LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE . . . hoo

XXX.

THE NEXT DAY, there weren't many answers.

After the explosion, Piper and Jason — free-falling and unconscious — were plucked out of the sky by giant eagles and brought to safety, but Leo did not reappear. The entire Hephaestus cabin scoured the valley, finding bits and pieces of the Argo II's broken hull, but no sign of Festus the dragon or his master.

All the monsters had been destroyed or scattered. Greek and Roman casualties were heavy, but not nearly as bad as they might have been.

Overnight, the satyrs and nymphs disappeared into the woods for a convocation of the Cloven Elders. In the morning, Grover Underwood ( Mia had missed him; it hurt to see him, let alone talk to him, so she didn't ) reappeared to announce that they could not sense the Earth Mother's presence. Nature was more or less back to normal. Apparently, Jason, Piper and Leo's plan had worked. Gaia had been separated from her source of power, charmed to sleep and then atomized in the combined explosion of Leo's fire and Octavian's man-made comet.

An immortal could never die, but now Gaia would be like her husband, Ouranos. The earth would continue to function as normal, just as the sky did, but Gaia was now so dispersed and powerless that she could never again form a consciousness.

At least, that was the hope . . .

Octavian would be remembered for saving Rome by hurling himself into the sky in a fiery ball of death. But it was Leo Valdez who had made the real sacrifice.

The victory celebration at camp was muted, due to grief — not just for Leo but also for the many others who had died in battle. Shrouded demigods, both Greek and Roman, were burned at the campfire, and Chiron asked Mia and Nico to oversee the burial rites.

Nico agreed immediately. Mia was more hesitant, but the dead deserved it. Especially Leo. She hated the hundreds of judgmental spectators' eyes on her, but she'd endure.

The hardest part was afterwards, when Mia, the rest of the crew, and Nico met on the porch of the Big House.

Jason hung his head, even his glasses lost in shadow. "We should have been there at the end. We could've helped Leo."

"It's not right," Piper agreed, wiping away her tears. "All that work getting the physician's cure, for nothing."

Hazel broke down crying. "Piper, where's the cure? Bring it out."

Bewildered, Piper reached into her belt pouch. She produced the chamois-cloth package, but when she unfolded the cloth it was empty.

All eyes turned to Hazel.

"How?" Annabeth asked.

Frank put his arm around Hazel. "In Delos, Leo pulled the two of us and Mia aside. He pleaded with us to help him."

Mia explained how she and Hazel had switched the physician's cure for an illusion — a trick of the Mist — so that Leo could keep the real vial. She told them about Leo's plan to destroy a weakened Gaia with one massive fiery explosion. After talking with Nike and Apollo, Leo had been certain that such an explosion would kill any mortal within a quarter of a mile, so he knew he would have to get far away from everyone.

"He wanted to do it alone," Frank said. "He thought there would be a slim chance that he, a son of Hephaestus, could survive the fire, but if anyone was with him . . . He said that Hazel and I, being Roman, and Mia, because she's Mia, would understand about sacrifice. But he knew the rest of you would never allow it."

At first the others looked angry, like they wanted to scream and throw things. But, as they talked, the group's rage seemed to dissipate. It was hard to be mad at Frank and Hazel when they were both crying, and even Mia had tears in her eyes. Also . . . the plan sounded exactly like the sneaky, twisted, ridiculously annoying and noble sort of thing Leo Valdez would do.