The House of Hades

Hecate’s polecat Gale appears on Hazel’s chest two nights after Venice, so Hazel visits Coach Hedge because he can talk to animals. She overhears him tearfully sending an Iris-message. Gale communicates to Coach Hedge that she’s here to see how it goes. Hazel realizes she is about to be tested and is frustrated because she has been unsuccessfully trying to manipulate the Mist. In her dreams, her father Pluto told her, “The dead see what they believe they will see. So do the living. That is the secret” (190). Hazel doesn’t know what it means, and her dreams get worse with the sorceress she must defeat taunting her while her friends die. Frank checks on her, and they worry about Nico, who spends all his time perched on the foremast and refuses to use Percy’s cabin. Frank asks about Gale, and the ship lurches.

Frank helps Hazel up from the deck where they see a turtle the size of an island eating the Argo II. They try to stop it, but nothing works. Nico sees a strait and tells Leo to go there. Leo starts the jet engines, and they shoot across the water toward the strait, but the turtle gains on them.