SAFE . . . reyna ramirez-arellano

25 - i think i can't

BRIAR DIDN'T WANT to go to Aeolus's palace. She wanted to avoid her problems as much as she could so, naturally, she didn't want to go. But she didn't want to whine like a child, so she didn't say anything.

The only one who seemed in a good mood was Coach Hedge. He kept bounding up the slippery staircase and trotting back down. "Come on, cupcakes! Only a few thousand more steps!"

As they climbed, Leo and Briar left Jason in his silence. He seemed very moody, which Briar understood, but she didn't want to deal with that bullshit right now, so she just left him alone.

Leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs that his pants were on fire. He wasn't steaming anymore, but the incident on the ice bridge had freaked Briar out. Leo had smoke coming out his ears and flames dancing through his hair. If Leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough time taking him anywhere. Briar imagined trying to get food at a restaurant. I'll have a cheeseburger and — Ahhh! My friend's on fire! Get me a bucket!

Briar worried about what Leo had said about her and Jason. She didn't want to be a bridge, or an exchange, or anything else. She just wanted to know where she'd come from.

The answer seemed close. But the nearer Briar got to it, the less it cooperated.

She was also thinking about Thalia's idea. They'd told her what Thalia had said on the bridge — how they could save both Reyna and Hera — but Briar didn't really understand how they were going to do that, and she just felt more dread at that thought. There was no way Briar could save her girl and the goddess at the same time.

Finally they arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though Briar couldn't imagine who would possibly attack this place. Twenty-foot-high gates opened for them, and a road of polished purple stone led up to the main citadel — a white-columned rotunda, Greek style, like one of the monuments in Washington, D.C. — except for the cluster of satellite dishes and radio towers on the roof.

"That's bizarre," Briar said.

"Guess you can't get cable on a floating island," Leo said. "Dang, check this guy's front yard."

The rotunda sat in the center of a quarter-mile circle. The grounds were amazing in a scary way. They were divided into four sections like big pizza slices, each one representing a season.

The section on their right was an icy waste, with bare trees and a frozen lake. Snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, so Briar wasn't sure if they were decorations or alive.

To their left was an autumn park with gold and red trees. Mounds of leaves blew into patterns — gods, people, and animals that ran after each other before scattering back into leaves.

In the distance, Briar could see two more areas behind the rotunda. One looked like a green pasture with sheep made out of clouds. The last section was a desert where tumbleweeds scratched strange patterns in the sand like Greek letters, smiley faces, and a huge advertisement that read: watch aeolus nightly!

"One section for each of the four wind gods," Jason guessed. "Four cardinal directions."

"I'm loving that pasture." Coach Hedge licked his lips. "You guys mind—"

"Go ahead," Jason said. Briar was actually relieved to send the fau — satyr off. It would be hard enough getting on Aeolus's good side without Coach Hedge waving his club and screaming, "Die!"

While the satyr ran off to attack springtime, Jason, Leo, and Briar walked down the road to the steps of the palace. They passed through the front doors into a white marble foyer decorated with purple banners that read: olympian weather channel, and some that just read: ow!

"Hello!" A woman floated up to them. Literally floated. She was pretty in that elfish way Briar associated with nature spirits at Camp Half-Blood — petite, slightly pointy ears, and an ageless face that could've been sixteen or thirty. Her brown eyes twinkled cheerfully. Even though there was no wind, her dark hair blew in slow motion, shampoo-commercial style. Her white gown billowed around her like parachute material. Briar couldn't tell if she had feet, but if so, they didn't touch the floor. She had a white tablet computer in her hand. "Are you from Lord Zeus?" she asked. "We've been expecting you."

Briar realized the woman was see-through. Her shape faded in and out like she was made of fog.

"Are you a ghost?" Jason asked.

Briar knew that was a horrible insult. The smile turned into a pout. "I'm an aura, sir. A wind nymph, as you might expect, working for the lord of the winds. My name is Mellie. We don't have ghosts."

Briar turned on the charm. "No, of course you don't! My friend simply mistook you for Helen of Troy, the most beautiful mortal of all time. It's an easy mistake."

The compliment was a little over the top, but Mellie the aura blushed. "Oh . . . well, then. So you are from Zeus?"

"Er," Jason said, "I'm the son of Zeus, yeah."

"Excellent! Please, right this way." She led them through some security doors into another lobby, consulting her tablet as she floated. She didn't look where she was going, but apparently it didn't matter as she drifted straight through a marble column with no problem. "We're out of prime time now, so that's good," she mused. "I can fit you in right before his 11:12 spot."

"Um, okay," Jason said.

The lobby was a pretty distracting place. Winds blasted around them, so Briar felt like she was pushing through an invisible crowd. Doors blew open and slammed by themselves.

The things Briar could see were just as bizarre. Paper airplanes of all different sizes and shapes sped around, and other wind nymphs, aurai, would occasionally pluck them out of the air, unfold and read them, then toss them back into the air, where the planes would refold themselves and keep flying.

An ugly creature fluttered past. She looked like a mix between an old lady and a chicken on steroids. She had a wrinkled face with black hair tied in a hairnet, arms like a human plus wings like a chicken, and a fat, feathered body with talons for feet. It was amazing she could fly at all. She kept drifting around and bumping into things like a parade balloon.

"Not an aura?" Jason asked Mellie as the creature wobbled by.

Mellie laughed. "That's a harpy, of course. Our, ah, ugly stepsisters, I suppose you would say. Don't you have harpies on Olympus? They're spirits of violent gusts, unlike us aurai. We're all gentle breezes."

She batted her eyes at Jason.

"'Course you are," he said.

"So," Leo prompted, "you were taking us to see Aeolus?"

Briar hid her laughs with a cough. Gay disasters.

Mellie led them through a set of doors like an airlock. Above the interior door, a green light blinked.

"We have a few minutes before he starts," Mellie said cheerfully. "He probably won't kill you if we go in now. Come along!"