𝟬𝟮𝟬. she means you're amazing, man

SOMETHING WAS BOTHERING AERA. Jason perceived that there had been a sharp skydive in her mood since they left the department store. Her posture was tense. Her shoulders were tight and straight. Her nostrils were constantly flared. She strangely didn't have anything to say during their long trip out of Chicago following the glowing vapor trail. No sarcastic comments for the gods or complaints about her hair getting messed up. Aera just sat silently in front of Jason, gazing at nothing.

It made Jason nervous. He racked his brain for any phenomenon that could explain this. Had Aera wanted to spend more time at the shopping mall? Did the noxious fire irritate her skin? Was she mad at him? Did he do anything that would make her mad? Well, Jason did hold back a compliment about her new outfit, which reminded him of a fluffy snowman...but was that really it? Did she want him to compliment her? Aera was cute, but Jason assumed she knew that he knew that about her.

There was also the Piper problem. Her father was obviously in some sort of trouble, but she didn't seem to want to talk about it. When Leo brought the subject up, Piper just said she was tired and leaned against Aera to fall asleep. Aera didn't even try and press the conversation, which Jason thought was weird, considering how she was usually the first to gossip about other people's problems.

Leo shrugged and gave Jason a shrewd look from the front like, Girls, Amiright?

Then everything got worse when they stumbled upon the rich person's mansion.

Festus took the laser beams for them when they started free-falling out of the sky. The dragon had been disintegrated, his limbs scattered across the snow-covered lawn they landed in. His tail hung on the fence. The main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion's yard before breaking apart. What remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. Only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rosebushes like a pillow.

"No!" Leo sobbed.

Leo ran to the dragon's head and stroked its snout. The dragon's eyes flickered weakly, oil dripping out of his ear. After Leo told Jason to bring Piper and Aera to the ground first, he had taken a pretty hard roll. Leo had tried to reboot Festus in mid-air, but he must have met some kind of complication that sent them both plummeting back down to earth.

"You can't go!" Leo cried. "You're the best thing I ever fixed. It's not fair!"

The dragon's head whirred its gears, as if it were purring. Leo seemed to be under the impression that Festus was trying to say something to him. He ducked his head down in concentration, as if listening to a different language.

"Yeah," Leo mumbled, tapping his fingers on his thigh in some kind of code. "I understand. I will. I promise."

The light in the dragon's eyes flickered out.

Leo broke down completely. Piper was blinking back tears when she started murmuring words of comfort to him. Aera couldn't even look at him, pacing angrily next to him. Jason recalled the image they saw of her friends in the fountain. The one called Beckendorf had wanted to invent something that would be a turning point for demigods. Likewise, if it weren't for Festus, they wouldn't have had transportation on this quest. Jason wondered if Beckendorf was who Aera was thinking of now.

He wanted to say something as the leader of their group, to make them feel better and raise morale, but his mouth felt as dry as sandpaper. Festus the dragon had been a good companion and they couldn't save him.

"I'm so sorry, man," Jason said as gently as he could. He thought about how Leo was trying to communicate to the dragon in his final moments. "What did you promise Festus?"

Leo sniffled, wiping both his nose and the blood coming from the cut on the corner of his mouth. He flipped open the dragon's head panel. Jason could see that the control disk was cracked and burned beyond repair. There was no fixing him. Festus was gone.

"Something my dad told me," Leo croaked. "Everything can be reused."

Jason's eye twitched. "Your dad talked to you? When?"

"Hephaestus is the god of forges," Aera said darkly. She had stopped her pacing but her uneasy voice sounded like she was still moving back and forth. "He can fix Festus. He has to."

A spark of hope ignited in Jason. "Yeah, if you spoke to your dad, can't he fix him?"

Leo didn't answer either of them. He worked miserably at the dragon's neck hinges until the head was detached. The thing looked like it weighed about a hundred pounds, but Leo managed to pick it up and hold it tenderly in his arms.

Jason watched as Leo looked up at the starry sky and said, "Take him back to the bunker, Dad. Please, until I can reuse him. I've never asked you for anything."

The wind picked up, and the dragon's head floated out of Leo's arms like it weighed nothing. It flew into the sky and disappeared into the darkness.

Piper stared at him in amazement. "He actually answered you?"

"I had a dream," Leo said vaguely. "Tell you later."

Jason didn't know when later would be a good time. The large white mansion glowed menacingly in the center of the grounds. Tall brick walls with strobe lights and security cameras surrounded the perimeter. Those walls were defended pretty heavily. Something told Jason that if they tried to leave the way they came in, they would end up worse than Festus.

"Where are we?" Leo asked. "I mean, what city?"

"Omaha, Nebraska," Piper noted. "I saw a billboard as we flew in. But I don't know what this mansion is. We came in right behind you, but as you were landing, Leo, I swear it looked like—I don't know—"

"Lasers," Leo said. He picked up a piece of dragon wreckage and threw it toward the top of the fence. Immediately a turret popped up from the brick wall and a beam of pure heat incinerated the bronze plating to ashes.

Jason whistled. "Some defense system. How are we even alive?"

"Festus," Leo said mournfully. "He took the fire. The lasers sliced him to bits as he came in so they didn't focus on you. I led him into a death trap."

"You couldn't have known," Piper comforted. "He saved our lives again."

"But what now?" Jason said. He didn't like the feeling of being stranded here in the snow in the dark. "The main gates are locked, and I'm guessing I can't fly us out of here without getting shot down."

Leo nodded his head toward the walkway at the big white mansion. "Since we can't go out, we'll have to go in."

Jason couldn't help but look to Aera for her opinion. She had been so quiet, glaring at the row of frozen rosebushes, it was hard to tell what she was thinking. She stuck out her hand and an invisible force seemed to yank out a single rose, thorns still attached. It flew into her hand. Aera clutched the thorny stem of the rose and said, "Let's go rob some rich people."

Piper and Jason exchanged looks. Piper started chewing on her lip. They had no other option, it seemed.

Jason sighed. "Let's go rob some rich people."

Aera would have died five times to the front door if not for Leo. First it was the motion-activated trapdoor on the sidewalk, then the lasers on the steps, then the nerve gas dispenser on the porch railing, the pressure-sensitive poison spikes in the welcome mat, and of course the exploding doorbell.

Leo deactivated all of them. It was like he could smell the booby traps, and he picked just the right tool out of his belt to disable them.

"Anything else?" Aera asked, tapping her boot impatiently on the porch. "I like boobies but not when they trap me."

"She means you're amazing, man," Jason amended, so Leo wouldn't get more discouraged.

Leo scowled as he examined the front door lock. "Yeah, amazing," he muttered. "Can't fix a dragon right, but I'm amazing. Boobies are no good if they kill you."

"Actually," Piper mused, "maybe that's not the worst way to go."

Leo paused like he was thinking about it.

"Leo," Jason said sadly. He just wanted to make sure he was okay. "You have to know that wasn't your—"

"Front door's already unlocked," Leo announced. He swung open the door and stepped inside without hesitation. For once, Leo didn't seem very glad to discuss boobies.

Before Jason could follow, Piper caught his arm. "He's going to need some time to get over Festus. Don't take it personally."

"Yeah," Jason said slowly. "Yeah, okay."

Still he felt terrible. Back in Medea's store, he'd said some pretty harsh stuff to Leo—stuff a friend shouldn't say, not to mention the fact he'd almost skewered Leo with a sword. If it hadn't been for Piper, they'd all be dead. And Piper hadn't gotten out of that encounter easily, either.

"Piper," he said, "I know I was in a daze back in Chicago, but that stuff about your dad—if he's in trouble, we..." He took another quick glance at Aera. She was checking out her nails. Great. "I want to help. I don't care if it's a trap or not."

Piper's eyes were always different colors, but now they looked shattered, as if she'd seen something that had broken her inside. "Jason, you don't know what you're saying. Please—don't make me feel worse. Come on. We should stick together."

She ducked inside. Stick together, yeah. They were doing great at that.

Then it was just him and Aera. Aera, who looked like she wanted to throw him to the lasers. "You suck at comforting people."

Jason scowled, running his hands through his hair. He wasn't used to this kind of stuff. "I could use the help."

Aera jut out her hip and crossed her arms again, squinting at him. "Did you know you're named after a cheater?" she asked, completely throwing him off. "I mean, that's a given, considering your dad is Ancient Greece's original adulterer."

"Um," Jason said, hoping they wouldn't get smited on the spot, "are you allowed to say that?"

"Greek heroes are all cheaters," Aera kept going, "They abandon their wives the second they see anything pretty with two legs."

Jason had no clue how this had anything to do with him or why she was bringing this up now. "Okay..."

"Okay?" Aera arched an eyebrow. "So you support them then. Cheaters are your idol?"

"I didn't say that."

"You said okay."

Jason didn't know what to say to that either. "Well, you're—"

"I'm what?" Aera challenged, egging him on. "Hm?"

Jason couldn't come up with a good comeback. What could he even call her? Mean? Evil? A scary-looking snowman with beautiful eyes?

"What was your wish?" Jason blurted, just wanting to change the subject. "In the fountain. The image cut off before it was your turn."

Aera seemed to close up immediately at this. She clutched the rose tightly like she wanted to bash him across the face with it. "That's none of your business."

Jason found himself rushing to apologize again. "Sorry. I shouldn't have asked. None of us should have seen it in the first place."

"Whatever." Aera rolled her eyes and Jason could now see her eyelids were dusted with a pale pink color. Or maybe it was because they were puffy. Had she been crying? When was this? "It was stupid anyway."

"Why would you say that—"

"Stop talking." Aera dragged Jason inside by the arm.

Jason's first impression of the house: Dark. If it weren't for Aera guiding him, he might have tripped over the doorway. From the empty echo of his footsteps he could tell the entry hall was enormous, even larger than Boreas's penthouse; but the only illumination came from the yard lights outside. A faint glow peeked through the breaks in the thick velvet curtains. The windows rose about ten feet tall. Spaced between them along the walls were life-size metal statues.

As Jason's eyes adjusted to the darkness, sofas emerged in a U formation in the middle of the room, with a central coffee table and one large chair at the far end. A massive chandelier glinted overhead. Along the back wall stood a row of closed doors.

"Where's the light switch?" Jason's voice echoed alarmingly through the room.

"Don't see one," Leo said.

"Ouch!" Piper whispered loudly. "That was my foot, Aera!"

"Why was your foot there?" Aera shot back.

"It was safe until you stepped on it!"

"Then move your foot so I don't step on it."

"Fire?" Jason asked, so the girls would stop fighting.

Leo held out his hand, but nothing happened. "It's not working."

"Why's your fire out?" Piper questioned.

"Well, if I knew that—"

"Okay, okay," she surrendered. "What do we do—explore?"

Leo shook his head. "After all those traps outside? Bad idea."

"Yeah, my feet hurt," Aera whined.

"You stepped on mine!"

"You can't gatekeep hurt feet!"

Jason's skin tingled as Aera and Piper started arguing about whose feet hurt more. He hated being a demigod. Looking around, he didn't see a comfortable room to hang out in. He imagined vicious storm spirits lurking in the curtains, dragons under the carpet, a chandelier made of lethal ice shards, ready to impale them.

"Leo's right," he said, physically placing himself between Aera and Piper so they would stop trying to step on each other. "We're not separating again—not like in Detroit."

"Oh, thank you for reminding me of the Cyclopes." Piper's voice quavered as she backed up. "I needed that."

"Ugh!" Aera shuddered, stomping on Jason's toe. "They were so ugly!"

"It's a few hours until dawn," Jason guessed, moving his foot away from her. "Too cold to wait outside. Let's bring the cages in and make camp in this room. Wait for daylight; then we can decide what to do."

Nobody offered a better idea, so they rolled in the cages with Coach Hedge and the storm spirits, then settled in. Thankfully, Leo didn't find any poison throw pillows or electric whoopee cushions on the sofas. He didn't seem in the mood to make more tacos or sushi. Besides, they had no fire, so they settled for cold rations.

Aera declined when Jason offered the bag to her.

Jason wasn't sure if it was a good idea to skip meals now. "Look, I know it's not Leo's cooking, but—"

"I'm going to stand over there," Aera declared, getting up. "There's a mirror over there."

Then she walked to one corner of the room. From the couch, there was still a clear view of her outline in the darkness, but Jason didn't want her to wander so far away. The metal statues along the walls were creepy. They looked like Greek gods or heroes. Maybe that was a good sign. Or maybe they were being used for target practice.

On the coffee table sat a tea service and a stack of glossy brochures, but Jason couldn't make out the words. The big chair at the other end of the table looked like a throne. None of them tried to sit in it. The canary cages didn't make the place any less creepy.

The venti kept churning in their prison, hissing and spinning, and Jason got the uncomfortable feeling they were watching him even through the cage. He could sense their hatred for the children of Zeus—the lord of the sky who'd ordered Aeolus to imprison their kind. The venti would like nothing better than to tear Jason apart. Pleasant thoughts.

As for Coach Hedge, he was still frozen mid-shout, his cudgel raised. Leo was working on the cage, trying to open it with various tools, but the lock seemed to be giving him a hard time. Jason decided not to sit next to him in case Hedge suddenly unfroze and went into ninja goat mode.

Piper was already curled up on the other sofa. Jason wondered if she was really asleep or just trying to dodge a conversation about her dad. Whatever Medea had meant in Chicago, about Piper getting her dad back if she cooperated—it didn't sound good. If Piper had risked her own dad to save them, that made Jason feel even guiltier. And they were running out of time. If Jason had his days straight, this was early morning of December 20. Which meant tomorrow was the winter solstice.

All these thoughts raced through Jason's head. The thorny rose Aera had plucked from the garden was lying lonesomely on the couch next to him. Jason wondered if Aera had taken it to be a weapon or an item of mourning.

"I think that weird saleswoman said something that really bothered her," Leo observed, still working on the locked cage. "You should check on Aera."

"Before that..." Jason took a deep breath. "Leo, I'm sorry about that stuff I said in Chicago. That wasn't me. You're not annoying and you do take stuff seriously—especially your work. I wish I could do half the things you can do."

Leo stopped. He looked at the ceiling and shook his head like, What am I gonna do with this guy?

"I try very hard to be annoying," Leo said, waving his screwdriver. "So don't insult my ability to annoy. And how am I supposed to resent you if you go apologizing? I'm a lowly mechanic. You're like the prince of the sky, son of the Lord of the Universe. I'm supposed to resent you."

Jason wasn't sure he heard correctly. "Lord of the Universe?"

"Sure, you're all—bam! Lightning man. And 'Watch me fly. I am the eagle that soars—'"

"Shut up, Valdez."

Leo managed a little smile. "Yeah, see. I do annoy you."

Jason held his hands up in surrender. "I apologize for apologizing."

"Thank you." Leo went back to work, but the tension had eased between them. He still looked sad and exhausted—just not quite so angry. "Now go see what Aera's doing. This place gives me the creeps. I need time away from you organic life forms."

Jason didn't know exactly what Leo meant by organic life forms, but moved on anyway.

Aera was, believe it or not, looking at herself in the mirror when Jason came up to her. It was a simple floor-length mirror attached to the wall next to a statue of what looked like a college-aged girl in a nurse uniform.

Aera saw Jason through the reflection as she approached, but she didn't stop looking at herself.

"I said I don't want any," she said. Aera was positioned sideways to the mirror, running her hands down her stomach and sucking in her gut. It took Jason a moment to realize it was to make her stomach appear flatter.

Jason found himself frowning. "You don't have to do that."

"I know," Aera said disinterestedly, but she was still peering at her stomach as if she was trying to figure out how to cut it out. "Medea said I should eat whatever I want since my body is still growing."

"Well, she was right about that," Jason acknowledged. "There's nothing for you to be insecure about. You're...you're beautiful, Aera. Everyone knows that."

"I know," she said again. Jason watched as her reflection warped from confident to wary. Her expression fell as she exhaled the breath she was holding captive in her stomach, as if she had released all her hope with it. "But that's not enough."

"What are you talking about?"

"Annabeth has been rebuilding Mount Olympus since last summer. Silena and Beckendorf had been going out for four summers before they both died. Beckendorf made the Greek fire bombs that destroyed most of the Titans' army. And Luke...Luke died a hero by sacrificing himself so Kronos wouldn't win."

A cold realization ran down Jason's spine. "I thought you killed Luke."

Jason could hear the shaky breath she took.

"He made me do it."

Jason took a step back. An eerie silence hung dryly in the air between them like a hanged man. Jason's mind was reeling. If it hadn't been Aera's will to stop Kronos last summer, did that mean she still wished for the gods to be destroyed? Would she support the giants if the opportunity arose?

Jason wished he knew exactly which side Aera stood on. If it wasn't his, he dreaded what he would have to do.

"Grow old together," Aera said with her back still facing him. "That was my wish. I wanted us to survive long enough to be adults. Settle down. Maybe some of us would even get married. Have kids. Then we could all watch the fireworks show together at camp with our families."

Jason was taken aback by how faintly she spoke. Her voice sounded exactly how Piper's eyes had looked earlier; shattered. When Jason didn't say anything, Aera let out a light scoff. "See? Told you it was stupid."

"Aera," Jason said, turning her around so he could see her properly. "That's not stupid at all. It's..." He tried to find the right word. "Sweet."

"Sweet?" Aera scoffed again. She was facing him now but she still wouldn't meet his eye. "How is that sweet? Everyone you saw in that fountain is either dead or a stranger now. Back then, we only had each other. I wouldn't have traded them for anything in this universe. Not even immortality. We weren't perfect, but we were family. We didn't deserve to fall apart the way we did. And now that they're gone, there's just this voice that keeps repeating itself over and over inside my head asking me, Where did we go wrong?..."

Aera's confident voice faltered. And so did her composure. In the dim light, the tears that squeezed out of her eyes sparkled like pressured diamonds.

Jason stared at Aera indifferently as she started to cry in front of him. Even now, he couldn't completely rule out the possibility of her secretly working with their enemies.

Everything Jason knew about Aera led to the conclusion that she would betray them in the end. Aera was a war criminal. She cared more about her appearance than the fate of the world. Her loyalties lined up so flexibly you could play jump rope with them. She was a living, breathing product of the worst destruction, hatred, and rage in Greek mythology. And judging by the way she carried herself on this quest, there was a whole lot more where that came from.

Aera was too arrogant and too manipulative. She couldn't be cooperative for one minute. She couldn't be trusted. Aera wasn't his ally.

So, Jason did the only thing he could think of.

He pulled her into his arms and hugged her.

Jason could feel Aera's entire body stiffen, but he didn't let go. He held her closer.

Jason had been misguided. He had been too intimidated by how beautiful Aera was. Not only was she so desirable, but she was powerful, too. Three days ago, he never would have imagined that Aera was in such pain. Her past was tormenting her much more than she let on.

Aera acted so untouchable all the time, Jason sometimes forgot she was the same as him. A demigod. And demigods had tragedy written in their blood from the moment they were born. He knew this all too well. There was no hero who was happy.

Jason had never let go of what was his, but still, so much had slipped from his fingers. His memories, his past, and probably a few of his friends, too. He couldn't bear to sit back and watch the world slip from Aera's hands, too.

"You didn't deserve that," Jason murmured in her ear. "Any of it. What happened to you and your family was a tragedy, not a mistake."

It took a few seconds before Aera hugged him back. Eventually, she buried the side of her face against his chest and relaxed.

"Did you really mean what you said back at the mall?" she whispered, a small, wary sound. "That I'm not anything like Medea?"

"You could've left us at the Skywalk," Jason recalled. "You didn't have to volunteer for this quest. And you got us out of a tricky situation at Boreas' castle. You're not as bad as you keep pretending to be."

"I'm not pretending to be anything," Aera said sharply, but there was a hitch in her voice, an edge of doubt. "That's why I'm asking."

"You're not a bad person, Aera," Jason said out loud, a proclamation that needed to be brought into the world. "Not to me."

Aera pulled back and stared him square in the eye. "Then what am I to you?"

Just like that, the oxygen was knocked right out of Jason's lungs. How could he focus when she looked at him like that?

"You're just..." he said, "you."

"What does that mean?" she demanded. "Do you even know me?"

Aera squinted her eyes at Jason doubtfully, but she didn't leave his arms. A thorny rose was still a rose, after all.

Jason couldn't help but smile a little. "I think I'm starting to."