Empire State Building

I was standing on a narrow stone walkway in the middle of the air. Below me was Manhattan, from the height of an airplane.

From the top of the clouds rose the peak of a mountain, its summit covered with snow. Clinging to the mountainside were dozens of multileveled palaces—a city of mansions. It was an Ancient Greek city, except it wasn’t in ruins.

It was new, and clean, and colorful, the way Athens must’ve looked twenty-five hundred years ago. This place can’t be here, I told myself. How could something like that be anchored above the Empire State Building, in plain sight of millions of people, and not get noticed?

But here it was. And here I was. My trip through Olympus was a daze. I passed some giggling wood nymphs who threw olives at me from their garden and Hawkers in the market offered to sell me ambrosia-on-a-stick. The nine muses were tuning their instruments for a concert in the park while a small crowd gathered—satyrs and naiads and a bunch of good-looking teenagers who might’ve been minor gods and goddesses.

Steps led up to a central courtyard. Past that, the throne room. Room really isn’t the right word. The place made Grand Central Station look like a broom closet.

Twelve thrones, built for beings the size of Hades, were arranged in an inverted U, just like the cabins at Camp Half-Blood. The thrones were empty except for two at the end: the head throne on the right, and the one to its immediate left. Zeus, the Lord of the Gods, wore a dark blue pinstriped suit. He sat on a simple throne of solid platinum. He had a well-trimmed beard, marbled gray and black like a storm cloud. His face was proud and handsome and grim, his eyes rainy gray.

The god sitting next to him was his brother, without a doubt, but he was dressed very differently. He wore leather sandals, khaki Bermuda shorts, and a Tommy Bahama shirt with coconuts and parrots all over it. His hair was black, like mine. His throne was a deep-sea fisherman’s chair.

The gods weren’t moving or speaking, but there was tension in the air, as if they’d just finished an argument.

I approached the fisherman’s throne and knelt at his feet. “Father.” I dared not look up. My heart was racing. If I said the wrong thing, I had no doubt they could blast me into dust.

To my left, Zeus spoke. “Should you not address the master of this house first, boy?”

I kept my head down, and waited.“Peace, brother,” Poseidon finally said. “The boy defers to his father. This is only right.” “You still claim him then?” Zeus asked, menacingly. “You claim this child whom you sired against our sacred oath?”

“I have admitted my wrongdoing,” Poseidon said. “Now I would hear him speak.”

“I have spared him once already,” Zeus grumbled. “Daring to fly through my domain…pah! I should have blasted him out of the sky for his impudence.”

“And risk destroying your own master bolt?” Poseidon asked calmly.

“Let us hear him out, brother.”

Zeus grumbled some more. “I shall listen,” he decided. “Then I shall make up my mind whether or not to cast this boy down from Olympus.”

“Address Lord Zeus, boy,” Poseidon told me. “Tell him your story.”

So I told Zeus everything, just as it had happened. I took out the metal cylinder, which began sparking in the Sky God’s presence, and laid it at his feet.

Zeus opened his palm. The lightning bolt flew into it. As he closed his fist, the metallic points flared with electricity.

“I sense the boy tells the truth,” Zeus muttered. “But that Ares would do such a thing…it is most unlike him.”

“He is proud and impulsive,” Poseidon said. “It runs in the family.”

“You have done me a service, boy. Few heroes could have accomplished as much.”

“I had help, sir,” I said. “Grover Underwood and Annabeth Chase—”

“To show you my thanks, I shall spare your life. I do not trust you, Perseus Jackson. I do not like what your arrival means for the future of Olympus. But for the sake of peace in the family, I shall let you live.

“You must go, child. But first, know that your mother has returned.”

I stared at him, completely stunned. “My mother?”

“You will find her at home. Hades sent her when you recovered his helm. Even the Lord of Death pays his debts.”