CHAPTER EIGHT:
DEAD AND GONE

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ANNAIS ALREADY HATED THE sons of Boreas. An hour or so after Leo took his nap, they arrived in Quebec. The sun was a faint yellow on the horizon, casting the city below them in warm shadows that did nothing to combat the snow dusted across the asphalt and roofs of houses. In the centre of it all was a castle, a towering mansion made of red brick with a green gabled roof. Normally, Annais would've loved the sight of it, having been fascinated with history ever since she was a child and Hea would tell her stories from her favourite ancient societies. Now, however, she frowned at the scenery, an uneasy feeling in her stomach. She wanted to reach for Jason's hand again, but she stopped herself.

"Please tell me that's Quebec and not Santa's workshop," Leo groaned as Mel woke him up.

"Yeah, Quebec City," Piper confirmed with fascination. "One of the oldest cities in North America. Founded around sixteen hundred or so?"

Leo turned to look at her, an eyebrow raised. "Your dad do a movie about that too?"

Piper blushed and stuck her tongue out at him, though he didn't seem phased as he grinned and ran a dirt-encrusted hand through his curls. Annais wrinkled her nose at him, unsure how Mel seemed so enamoured by the messy boy. He was more like an annoying younger brother to her, but if he made Melanie happy, then she supposed she could look past the grease.

"I read sometimes, okay?" Piper said when everyone turned to hear her response. "Just because Aphrodite claimed me doesn't mean I have to be an airhead."

"That's the spirit," Ezra chuckled with mirth. "'Cause if you were anything like Drew, we'd have a problem, McLean."

"Damn, you're both so feisty," Leo snickered as Piper blushed again. "So since you know so much, Beauty Queen, what's that castle?"

"A hotel, I think."

He gave a laugh of disbelief. "No way."

"I feel like you're about to be proven wrong," Annais smirked at the back of his head.

And, as she suspected, he was. The warm lights outside the grand entrance of the castle illuminated a long red carpet housing several doormen, valet and porters wheeling in bags on sleek golden trays. Around them, people were making their way inside dressed in elegant suits, rich satin dresses and winter cloaks. Annais gaped at the sight; that was quite the hotel.

"The North Wind is staying in a hotel?" Leo frowned. "That can't be--"

Behind Annais, Jason shifted suddenly, eyes locked above her head. "Heads up, guys, we've got company."

Rising above the hotel's tower were two winged figures. They were angels dressed in dark clothing, draped in shadows with swords to replace their halos. Instinctively, Annais slipped off her ring and held it tight in her palm, eyeing their weapons warily. Beneath them, Festus showed the same hesitancy, wings beating unevenly with talons bared. Leo reached out to pat him on the head, sending an uneasy glance at the others as he chuckled.

"Steady, boy."

"I swear to Hades, Valdez, if this oversized puppy blows fire at them..."

"He won't," Leo was quick to assure Ezra. The girl in question was shifting around uneasily, feeling the growing rumble of Festus' distrust beneath them. She tugged at the hairpin holding back her dark locks, Annais' eyes growing wide as they caught sight of the familiar silver pin. Penelope... how long had Ezra had that and not told her or Mel? Did she think they didn't deserve to know?

"I don't like this," Jason murmured, effectively cutting off her thoughts. "They look like storm spirits."

Fortunately, they weren't. As they flew closer, Annais noticed the solid nature of their pale skin, the distinct icy white hair and feathery purple wings that sprouted from their back like a venus fly trap. They looked similar in facial structure but that was where the similarities ended --children of Boreas, yes, but not twins. One of them could've been the size of Festus, wearing a bright red hockey jersey and black leather cleats over fading grey sweatpants. The other, on the other hand, looked like he could be a backup singer for the band ACDC. His hair was long and styled into an 80s kind of mullet. He wore pointy leather shoes, designer pants that were way too tight to be appropriate, along with a disgusting shirt made of hot pink satin that had the top three buttons open to expose his chest. Just the sight of him made Annais feel dizzy, but not the good kind.

"I think I might hurl if I keep looking at that top," she murmured to Jason, who tried and failed to stifle a chuckle as the angels pulled up in front of the dragon and hovered there curiously.

The first one gave a grunt and shook his head. "No clearance."

"'Scuse me?" Leo frowned, leaning back into Mel in an almost unnoticeable search for assurance.

"You have no flight plan on file," explained the other in a French accent so thick it could've been fake. "This is restricted airspace."

"Destroy them?" his brother questioned with a gap-toothed grin.

"Well, that went from zero to a hundred real quick," Ezra drawled. "Why don't we hold off on the destroying for just a second?"

At the same time, the dragon began to hiss steam, and Jason and Annais summoned their swords. Leo put a hand out to stop them, exclaiming, "Hold on! Let's have some manners here, ladies and gents! Can I at least find out who has the honour of destroying me?"

"Now is not the time for jokes, Leonidas," Annais scowled but her words -- even the use of his full name -- went ignored as he stared at the two.

"I am Cal," hockey boy grunted. Annais noted with a raised brow that he seemed very proud of himself, like it had taken him forever and then some to remember those three words.

"That's short for Calais," the love boy explained with an eye roll. "Sadly, my brother cannot say words with more than two syllables--"

"Pizza! Hockey! Destroy!" Cal offered with that same proud smile. Annais would've liked him was it not for the fact he wanted to destroy them.

"--which includes his own name."

"I am Cal," he repeated, this time with a bit more confidence. "And this is Zethes, my brother."

Zethes; what an arrogant name for an arrogant boy. Annais had caught him looking at her and the other girls several times already, his eyes lingering too long to be justifiable. It was clear he thought he had a chance with at least one of them; what a pity he was about to be shot down in flames.

"Wow, that was almost three sentences, man," Leo cheered. "Way to go!"

The others exchanged wary but slightly amused glances, unsure if he was being serious or not. Zethes, on the other hand, seemed to take it as a joke and shook his head.

"Stupid buffoon," he grumbled and nudged his brother's arm. "They make fun of you! But no matter. I am Zethes, which is short for Zethes. And the ladies--" He winked at the group, eyes darting between Piper, Ezra and Annais with keen interest. "They can call me anything they like. Perhaps one of them -- or all three if they each want a slice of Zethes -- would like to have dinner with a famous demigod before we must destroy you?"

"I'd rather fall off this dragon into an ocean and drown," Ezra deadpanned.

Zethes' nostrils flared, but Piper giggled nervously in an attempt to draw the attention away. "That's a... truly horrifying offer."

"It is no problem," he preened under the attention. "We are very romantic people, we Boreads."

"Boreads?" Jason perked up at the familiar name. "Do you mean, like, the sons of Boreas?"

"I thought that was obvious by now," Annais muttered, shrugging with what could almost be considered a teasing smile when he narrowed his eyes and poked her side gently. Fuck, since when did she start feeling even remotely comfortable around him, so much so that she didn't bat an eye when he touched her? Just a few days ago, she was ready to throw him off the Grand Canyon. Now, she was holding his hand and sharing smiles, the sudden 360 was enough to give anybody whiplash.

"Ah, so you've heard of us!" Meanwhile, Zethes was making a show at the mention of his father, pleased to see that Jason had recognised them. "We are our father's gatekeepers! So you understand that we cannot have unauthorised people flying in his airspace on creaky dragons, scaring the silly mortal people. Which is sadly why, unless this is an emergency landing, we will have to destroy you painfully."

"Oh, brilliant," Mel let out a chuckle, hands tugging nervously at the back of Leo's shirt. "So not just regular destroying, that's nice."

"Wait," Piper protested as the two went to raise their swords. "This is an emergency landing!"

"Aw," Cal pouted in disappointment.

Zethes studied Piper for a moment, lips pursed. "How does the pretty girl decide this is an emergency then?"

"We have to see Boreas, it's totally urgent," she explained. He continued to watch her, uncertain, and so she plastered on her prettiest smile and batted her lashes hopefully. "... please?"

"Well," he murmured, looking slightly dazed as he ran a clammy hand through his hair. Annais could see Piper's charm starting to work on him. It even sent a calming shiver down her own spine, but he still tried to fight. "I hate to disappoint a lovely lady, but you see... my sister, she would have an avalanche if we allowed you--"

"A-and our dragon is malfunctioning," she added, searching for any excuse that would convince him. "It could crash any minute."

Almost like he knew he was being spoken about, Festus shuddered and groaned, turning his head to helpfully splatter oil on the pavement below. The six sat in tense silence as Zethes frowned, clearly buying the lie. Then, with one more glance at the girls, he turned to Piper and sighed.

"Well, you are pretty," he reasoned. "I mean, you're right. A malfunctioning dragon... this could be an emergency."

"Destroy them later?" Cal asked with a hopeful smile.

Zethes rolled his eyes at him, continuing, "It will take some explaining. Father has not been kind to visitors lately. But yes. Come, faulty dragon people, follow us."

With slight reluctance, the brothers sheathed their swords back into their holders and picked bright orange flashlights from their belts. They gestured impatiently for the group to follow then swooped towards the hotel's tower, murmuring words to each other that the six couldn't quite make out.

Leo clapped his hands together with a grin. "I love these guys! Follow them?" But the others were far more hesitant, Annais especially. Something didn't feel right, and it wasn't just Zethes' creepy glances and Cal's eagerness to kill them. The mention of their sister... but they didn't have a choice, not if they needed to speak to Boreas. They'd just have to watch themselves, stick together at all times.

"I guess," Jason hummed. It took him a moment and confirmation from Ezra (Annais tried not to let that annoy her) before he spoke. "We're here now. But I wonder why Boreas hasn't been kind to visitors."

"Please, he hasn't met us," Leo dismissed his hesitancy with a chuckle.

"How fortunate for him," Ezra muttered.

Leo just laughed at her, seemingly amused by the affronted expression that replaced her impatient stare. "You love me, really. Now come on, Festus, after those flashlights."

By the time the dragon had caught up with them, Zethes and Cal were shooting straight for the green gabled roof and weren't slowing down. From what Annais could see over Mel and Leo's shoulders, there was no upper entrance into the castle, but just as her nerves began to rise and she considered ordering Leo to turn them around and leave, the surface slid open to reveal an entrance double the size of Festus lined with icicles.

"Well, this cannot be good," Jason muttered in her ear, hot breath fanning across her neck.

"Just, stay on guard," she whispered back, pushing her ring back onto its allocated finger but keeping it close.

They landed in what must've been the hotel's penthouse suite, only instead of the warmth that welcomed the mortals downstairs, the lush oriental carpets and drapes hanging along the floor to ceiling windows were encased in sharp shards of ice. At the back of the room was a large staircase leading up to an array of corridors hidden from view, but undoubtedly covered in the same deadly frost. It made Annais uncomfortable, and she wasn't the only one. Mel followed Leo to the ground warily, looking for Annais the moment she and the others joined them and grabbing hold of her hand. Ezra had her cane in one hand and the chord of her harness in the other, muttering to herself in displeasure as a light layer of snow crunched beneath her boots. She glared in the general direction of the roof, almost like she sensed the pointy icicles threatening to drop down on them at any second.

The quicker they got out of there, the better.

"Okay, fix the thermostat in here and I would totally move in," Leo grinned.

"Not me," Jason disagreed, unclipping Ezra from his jeans and making sure she was okay before turning back to the boy. "Something feels wrong. Something up there..."

"Good to know I'm not the only one that feels that way," Annais breathed out, shivering slightly as a gust of wind enveloped the room. At the sudden gust, Festus gave a shiver and snorted flames, his natural heat warring against the cold.

"No, no, no!" Zethes snapped and marched over to them. "The dragon must be deactivated. We can't have fire in here. The heat ruins my hair."

"Yes, because that's the biggest problem with having a fire-breathing dragon in your room made of ice," Ezra muttered as she circled the space, a pale hand gliding along the ice-encrusted furniture with disgust.

Zethes reached for Festus, but was stopped by the dragon huffing in warning and Leo raising up his hands. "The dragon's a little touchy about the whole deactivation concept, but I've got a better solution."

"Destroy?" Cal suggested eagerly.

"Oh, for the love of Hades," Annais sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. She was already impatient with them and it hadn't even been five minutes.

"Man, you've got to stop with the destroy talk," Leo insisted, ushering the Boreads away and turning to Festus. "Just wait."

"Leo," Piper began nervously, shuffling past Mel to stand at the boy's side. "What are you--"

"Watch and learn, Beauty Queen," he winked at her, hooking his fingers behind the dragon's left foreleg and messing with the hidden switches and wires for a moment. "When I was repairing Festus last night, I found all kinds of buttons. Some, you do not want to know what they do. But others... ah, here we go!"

Last night; it seemed so long ago since the events of the fire pit occurred, since everything was revealed all at once. Jason's parentage, Piper's mother, the Great Prophecy, the Min Prophecy, the one they were in now; one after the other, until Annais almost got whiplash just from the memory. By the time Jason nudged her out of her thoughts, all sixty feet of Festus had somehow collapsed and compacted into a rectangular hunk of metal the size of a suitcase.

"Ta-da!" Leo announced. "The world's heaviest carry-on bag!"

"That's impossible," Jason breathed out, moving to get a closer look at the 'suitcase.' "Something that big couldn't--"

Ezra snorted and went to remark but was interrupted by Zethes shouting, him and Cal both drawing their swords with their sights set on Leo. The air in the room shifted. Leo raised his hands with wide eyes as Annais squeezed her ring and held up her sword and Ezra followed suit with one of the charms on her bracelet. Even Mel produced a dagger from her combat boots, her chipped black nail-polish standing out against the bronze metal.

"Okay, what'd I do?" Leo asked, gulping when Zethes shoved the point of his sword against his chest. "Hey, just stay calm, guys! If it bothers you that much, I don't have to take the dragon as a carry-on--"

His eyes flickered to Annais, who had stepped forward when Zethes' sword so much as appeared in front of Leo's face, her own weapon pressed to the Boread's side as she hissed, "Drop the weapon, now."

"You don't scare me, girl," he hissed back, faltering but refusing to look away from Leo. "Who are you? A child of the South Wind spying on us?"

"What? No!" the boy exclaimed. "Son of Hephaestus! You know, friendly blacksmith... no harm to anyone."

Cal shook his head in disbelief, appearing beside his brother to sneer down at Leo. "Smell fire. Fire is bad."

Annais watched on as Leo's face fell. He was hiding something. If she didn't know it before, she did now. He looked like a kid who was caught with his hand in the cookie jar, gnawing on his lower lip as he struggled to find the right words to stop them from stabbing him. "Oh, yeah, well... um, my clothes are kind of singed, and I've been working with oil, and--"

"No." Zethes' sword was pressed through the material of Leo's shirt now, spreading a layer of ice across the boy's tanned skin. Mel was quick to notice this, reaching for another dagger strapped to her thigh and sharing a knowing look with Annais. They could outnumber the brothers if needed, they just had to worry about who else might be lurking in the shadows. "We can smell fire, demigod. We assumed it was the creaky dragon but now the dragon is a suitcase. And I still smell fire, on you."

"Hey, look, I don't know--" Leo turned to the others desperately, eyes locked with Jason's. "Guys, a little help?"

Jason approached where Annais stood, hands raised in a weak attempt to diffuse the tension. His eyes implored her to lower the sword, but she refused as she poked it at Zethes' side again. One wrong move and she'd get to him before he could hurt Leo. Out of the two, he was the main threat, Cal was more likely to stab himself than one of them.

"Look, there's been a mistake," he insisted. "Leo isn't a fire guy. Tell them, Leo, tell them you're not a fire guy."

"Um..."

"What do you mean 'um' Valdez?" Ezra groaned. She'd wandered over to Mel's side, the two conversing in hushed whispers. Ezra needed to be tethered to someone (mentally, it was a whole fighting technique Annais didn't quite understand but it helped her, that much she knew) and Mel was her best bet considering the icy (hah) tension between her and their other cousin.

"Hey, Zethes," Piper giggled, plastering on a dazzling smile as she caught his attention. "We're all friends here, right? Just put down your swords and let's talk."

"The girl is pretty," he admitted after a moment of contemplation. "And of course she cannot help being attracted to my amazingness--"

"Oh please, I might not be able to see you but even I know that's a lie," Ezra scoffed, though for once she went ignored as he continued his spiel.

"But sadly, I cannot romance her this time."

"Destroy him now?"

"Say one more word about destroying us and I'll stab you,"