the-heroes-of-olympus-04-the-house-of-hades-rick-riordan-1

wait! I don’t have a dwarf-tracking GPS—or my tool belt!”“Fine,” Jason grumbled. He glanced up at the ship as if to get his bearings, then pointed acrossthe piazza. “The ballista fired the first dwarf in that direction, I think. Come on.”They waded through a lake of pigeons, then maneuvered down a side street of clothing stores andgelato shops. The sidewalks were lined with white columns covered in graffiti. A few panhandlersasked for change (Leo didn’t know Italian, but he got the message loud and clear).He kept patting his waist, hoping his tool belt would magically reappear. It didn’t. He tried notto freak, but he’d come to depend on that belt for almost everything. He felt like somebody had stolenone of his hands.“We’ll find it,” Jason promised.Usually, Leo would have felt reassured. Jason had a talent for staying levelheaded in a crisis,and he’d gotten Leo out of plenty of bad scrapes. Today, though, all Leo could think about was thestupid fortune cookie he had opened in Rome. The goddess Nemesis had promised him help, and he’dgotten it: the code to activate the Archimedes sphere. At the time, Leo had had no choice but to use itif he wanted to save his friends—but Nemesis had warned that her help came with a price.Leo wondered if that price would ever be paid. Percy and Annabeth were gone. The ship washundreds of miles off course, heading toward an impossible challenge. Leo’s friends were countingon him to beat a terrifying giant. And now he didn’t even have his tool belt or his Archimedes sphere.He was so absorbed with feeling sorry for himself that he didn’t notice where they were untilJason grabbed his arm. “Check it out.”Leo looked up. They’d arrived in a smaller piazza. Looming over them was a huge bronze statueof a buck-naked Neptune.“Ah, jeez.” Leo averted his eyes. He really didn’t need to see a godly groin this early in themorning.The sea god stood on a big marble column in the middle of a fountain that wasn’t working(which seemed kind of ironic). On either side of Neptune, little winged Cupid dudes were sitting,kind of chillin’, like, What’s up? Neptune himself (avoid the groin) was throwing his hip to one sidein an Elvis Presley move. He gripped his trident loosely in his right hand and stretched his left handout like he was blessing Leo, or possibly attempting to levitate him.“Some kind of clue?” Leo wondered.Jason frowned. “Maybe, maybe not. There are statues of the gods all over the place in Italy. I’djust feel better if we ran across Jupiter. Or Minerva. Anybody but Neptune, really.”Leo climbed into the dry fountain. He put his hand on the statue’s pedestal, and a rush ofimpressions surged through his fingertips. He sensed Celestial bronze gears, magical levers, springs,and pistons.“It’s mechanical,” he said. “Maybe a doorway to the dwarfs’ secret lair?”“Ooooo!” shrieked a nearby voice. “Secret lair?”“I want a secret lair!” yelled another voice from above.Jason stepped back, his sword ready. Leo almost got whiplash trying to look in two places atonce. The red-furred dwarf in the cowboy hat was sitting about thirty feet away at the nearest cafétable, sipping an espresso held by his monkey-like foot. The brown-furred dwarf in the green bowler