𝓢𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓴𝓼 || Leo Valdez X OC

22) coach hedge gets a date

As they climbed the cliffs of the floating island, Ada saw that Jason kept looking back, like he expected to see Thalia behind him. Ada wished they had Thalia too.

The golden backpack of winds was strapped over Jason's shoulders. The closer they got to Aeolus's palace, the heavier the bag looked. The winds struggled, rumbling and bumping around.

Jason had told her and Piper the conversation between Thalia and him. The three of them were silent, giving Jason some time to think. They could sense he wasn't in a great mood. Nobody was running to ask if Ada was okay, because she was equally grumpy.

Piper kept glancing back, worried, as if Jason were the one who'd almost died of hypothermia rather than she. Or maybe she was thinking about Thalia's idea—how they could save both her dad and Hera—but Ada didn't really understand how they were going to do that, and he wasn't sure if the possibility had made Piper more hopeful or just more anxious.

They could do both. She wasn't sure how she knew that.

And Leo kept puffing and swatting at his legs, but they stopped smoking a long time again. Half of his pant leg was basically ashes. She couldn't imagine how awkward it would be if he exploded every time he had a extreme reaction. It would be a bit difficult to take him places, especially at restaurants. She imagined them trying order: "Yeah, I'll have a cheeseburger—Ahh! My friend is on fire, someone grab a fire extinguisher!"

Ada wasn't really worried about Leo, since he usually had his fire somewhat under control. The exchange made her a bit jumpy. She didn't like the sound of what Leo said on the bridge.

Finally they arrived at the top of the island. Bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though Ada couldn't imagine who would possibly attack this place. Jack and the beanstalk?

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," Piper 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. Perfect place for Leo's snowy girlfriend! Snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, so Ada wasn't sure if they were decorations or alive. It's be pretty creepy if you were to wander through there, then get jumped by snowman.

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

In the distance, they 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. He was actually relieved to send the satyr off. It would be hard enough getting on Aeolus's good side without Coach Hedge waving his club and screaming, "Die!"