the_blood_of_olympus_-_rick_riordan

cabinets – Chico, Harpo and Groucho – took up most of the room. Dozens of power tools hung on the
walls. The worktable was piled with photocopied blueprints from On Spheres, the forgotten
Archimedes text Leo had liberated from an underground workshop in Rome.
Even if he wanted to sleep in his cabin, it would’ve been too cramped and dangerous. He preferred
to bed down in the engine room, where the constant hum of machinery helped him fall asleep.
Besides, ever since his time on the island of Ogygia, he had become fond of camping out. A bedroll
on the floor was all he needed.
His cabin was only for storage … and for working on his most difficult projects.
He pulled his keys from his tool belt. He didn’t really have time, but he unlocked Groucho’s
middle drawer and stared at the two precious objects inside: a bronze astrolabe he’d picked up in
Bologna, and a fist-sized chunk of crystal from Ogygia. Leo hadn’t figured out how to put the two
things together yet, and it was driving him crazy.
He’d been hoping to get some answers when they visited Ithaca. After all, it was the home of
Odysseus, the dude who had constructed the astrolabe. But, judging from what Jason had said, those
ruins hadn’t held any answers for him – just a bunch of ill-tempered ghouls and ghosts.
Anyway, Odysseus never got the astrolabe to work. He hadn’t had a crystal to use as a homing
beacon. Leo did. He would have to succeed where the cleverest demigod of all time had failed.
Just Leo’s luck. A super-hot immortal girl was waiting for him on Ogygia, but he couldn’t figure
out how to wire a stupid chunk of rock into the three-thousand-year-old navigation device. Some
problems even duct tape couldn’t solve.
Leo closed the drawer and locked it.
His eyes drifted to the bulletin board above his worktable, where two pictures hung side by side.
The first was the old crayon drawing he’d made when he was seven years old – a diagram of a flying
ship he’d seen in his dreams. The second was a charcoal sketch Hazel had recently made for him.
Hazel Levesque … that girl was something. As soon as Leo rejoined the crew in Malta, she’d
known right away that Leo was hurting inside. The first chance she got, after all that mess in the
House of Hades, she’d marched into Leo’s cabin and said, ‘Spill.’
Hazel was a good listener. Leo told her the whole story. Later that evening, Hazel came back with
her sketch pad and her charcoal pencils. ‘Describe her,’ she insisted. ‘Every detail.’
It felt a little weird helping Hazel make a portrait of Calypso – as if he were talking to a police
artist: Yes, officer, that’s the girl who stole my heart! Sounded like a freaking country song.
But describing Calypso had been easy. Leo couldn’t close his eyes without seeing her.
Now her likeness gazed back at him from the bulletin board – her almond-shaped eyes, her pouty
lips, her long straight hair swept over one shoulder of her sleeveless dress. He could almost smell
her cinnamon fragrance. Her knitted brow and the downward turn of her mouth seemed to say, Leo
Valdez, you are so full of it.
Dang, he loved that woman!
Leo had pinned her portrait next to the drawing of the Argo II to remind himself that sometimes
visions do come true. As a little kid, he’d dreamed about a flying ship. Eventually he built it. Now he
would build a way to get back to Calypso.