The Lost Hero

Piper goes to the campfire where she expects her mother to claim her. A camper notes the recent strange occurrences and asks Rachel if the “Great Prophecy” has started. She confirms that it has. She reveals the first two lines of it, and in a trance, Jason adds two more: “Seven half-bloods shall answer the call. /To storm or fire the world must fall. / And oath to keep with a final breath. /And goes bear arms to the Doors of Death” (122-23). Rachel asserts that Jason must go on a quest. Someone asks why Jason hasn’t been claimed, and he calls down lightning before asserting his father is “Jupiter…I mean, Zeus” (127). Rachel issues another prophecy that says, “the forge and the dove shall break the cage”: children of Hephaestus and Aphrodite will aid Jason (131). This refers to Jason’s companions on the quest, and he realizes quickly that Leo must be the first. Piper volunteers to be the second. Drew mocks her, until Aphrodite claims Piper and blesses her with unreal beauty.

Leo leaves the campfire. He has promised that he will find a way for himself, Jason, and Piper to fly on their quest. He is suddenly sure that Hera and his old babysitter, Tia Callida, are one in the same. He has memories of his babysitter putting him in furnaces and asking him to kill snakes. Leo also thinks back to the way his mother died: a woman who looked similar to Tia Callida arrived and told him that one day, her children would try to wake her. She stated that Leo was destined to fight them—and that she couldn’t threaten him, but could certainly kill his mother. His hands defensively caught fire. He woke up in an ambulance and heard of his mother’s death. Afterwards, he was an orphan, always on the run between homes. As he walks through the woods, he hears Hera’s voice: “It wasn’t your fault, little hero. Our enemy wakes. It’s time to stop running” (143). He vows to defeat the woman who killed his mother.

Leo finds a dragon trap baited with a barrel of oil and hot sauce. The dragon approaches and tries to immolate him. They are both caught up in the trap, but Leo frees himself, climbs on the dragon, and inspects his machinery. He sees the control disk is corroded and cleans it. He fixes the dragon and names him Festus. He realizes that the dragon does not have wings. Together, they bound through the woods and find an abandoned storehouse, Bunker 9. It is filled with weapons, including a diagram for a flying ship that Leo has seen in his dreams. No one has been inside the storehouse since 1864. Leo sets out to build wings for Festus.