“Leo had seen Tia Callida in action; she liked knives, snakes and putting babies in roaring fires. Yeah, definitely let's unleash her rage. Great idea.”

“Leo dropped into the pool and approched the cage. "Hola, Tia. Little bit of trouble?"She [Hera] crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!”

“I’ll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it’s time?” “I got it,” one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buff arms, and a red bandanna over her mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens. “Cool,” Leo said. “I always wanted a sister who could beat me up.”

“Aphros nodded, a glint of pride in his eyes. “We have trained all the famous mer-heroes! Name a famous mer-hero, and we have trained him or her!”“Oh, sure,” Leo said. “Like…um, the Little Mermaid?”Aphros frowned. “Who? No! Like Triton, Glaucus, Weissmuller, and Bill!”“Oh. ”Leo had no idea who any of those people were. “You trained Bill? Impressive.”

“They would find this House of Hades. They'd take the Doors of Death. And by the gods, if Leo had to design a grabber arm long enough to snatch Percy and Annabeth out of Tartarus, then that's what he would do. Nemesis wanted him to wreak vengeance on Gaea? Leo would be happy to oblige. He was going to make Gaea sorry she had ever messed with Leo Valdez. "Yeah." He took one last look at the cityscape of Rome, turning bloodred in the sunset. "Festus, raise the sails. We've got some friends to save.”

“Leo waited while the fish centaur put away his supplies. Aphros's lobster-claw horns kept swimming around in his thick hair, and Leo had to resist the urge to try and rescue them.”

“Frank gave Leo a confused smile- like he couldn't decide whether to gloat or to thank Leo for being a doofus- but he cheerfully let Hazel drag him along.”