"𝐂𝐘𝐂𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐒!" 𝐉𝐀𝐒𝐎𝐍 𝐘𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃, his eyes shooting wide open.
Amora yelped, almost falling off of Festus. Leo was quick to reach behind him and grab her waist.
"Whoa, sleepyhead." Piper sat behind him on the bronze dragon, holding his waist to keep him balanced. Leo sat in front, driving. They flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had happened.
"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"
"It's okay," Amora assured. She turned around and patted Jason's leg. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"
Jason's head throbbed. He remembered the factory, then walking down the catwalk, then a creature looming over him—a face with one eye, a massive fist—and everything went black.
"How did you—the Cyclops—"
"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"
"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.
Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."
And she did—how Leo single-handedly defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory.
Amora was impressed. She was always impressed with Leo and his mischievous skills. Taking out three Cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit? It was amazing. It also helped that while he was messing around with the machines, his hair got greasy and his clothes were covered in dirt. Amora always liked Leo better when he looked like himself. Specifically, when he felt most comfortable—which is when he is surrounded by machines...and Amora.
When Piper told Jason about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin, he felt like his head was going to explode. A son of Mercury...Jason felt like he should know that kid, but the name was missing from his mind.
"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."
"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."
"I—I know...but something Hera said. I was having a dream..."
He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.
