The House of Hades

Hazel is amazed Arion came to help her because the Mediterranean is dangerous for demigods and their allies. She summons Arion a gold nugget to eat because she can extract precious metal from the earth. Leo is concerned because Arion wants to take Hazel to a Roman temple in a tornado. Hazel knows she must go because this is her chance to lead and save her friends, so she lets Arion take her.

Arion takes Hazel through a stone archway into a courtyard with a crossroad leading to three different doorways obscured by the Mist. Hazel slides off Arion, and he runs away. Hecate, goddess of magic, appears with two torches in her hands, a black dog, and a polecat.

Hecate offers her help as the goddess of crossroads because Hazel stands at one. Hazel compares Hecate to Janus, the god of doorways, but Hecate’s choices aren’t black and white. Hecate reminds Hazel that Gaea is supposed to wake soon.

In one door, Hazel sees Roman and Greek demigods fighting each other at Camp Half-Blood while she tries to stop them. In another door, the Argo II explodes from boulders thrown by the numina. In the last door, an unconscious Leo falls through the clouds, Frank staggers through a tunnel in a blood-soaked shirt, Hazel struggles to break through a magical web, and Percy and Annabeth lay unmoving in a doorway. The last vision is the only one where Percy and Annabeth survive, and it’s the most dangerous.

The Argo II must go to a secret mountain pass in northern Italy, to the town of Bologna to find two brothers, Passalos and Akmon, with a treasure to help them in the House of Hades, to Venice, and then finally cross the Adriatic Sea to Greece. Hecate is the goddess of the Mist and says Hazel must learn to use the Mist to defeat an enemy in the House of Hades. If Hazel defeats her enemy, Hecate will join her for the final battle. Hecate will send Gale to check her progress. Hazel agrees to go north but chooses to make her own path to stop Gaea, rescue Percy and Annabeth, and stop the war. On the ship, Hazel tells Leo and Nico about Hecate’s path and feels different. Leo sets the course.

Annabeth and Percy hug as they fall through a tunnel to Tartarus. Annabeth despairs because her wits can’t save her from death by falling. When the tunnel turns into a cavern, Annabeth sees a river beneath them and tells Percy. Percy yells, and they fall into a geyser.

The impact separates Annabeth from Percy. Voices tell her to give up, but Percy pulls her to the surface. The river drains Percy, and Annabeth grabs him as he starts to sink. They are in the River Cocytus, or lamentation, and it wants them to give up. Percy makes a joke, and Annabeth laughs sending a shockwave through the air and dispensing the voices. They collapse on the riverbank. Annabeth realizes her backpack and the celestial bronze dagger she’s had since she was seven are gone. She helps Percy up, and they walk until they find the blue Fiat that smashed Arachne into Tartarus, who is nowhere to be found. Annabeth is freezing, and her cuts are still bleeding despite their fast-healing blood. She realizes Tartarus will kill them unless they find the River of Fire.

They climb down a cliff and stagger to the edge of the Phlegethon, the River of Fire. Annabeth insists they drink because it flows from Hades’s realm to allow the wicked to endure torture, the Underworld equivalent of ambrosia and nectar, which demigods eat to heal on earth. Percy and Annabeth drink it and heal. They plan how to make it to the Doors of Death to meet their friends and close the Doors to stop Gaea’s forces from entering the world. Annabeth is overwhelmed by the impossibility of their task. Arachne attacks Annabeth, but Percy draws Riptide and kills Arachne. They head downstream toward the more dangerous parts of Tartarus.

After walking for a bit, Percy and Annabeth hear voices and hide. The voices discuss the journey to the Doors of Death. Annabeth and Percy recognize the voice of Kelli, an empousai, vampire, who Annabeth and Percy defeated in a previous battle. Annabeth hates empousai because they use charmspeak and the Mist to manipulate mortals. Percy and Annabeth follow the monsters since they know the way to the Doors of Death.