Nemesism

9)

It always just flashes in my eyes. I hear it in my ears. I hugged myself with a blanket as I shivered. I leaned against my bed frame.

    I stayed on the floor. I couldn't be in bed. Was I now officially scarred? Maybe. Khione's voice played over and over in my head. The way I froze, the way I felt useless, the way I lost Leo.

    A hundred feet below, the bay glittered against a crescent of red sand beach. We were somewhere on the northern coast of Africa. That's as much as the wind spirits would tell Jason.

    The palace itself stretched out on either side of us—a honeycomb of halls and tunnels, balconies, colonnades, and cavernous rooms carved into the sandstone cliffs, all designed for the wind to blow through and make as much noise as possible. The constant pipe-organ sounds reminded me of the floating lair of Aeolus, back in Colorado, except here the winds seemed in no hurry.

    Which was part of the problem.

    On our best days, the southern venti were slow and lazy. On our worst days, they were gusty and angry. They'd initially welcomed the Argo II, since any enemy of Boreas was a friend of the South Wind, but they seemed to have forgotten that the demigods were their guests. The venti had quickly lost interest in helping repair the ship. Their king's mood got worse every day.

    Down at the dock, my friends were working on the Argo II. The main sail had been repaired, the rigging replaced. Now they were mending the oars. Without Leo, we were unable to repair the more complicated parts of the ship, even with the help of Buford the table and Festus (who was now permanently activated thanks to Piper's charmspeak—and none of them understood that). But we kept trying.

    Hazel and Frank stood at the helm, tinkering with the controls. Piper relayed their commands to Coach Hedge, who was hanging over the side of the ship, banging out dents in the oars. Hedge was well suited for banging on things.

    I replayed all the moments I stayed with Leo to try and help around. Everything he told me finally became useful. Well, as much as I could remember. When he rambled, I would just stare at him with a smile on my face lost on how he looked so cute talking about everything he loved doing. The sparkle in his eyes...

    We didn't seem to be making much progress, but considering what we had been through, it was a miracle the ship was in one piece.

    I shivered again when I thought about Khione's attack. I had been rendered helpless—frozen solid, while Leo was blasted into the sky, Jason frozen just like me and Piper was forced to save us all single-handedly.

    Thank the gods for Piper. She considered herself a failure for not having stopped the wind bomb from exploding; but the truth was, she'd saved the entire crew from becoming ice sculptures in Quebec.

    She'd also managed to direct the explosion of the icy sphere, so even though the ship had been pushed halfway across the Mediterranean, it had sustained relatively minor damage.

    Down at the dock, Hedge yelled, "Try it now!"

    Hazel and Frank pulled some of the levers. The port oars went crazy, chopping up and down and doing the wave. Coach Hedge tried to dodge, but one smacked him in the rear and launched him into the air. He came down screaming and splashed into the bay.

    I groaned. At this rate, we will never be able to sail, even if the southern venti allowed us to. Somewhere in the north, Reyna was flying toward Epirus, assuming she'd gotten Jason note at Diocletian's Palace. Leo was lost and in trouble. Percy and Annabeth...well, best-case scenario they were still alive, making their way to the Doors of Death. I couldn't let them down.