The Veiled Legacy | PJO - Book Two

twenty one

Ariana woke at a table at a sidewalk café.

For a second, she thought she was dead. It was a sunny morning. The air was brisk but not unpleasant for sitting outside.

At the other tables, a mix of bicyclists, business people and college kids sat chatting and drinking coffee.

She could smell eucalyptus trees.

Lots of foot traffic passed in front of quaint little shops. The street was lined with bottlebrush trees and blooming azaleas as if winter were a foreign concept.

In other words: she was in California.

Her friends sat in chairs around her - all of them with their hands calmly folded across their chests, dozing pleasantly. And they all had new clothes on.

Piper, who was seemingly awake, looked down at her own outfit and gasped. "Mother!"

She yelled louder than she meant.

Jason flinched, bumping the table with his knees, and then all of them were awake.

"What?" Hedge demanded. "Fight who? Where?"

"Falling!" Leo grabbed the table. "No - not falling. Where are we?"

Jason blinked, trying to get his bearings. He focused on Piper and made a little choking sound. "What are you wearing?"

Piper blushed. She was wearing a turquoise dress, with black leggings and black leather boots. She had on her favourite silver charm bracelet, even though she'd left that back home in L.A and her old snowboarding jacket from her dad, which amazingly went with the outfit pretty well

She pulled out Katoptris, and judging from the reflection in the blade, she'd got her hair done,
too.

"It's nothing." she said. "It's my - It's nothing!"

Leo grinned. "Aphrodite strikes again, huh? You're gonna be the best-dressed warrior in town, beauty queen."

"Hey, Leo." Jason nudged his arm. "You look at yourself recently?"

"What ... oh."

All of them had been given a makeover.

Leo was wearing pinstriped trousers, black leather shoes, a white collarless shirt with suspenders, and his tool belt, Ray-Ban sunglasses and a porkpie hat.

"God, Leo." Piper tried not to laugh. "I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt."

Ariana laughed with Piper.

"Hey, shut up!"

"I think he looks good." said Coach Hedge. "Course, I look better."

The satyr was a pastel nightmare. Aphrodite had given him a baggy canary-yellow zoot suit with two-tone shoes that fitted over his hooves. He had a matching yellow broad-brimmed hat, a rose-coloured shirt, a baby blue tie and a blue carnation in his lapel, which Hedge sniffed and then ate.

"Well." Jason said, "at least your mom overlooked me."

Looking at him, Jason was dressed simply in jeans and a clean purple T-shirt, like he'd worn at the Grand Canyon.

He had new trainers on, and his hair was newly trimmed. His eyes were the same colour as the sky.

Ariana looked down at herself, using the glass a mirror.

A young woman stands before the mirror, and she smiles. Her deep dark eyes look back at her, framed by long black hair that hangs down past her shoulders.