I had never been comfortable with heights, but as we fell through the air, the wind hollering in our ears, I felt strangely at peace. I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. All this time, all these years, all the monsters, titans, and people I had fought and survived, and I was going to die by falling out of the sky.

I squeezed my eyes shut and mentally prepared myself for the splat but with a rustle of feathers, something swooped under us and cushioned our landing with soft, downy feathers.

I blinked my eyes open in surprise and stared at the huge copper gryffin who then shapeshifted back into a grinning Alex.

"That worked, didn't it?" she said, plucking a glossy feather out of her hair.

"I guess," I said, shaking my head and trying to stop the blood swooshing in my ears. No one had thought to tell me Alex was a shapeshifter, but then again, no one really bothers to tell me anything.

"I'm going to have a permanent bruise now though," she added as an afterthought, "ya'll are really heavy."

"Hey!" I protested, "it's the gravity thingity whatnot that makes the impact more intense... Right?"

Annabeth's mouth twitched, but she didn't correct me, which meant my explanation was either correct, or the correct explanation would take too long to explain.

"So," Magnus cut in, staring at the emerald green fields that surrounded us, "anyone want to take a guess at where we are?"

Annabeth looked around thoughtfully.

"We are on a road," she said, "so we could just walk along it until we get somewhere."

"More like a rocky path," Magnus said, kicking up loose gravel as he walked.

The wind blew as we walked, piercing through our clothes and making goosebumps appear on our bodies.

"I would give anything for a cup of cocoa right now," I commented, imagining drinking a steaming cup of the warm beverage, wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket near a radiator.

"Mhm," Annabeth agreed, taking up my hand in hers while we continued walking along the road to nowhere.

The path just seemed to stretch on and on with absolutely nothing in sight, and my eyes burned from scanning the horizon too often. We passed small building and restaurants, but they all seemed to be abandoned, and with no signs of where we were.

"Hey, Percy," Magnus asked, "can you just, like, call on your godly powers or something and fly up there to see where we are?"

I paused for a moment, trying to feel the tug in my gut that would allow me to use my powers, but there was nothing there. I concentrated harder, attempting to do something, anything that would let me use the powers that came as a bonus of being a god, but still nothing.

I shook my head at Magnus, who huffed and kept on walking.

"Technically speaking, we could dump Percy in the sea and he would know where we are," Annabeth said, pointing to the dark blue ocean, which did not look very inviting in the cold winter weather.

I sighed and dragged my feet along the path, amusing myself by kicking up small rocks as I walked.

"Hey," Annabeth said, talking my shoulder, "am I seeing things or is that-"

I squinted at the blurred shape in the distance and fist bumped the air, silently thanking the gods.

"Yep," I replied, "now let's all pray there's someone there."

***

Nothing could express my disappointment when we got to the monument and realised it was simply a cottage covered in grass.

"I take back the praises I said to the gods," I muttered, not noticing Annabeth's eyes brightening.

"L'anse aux meadows," she said, smiling.

"Who?" I asked, still upset at the gods for dumping us here.

Annabeth frowned, turning to me.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Lance O Meadows," I said, "who's he?"

She burst out laughing.

"Not he, Seaweed, where," she explained, "L'anse aux meadows is the name of this place. It was built by Norse Settlers about a thousand years ago and is the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside of Greenland."

"So we're in North America?" I asked, hardly daring to hope.

"Newfoundland," Annabeth replied.

"I don't see how this is going to help us," Magnus said.

"To be honest, me neither," I admitted, leaning on the fence surrounding the site, "but Annabeth seems happy so, yeah."

"Let's just get out of the wind," Alex said and I nodded in agreement. Wind and I didn't mix well.

***

"There has to be something here that can help us," Annabeth said, looking around at all the ornaments.

I glanced at a cheaply painted shield skeptically. "You do realise that this is just a recreation of the Norse village, right?"

"Reacreations have to be based on something. There has to be something here," Annabeth insisted, knocking at the walls.

"NO TOUCHING THE ARTIFACTS!" a voice boomed in my ear, causing me to drop the woven basket I was holding.

I spun around and came face to face (well more face to stomach) with a huge muscular man, trying to take off his metal helmet.

"The trouble with these," he thundered, "is that they never fit!"

With a great lurge, the helmet came off, causing him to lose his balance and go crashing into the wooden wall.

"Ah, hello," he said, turning around and baring his blackened teeth at us, "I am Meili, god of travellers. "

"So you can help us?" Alex asked, hopefully.

He frowned at Alex as if she were nothing more than a speck of dirt on a newly washed tunic.

"I can help him," he said, jabbing a finger at me, "but the rest of you are just extra luggage."

"Hey!" Alex protested, attempting to rush at him, but Magnus thankfully managed to hold her back.

"Can you help get me and my friends back to my mom's apartment?" I asked, emphasizing the friends part by waving towards all of them.

Meili's face took on an ugly grimace but he nodded.

"I will," he said, but then sneering at Alex, "but don't expect it to be comfortable."

"Call me 'it' again," Alex hissed, "and I will tear your head from your body with my bare hands, slowly and painfully, and you will dread the day you called me 'it' with every fiber in your body and-"

"If you call Alex an it," I interrupted, "then we don't want to travel with you."

Meili huffed angrily but said, "fine, I won't."

"Thanks," I said, keeping my tone neutral. I just wanted to get back home without a full fight started brewing.

With a snap of his fingers, a light breeze picked us up and dumped us outside the cottage on the spiky grass.

Meili snapped his fingers once again and bits of metal started growing out of the ground as if they were plants, twisting themselves into a train track, and finally flying through the air to make an ebony steam train.

"All aboard!" Meili shouted from inside the driver's compartment.

I gingerly grabbed at the door handle and yanked it open, standing to on side for my friends to get on.

"Well," I said, "I guess we just have to trust this guy, for now at least."

"Mhm," Annabeth agreed, "just until we get back home."

~