Orion's POV
I slipped into the kitchen.
The air seemed thick with sweetness.
Long, fold-out tables were heaped with pears, assorted nuts, bowls of chips with various dips, orange halves, sweets on crystal platters, and all manner of teenage delicacies. Red solo cups sat cluttering the tables, upright and overturned. Animal costume-clad teen girls brushed past young men in zombie outfits, and a unicorn danced with a vampire in the corner.
The partygoers danced and laughed, drank and flirted. The costumes were varied and completely unique. Some were mermaids with great fins. Some outfits were almost entirely made of petals or leaves, worn by girls who clearly wanted to be noticed. Some girls weren't in costumes but wore lovely dresses instead. Ugly, strange, or lovely, none were plain. That was for sure.
"Where could that basement be?" I asked aloud. I had expected it to be easy to find, I was wrong. The house was a lot bigger than it looked on the outside, I didn't know what to think.
The house itself was massive, so large that I was surprised that people weren't getting lost. Each step I took seemed to push me in a new direction, full of new splendors.
I picked up a cup off the drink table. I poured some strawberry pop into my cup. The drink smelled a little off, but I swallowed it anyway. It went to my head quickly and I had to hold the table for support.
I took a mini apple pie from a pile of sweets and bit into it. It was a deep crimson on the inside and tasted like watery honey. The next was brown when I bit into it, but it tasted like a fiery and sweet liquor. Probably Fireball whiskey.
I felt an infectious giddiness come over me. Here, nothing I did was strange. I could laugh and dance and sing.
All of a sudden I was aware of how far into the crowd I had gone. I had been turned around so many times I no longer knew which way was back.
I tried to retrace my steps. Three girls walked past me, silver gowns trailing like a fine mist. The low cut of the identical dresses showed off most of the women's bodies. I looked again and wondered what Artemis was doing. I forced myself to keep looking for the basement. A short girl with lots of intricate silver bracelets and shoulder-length blonde curls leered at me as she bit into an apple.
Every moment became more unreal.
A boy dressed as a fairy skipped up to me, grinning.
"You smell like lust," he said and poked my side.
I scurried away from his touch to a chorus of laughter.
I pushed through the crowd, weaving through dancers in intertwining circles, jumped over a green, clawed hand that grabbed at my ankle from beneath one of the tables, and passed what looked like two goblins playing a game of chess.
I pushed folks aside in my haste to find what I was looking for. Alone with my thoughts, I thought of my own foolishness in coming here. And my foolishness of leaving Artemis alone with Jay. I'd let that river ghost inflate my ego and now I was regretting it. Artemis might care about me but she was still human and humans have feelings.
And it was very clear that she had feelings for Jay. Who knows what they could be doing.
Three men in shimmering green leotards, their arms, and legs long and skinny as sticks, were pushing a doe-eyed girl dressed as a grasshopper between them. The girl crouched warily as if to jump from out between them, but each time was unprepared for a sudden grab or push.
"Leave her alone," I said, stepping up to them. The girl reminded me too much of Artemis for me to just watch.
The men turned to look at me, all of them identical. The girl tried to slip between them, but one of the skinny men locked his arm around the girl's neck.
