𝐌𝐚𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐝𝐲; 𝖺𝗇𝗇𝖺𝖻𝖾𝗍𝗁 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗌𝖾

Weird wolves and hey, Thalia!

Ivy was glad she couldn't feel the cold, cause even with Apollo's blessing, she could tell the air was extremely freezing.

Her gaze was only tore away from the rocky ceiling when she heard Piper wake up, looking completely cold as she shivered.

"Oh, god." Her teeth chattered. "He turned me to gold!"

"You're okay now." Jason, who was probably just as cold as her, leaned over and tucked a warm blanket around her.

Piper glanced around in confusion at the new setting. They were in a hollow cave, a campfire blazing right in front of them to heat the 3 recently un-golded demigods up as snow and storm could be heard raging just outside.

"I-Iv-y? L-L-Leo?" Piper managed.

"Here" Ivy raised her hand from where she was laying down, the only one who wasn't covered with anything.

"Present and un-gold-ified." Leo was also wrapped in blankets. He didn't look great, but better than how Piper probably felt. "Jason and I got the precious metal treatment too, but we came out of it faster. Dunno why. We had to dunk you in the river to get you back completely. Tried to dry you off, but ... it's really, really cold."

"You've got hypothermia," Jason said. "We risked as much nectar as we could. Coach Hedge did a little nature magic—"

"Sports medicine." The satyr said. "Kind of a hobby of mine. Your breath might smell like wild mushrooms and Gatorade for a few days, but it'll pass. You probably won't die. Probably."

"Thanks," Piper said weakly. "How did you beat Midas?"

Ivy told her the story, putting most of it down to luck Midas didn't know who her father was.

The coach snorted. "She's being modest. She didn't even break a sweat. You should've seen her. Hi-yah! Slice! Vines everywhere!"

"Coach, you didn't even see it," She said. "You were outside eating the lawn."

But the satyr was just warming up. "Then I came in with my club, and we dominated that room. Afterward, I told her, 'Thatcher, I'm proud of you! If you could just work on being less merciful'—"

"Coach," she interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Please, shut up"

"Sure." The coach sat down at the fire and started chewing his cudgel.

Jason put his hand on Piper's forehead and checked her temperature. "Leo, can you stoke the fire?"

"On it." Leo summoned a baseball-sized clump of flames and lobbed it into the campfire.

"Do I look that bad?" Piper shivered.

"Nah," Jason said.

"You're a terrible liar," she said. "Where are we?"

"Pikes Peak," The blonde answered. She really didn't know how he could always tell where they were. Her sense of direction could never. "Colorado."

"But that's, what—five hundred miles from Omaha?"

"Something like that," He agreed. "I harnessed the storm spirits to bring us this far. They didn't like it—went a little faster than I wanted, almost crashed us into the mountainside before I could get them back in the bag. I'm not going to be trying that again."

Ivy chuckled as she remembered. After that incident, she had completely lost any hope in thinking they could have a normal and calm trip.