handedly defeated the Cyclopes family; how they'd freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-solidify; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory. 

"And, uh, Ophelia? You wanna tell him about your brother?" Piper asked gently. 

Jason turned his head to look at Ophelia. "Your brother?" 

"The Cyclopes killed him before... I think before we lost our memories," she said quietly. "He was there as a ghost, and he tried to warn me about the Cyclopes. I had a dream about him after the monsters knocked me out—I was younger, and I was hanging out with him and another girl. He had a purple shirt and the Cyclopes said he spoke Latin, just like us." 

"We're not alone, then," Jason said quietly, his hand covering Ophelia's on his waist in a silent show of comfort. "There are others like us." 

"You guys were never alone," Piper said softly. "You've got us." 

"I—I know... but something Hera said. I was having a dream." 

Jason told them about his dream, about Hera in her prison, how she'd slipped away the day Zeus closed Olympus and went to the place she would be captured, having sensed danger there only to be tricked. He told them about a sleeping enemy stirring, and the exchange she'd made—how Jason and Ophelia were her peace offering, a way to bring peace and end a millennia of division. He told them about how his sister, Thalia, was supposed to help, and how their greatest mortal enemy waited for them in Chicago. 

"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?" 

Jason shook his head. "I don't know. But Hera's gamble was us. Just by sending us to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—" 

"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy—that sounds like the lady Leo told us about." 

Leo cleared his throat. "About that... she kind of appeared to me back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge." 

Ophelia made a face as Jason asked, "Did you say... Porta-Potty?" 

Leo told them about the face he'd seen in the dirt. "I don't know if she's completely unkillable," he said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"

"She's trying to divide us," Piper said, her voice tense. 

"What's wrong?" Ophelia asked her. 

"I just... Why are they toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?" 

"Enceladus?" Jason asked.