𝗪𝗔𝗜𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗠𝗘 ━━ l. valdez

xxxii ━━ when your impressionist paintings of heaven turned out to be fakes

01. chapter thirty-two

━━━━━━━━ ( 💫 ) ━━━━━━━━

WHILE WE CLIMBED THE CLIFFS of the floating island, i anticipated what the prophecy from aeolus could be, if he would even tell me the prophecy.

any prophecy that had to do with aphrodite worried me seriously. maybe if it was particularly depressing of a prophecy, i could just join the hunters.

the only one who seemed in a good mood was coach hedge. he kept bounding up the slippery staircase and trotting back down. "come on, cupcakes! only a few thousand more steps!"

leo, piper, jason, and i climbed in silence.

leo kept swatting his own legs, checking for signs that his pants were on fire. he wasn't steaming anymore, but the incident on the ice bridge had really freaked  me out. leo hadn't seemed to realize that he had smoke coming out his ears and flames dancing through his hair. if leo started spontaneously combusting every time he got excited, they were going to have a tough time taking him anywhere. i imagined trying to go out with him and trying to explain to an onlooker why my friend was on fire.

finally, we arrived at the top of the island. bronze walls marched all the way around the fortress grounds, though i couldn't imagine who would possibly attack this place. 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. it was beautiful and old fashioned, 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. snowmen rolled across the landscape as the wind blew, so i wasn't sure if they were decorations or alive.

to our left was an autumn park with gold and red trees. mounds of leaves blew into patterns—gods, people, animals that ran after each other.

in the distance, i 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 i couldn't read. i glanced at my friends nervously, wondering if they could read it.

"one section for each of the four wind gods," jason said. "four cardinal directions."

"i'm loving that pasture." coach hedge licked his lips. "you guys mind—"

"go ahead," jason said.

while the satyr ran off to attack springtime, leo, piper, jason, and i walked down the road to the steps of the palace. we passed through the front doors into a white marble foyer decorated with purple banners that read something about weather, but the way the banners swayed made the letters jumble even more than they normally did. it looked as if the letters were trying to cha-cha dance.

"hello!" a woman floated up to them. literally floated. she was pretty in that elfish way i associated with nature spirits at camp half-blood—petite, slightly pointy ears, and an ageless face that could've been sixteen or thirty. her brown eyes twinkled cheerfully. even though there was no wind, her dark hair blew in slow motion. her white gown billowed around her like parachute material. i couldn't tell if she had feet, but if so, they didn't touch the floor. she had a white electronic thing in her hand. it was some sort of ipad i recognized from store windows when i'd walk up and down the streets of seattle.