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Then the smell hit her. Hazel didn’t know if her father’s Underworld palace had a cafeteria forzombies, but if it did, that cafeteria would smell like Sciron’s feet.“So!” Sciron wriggled his disgusting toes. “Who wants the left, and who wants the right?”Jason’s face turned almost as white as those feet. “You’ve…got to be kidding.”“Not at all!” Sciron said. “Wash my feet, and we’re done. I’ll send you back down the cliff. Ipromise on the River Styx.”He made that promise so easily, alarm bells rang in Hazel’s mind. Feet. Send you back downthe cliff. Tortoise shell.The story came back to her, all the missing pieces fitting into place. She remembered how Scironkilled his victims.“Could we have a moment?” Hazel asked the bandit.Sciron’s eyes narrowed. “What for?”“Well, it’s a big decision,” she said. “Left foot, right foot. We need to discuss.”She could tell he was smiling under the mask.“Of course,” he said. “I’m so generous, you can have two minutes.”Hazel climbed out of her pile of treasure. She led Jason as far away as she dared—about fiftyfeet down the cliff, which she hoped was out of earshot.“Sciron kicks his victims off the cliff,” she whispered.Jason scowled. “What?”“When you kneel down to wash his feet,” Hazel said. “That’s how he kills you. When you’re offbalance,woozy from the smell of his feet, he’ll kick you over the edge. You’ll fall right into the mouthof his giant turtle.”Jason took a moment to digest that, so to speak. He glanced over the cliff, where the turtle’smassive shell glinted just under the water.“So we have to fight,” Jason said.“Sciron’s too fast,” Hazel said. “He’ll kill us both.”“Then I’ll be ready to fly. When he kicks me over, I’ll float halfway down the cliff. Then whenhe kicks you, I’ll catch you.”Hazel shook her head. “If he kicks you hard and fast enough, you’ll be too dazed to fly. And evenif you can, Sciron’s got the eyes of a marksman. He’ll watch you fall. If you hover, he’ll just shoot youout of the air.”“Then…” Jason clenched his sword hilt. “I hope you have another idea?”A few feet away, Gale the weasel appeared from the bushes. She gnashed her teeth and peered atHazel as if to say, Well? Do you?Hazel calmed her nerves, trying to avoid pulling more gold from the ground. She remembered thedream she’d had of her father Pluto’s voice: The dead see what they believe they will see. So do theliving. That is the secret.She understood what she had to do. She hated the idea worse than she hated that farting weasel,worse than she hated Sciron’s feet.“Unfortunately, yes,” Hazel said. “We have to let Sciron win.”