The House of Hades

Leo starts to dissect Piper’s words while Jason cautions them not to think too hard about the prophecy. Piper hopes she’s wrong, but the quest started with them, so the war will probably end with them. She smells something familiar in the air and tells Leo to sound the alarm, but he can’t because Festus is disconnected. Piper tells him to get Greek fire and Jason to summon the southerly winds. Jason draws his sword but is frozen in place. Leo summons flames while clutching the Archimedes sphere, but icy wind douses his flames and launches him into the clouds. A block of ice seals the entrance from below deck, and Piper is alone. She wishes she had better weapons than a fortune-telling knife, a cornucopia of plenty, and her charmspeak as Khione the goddess of snow and the Boreads appear on deck.

Piper accidentally shoots blueberry muffins from her cornucopia, and Cal and Zethes eat them. The Boreads are under orders from Gaea to take her friends as ice sculptures to Quebec. Piper wonders how they are in the Mediterranean during summer, and Khione says their power grows as Gaea wakes. Zethes was promised Piper in exchange for his help. Piper refuses and tells him to let Jason go. Zethes defrosts Jason, and he falls to the floor alive, but Khione immediately refreezes him. Piper is relieved her friends are alive and tries to think of a plan to save them.

Leo gets a special punishment; he was sent to a place which he can never return from because he insulted Khione. Piper thinks of Leo and realizes Festus can shoot flames, but he’s deactivated. Piper decides Annabeth would talk until she figured out a plan, so she asks about her fate. Khione says Piper is the daughter of a useless goddess, so she will be stranded on the Argo II blown off course by a sphere of northern winds. After Gaea rises, Zethes will retrieve her as his wife. Piper remembers all the mean girls she’s dealt with and hears her mother’s voice telling her to use their fear of her. Piper starts laughing and tells Khione she has a secret to stop Gaea. Khione demands to know, and Piper leads them toward the prow.

Piper pushes between the Boreads to Festus. Piper knows she can’t fight or outwit them, but she can use her charmspeak to manipulate people to do what she wants. She tells the Boreads about Khione’s humiliation in battle, and they laugh. Khione freezes their mouths and insists Piper show the secret. Piper touches Festus’s neck and tells him he’s a living creature and a good friend. She tells the Boreads that Khione underestimates them and if they put down the wind bomb, Khione will be humiliated. Zethes rolls it across the deck, and Piper reveals her secret weapon is a live Festus. The Boreads raise their swords, and Festus comes alive and vaporizes them.

The wind sphere begins to crack as Piper charges Khione with her knife. Khione grabs her wrist and freezes her dagger and arm. Festus creaks, and Piper feels warm as she remembers her love for him and her friends. Piper believes in the superhuman power of love, which melts the ice on her blade and arm. Piper stabs Khione, making her explode. Piper dives for the bomb as the ice shatters.

Percy, Annabeth, and Bob journey in the darkness. They can’t see their pursuers, but Percy can sense Polybotes. It gets harder to fight dark thoughts, which means they are close according to Bob. Annabeth grabs Percy’s hand and reminds him they are together. The darkness opens into a clearing where a sobbing woman kneels on the ground.

Percy, Annabeth, and Bob trudge toward Akhlys. Bob says she has the Death Mist that can hide them. Akhyls doesn’t want to help, so Annabeth taunts her, saying she doesn’t have enough power to help them. Annoyed, Akhlys claims the Death Mist is the breath of Tartarus and shrouds mortals in misery as their souls pass into the Underworld. As goddess of poisons, she offers their pick of poisons as a less painful way to die than the Doors of Death. Annabeth points out that if they fail Akhlys can gloat over their spirits for eternity, or if they succeed Akhlys can relish in the monsters’ misery. Akhlys concedes and tells them to come. Bob disappears because only mortals can take the path of the Death Mist.

Percy and Annabeth follow Akhlys’s path of poisonous flowers until they arrive at a peninsula where Night meets the black void below, Tartarus which is as close to nothingness as a mortal can come. They are enveloped in the Death Mist and can barely move. Akhlys blossoms poisonous plants around them because death follows the Death Mist. Percy draws Riptide, but it passes through Akhlys like a breeze because they are the shadow before death and don’t have time to learn to control their new form.

Akhlys attacks Percy with her claws, and he stumbles back, unused to his misty form. Annabeth leads Akhlys on a chase until she is thrown to the ground. Percy starts calling Akhlys happy names to throw her off balance. Akhlys surrounds Percy with poisonous plants, and he starts choking on poison trickling from the plants toward him. He realizes it’s partly water and focuses until something cracks inside and he redirects the tide of poison toward Akhlys. She stumbles backward, surrounded, as Annabeth begs him to stop. Percy wills the poison to recede and tells Akhlys to leave. She flees as the poison evaporates. Annabeth runs to Percy and says some things aren’t meant to be controlled. They back away from the cliff as a presence emerges from the void calling herself Night.