Wildfires, Heroes of Olympus ₂

052, cliff-hanger heh get it

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
SILVIANA       DUVALL

Sylvie had accepted that she was going to die. Despite having gone through so much, and pushing herself to reach unprecedented powers, she figured it was entirely unsurprising that she would still die in the end. Her beliefs were only confirmed when it started raining cars.

As the roof of the cavern collapsed, sunlight blinded her. She got the briefest glimpse of the Argo II hovering above. It must have used its ballistae to blast a hole straight through the ground.

Chunks of asphalt as big as garage doors tumbled down, along with six or seven Italian cars. One would've crushed the Demeter of Knidos, but the statue's glowing aura acted like a force field, and the car bounced off. Unfortunately, it fell straight toward Sylvie.

She jumped to one side, twisting her bad foot. A wave of agony almost made her pass out, but she flipped on her back in time to see a bright red Fiat 500 slam into the black ivy entangling Mnemosyne, punching through the cavern floor and disappearing with the unruly vines.

As Mnemosyne fell, she screamed like a freight train on a collision course; but her wailing rapidly faded. All around Sylvie, more chunks of debris slammed through the floor, riddling it with holes.

The Demeter of Knidos remained undamaged, though the marble under its pedestal was a starburst of fractures. Sylvie was covered in black ivy. She trailed strands of leftover vines from her arms and legs like the strings of a marionette, but somehow, amazingly, none of the debris had hit her. She wanted to believe that the statue had protected her, though she suspected it might've been nothing but luck.

The black ivy had lost its movement since Mnemosyne fell, no longer harboring a mind at all. As daylight flooded the cavern, Mnemosyne's books began toppling off their shelves. Wretched emotions lodged themselves in Sylvie's throat at the realization that those were her sibling's memories; they would be forever lost and forgotten, physically and figuratively.

But none of that mattered when she heard Percy's voice from above: "Sylvie!"

"Here!" she sobbed.

All the misery seemed to leave her in one massive yelp, being replaced with pure guilt. As the Argo II descended, she saw Percy leaning over the rail. Maybe in another universe, he would've been smiling at Sylvie, but she remembered he was under the impression that she forgot him. He just looked worried and concerned and almost as pained as Sylvie felt on the inside.

The room kept shaking, but Sylvie managed to stand. The floor at her feet seemed stable for a moment. Her backpack was missing, along with Leo's stuffed dragon. Her bronze dagger—Cereal—was missing from the duct tape splint. She'd had that weapon since she was eleven. She'd named it herself. And now it was gone forever, fallen into the pit.

At least Sylvie was alive.

She edged closer to the gaping hole made by the Fiat 500. Jagged rock walls plunged into the darkness as far as Sylvie could see. A few small ledges jutted out here and there, but Sylvie saw nothing on them—just vines of black ivy draping over the sides like Christmas tinsel.