The Lost Hero

“Wow,” he said. “I can’t believe Leo didn’t want to see this.”

“Actually, I didn’t invite him,” Piper said casually.

Jason smiled. “Oh, yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. You ever feel like three would be a crowd?”

“Yeah,” Jason admitted. “Like right now. You know how much trouble we’d get in if we got caught up here?”

“Oh, I’d make up something,” Piper said. “I can be very persuasive. So you want to dance, or what?”

He laughed. His eyes were amazing, and his smile was even better in the starlight. “With no music. At night. On a rooftop. Sounds dangerous.”

“I’m a dangerous girl.”

“That, I can believe.”

He stood and offered her his hand. They slow danced a few steps, but it quickly turned into a kiss. Piper almost couldn’t kiss him again, because she was too busy smiling.

Then her dream changed—or maybe she was dead in the Underworld—because she found herself back in Medea’s department store.

“Please let this be a dream,” she murmured, “and not my eternal punishment.”

“No, dear,” said a woman’s honey-sweet voice. “No punishment.”

Piper turned, afraid she’d see Medea, but a different woman stood next to her, browsing through the fifty- percent-off rack.

The woman was gorgeous—shoulder-length hair, a graceful neck, perfect features, and an amazing figure tucked into jeans and a snowy white top.

Piper had seen her share of actresses—most of her dad’s dates were knockout beautiful—but this lady was different. She was elegant without trying, fashionable without effort, stunning without makeup. After seeing Aeolus with his silly face-lifts and cosmetics, Piper thought this woman looked even more astonishing. There was nothing artificial about her.

Yet as Piper watched, the woman’s appearance changed. Piper couldn’t decide the color of her eyes, or the exact color of her hair. The woman became more and more beautiful, as if her image were aligning itself to Piper’s thoughts—getting as close as possible to Piper’s ideal of beauty.

“Aphrodite,” Piper said. “Mom?”

The goddess smiled. “You’re only dreaming, my sweet. If anyone wonders, I wasn’t here. Okay?”

“I—” Piper wanted to ask a thousand questions, but they all crowded together in her head.

Aphrodite held up a turquoise dress. Piper thought it looked awesome, but the goddess made a face. “This isn’t my color, is it? Pity, it’s cute. Medea really does have some lovely things here.”

“This—this building exploded,” Piper stammered. “I saw it.”

“Yes,” Aphrodite agreed. “I suppose that’s why everything’s on sale. Just a memory, now. And I’m sorry to pull you out of your other dream. Much more pleasant, I know.”

Piper’s face burned. She didn’t know whether she was more angry or embarrassed, but mostly she felt hollow with disappointment. “It wasn’t real. It never even happened. So why do I remember it so vividly?”

Aphrodite smiled. “Because you are my daughter, Piper. You see possibilities much more vividly than others. You see what could be. And it still might be—don’t give up. Unfortunately—” The goddess gestured around the department store. “You have other trials to face, first. Medea will be back, along with many other enemies. The Doors of Death have opened.”

“What do you mean?”

Aphrodite winked at her. “You’re a smart one, Piper. You know.”

A cold feeling settled over her. “The sleeping woman, the one Medea and Midas called their patron. She’s managed to open a new entrance from the Underworld. She’s letting the dead escape back into the world.”

“Mmm. And not just any dead. The worst, the most powerful, the ones most likely to hate the gods.”

“The monsters are coming back from Tartarus the same way,” Piper guessed. “That’s why they don’t stay disintegrated.”

“Yes. Their patron, as you call her, has a special relationship with Tartarus, the spirit of the pit.” Aphrodite held up a gold sequined top. “No … this would make me look ridiculous.”

Piper laughed uneasily. “You? You can’t look anything but perfect.”

“You’re sweet,” Aphrodite said. “But beauty is about finding the right fit, the most natural fit. To be perfect, you have to feel perfect about yourself—avoid trying to be something you’re not. For a goddess, that’s especially hard. We can change so easily.”

“My dad thought you were perfect.” Piper’s voice quavered. “He never got over you.”

Aphrodite’s gaze became distant. “Yes … Tristan. Oh, he was amazing. So gentle and kind, funny and handsome. Yet he had so much sadness inside.”

“Could we please not talk about him in the past tense?”

“I’m sorry, dear. I didn’t want to leave your father, of course. It’s always so hard, but it was for the best. If he had realized who I actually was—”

“Wait—he didn’t know you were a goddess?”

“Of course not.” Aphrodite sounded offended. “I wouldn’t do that to him. For most mortals, that’s simply too hard to accept. It can ruin their lives! Ask your friend Jason—lovelyboy, by the way. His poor mother was destroyed when she found out she’d fallen in love with Zeus. No, it was much better Tristan believed that I was a mortal woman who left him without explanation. Better a bittersweet memory than an immortal, unattainable goddess. Which brings me to an important matter …”

She opened her hand and showed Piper a glowing glass vial of pink liquid. “This is one of Medea’s kinder mixtures. It erases only recent memories. When you save your father, if you can save him, you should give him this.”

Piper couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You want me to dope my dad? You want me to make him forget what he’s been through?”

Aphrodite held up the vial. The liquid cast a pink glow over her face. “Your father acts confident, Piper, but he walks a fine line between two worlds. He’s worked his whole life to deny the old stories about gods and spirits, yet he fears those stories might be real. He fears that he’s shut off an important part of himself, and someday it will destroy him. Now he’s been captured by a giant. He’s living a nightmare. Even if he survives … if he has to spend the rest of his life with those memories, knowing that gods and spirits walk the earth, it will shatter him. That’s what our enemy hopes for. She will break him, and thus break your spirit.”

Piper wanted to shout that Aphrodite was wrong. Her dad was the strongest person she knew. Piper would never take his memories the way Hera had taken Jason’s.

But somehow she couldn’t stay angry with Aphrodite. She remembered what her dad had said months ago, at the beach at Big Sur: If I really believed in Ghost Country, or animal spirits, or Greek gods... I don’t think I could sleep at night. I’d always be looking for somebody to blame.

Now Piper wanted someone to blame, too.

“Who is she?” Piper demanded. “The one controlling the giants?”

Aphrodite pursed her lips. She moved to the next rack, which held battered armor and ripped togas, but Aphrodite looked through them as if they were designer outfits.

“You have a strong will,” she mused. “I’m never given much credit among the gods. My children are laughed at. They’re dismissed as conceited and shallow.”

“Some of them are.”

Aphrodite laughed. “Granted. Perhaps I’m conceited and shallow, too, sometimes. A girl has to indulge. Oh, this is nice.” She picked up a burned and stained bronze breastplate and held it up for Piper to see. “No?”

“No,” Piper said. “Are you going to answer my question?”

“Patience, my sweet,” the goddess said. “My point is that love is the most powerful motivator in the world. It spurs mortals to greatness. Their noblest, bravest acts are done for love.”

Piper pulled out her dagger and studied its reflective blade. “Like Helen starting the Trojan War?”

“Ah, Katoptris.” Aphrodite smiled. “I’m glad you found it. I get so much flack for that war, but honestly, Paris and Helen were a cute couple. And the heroes of that war are immortal now—at least in the memories of men. Love