Inside the courtyard was the strangest garden I’d ever seen. Multicolored mushrooms, poisonous shrubs, and weird luminous plants grew without sunlight. Precious jewels made up for the lack of flowers, piles of rubies as big as my fist, clumps of raw diamonds. Standing here and there like frozen party guests were Medusa’s garden statues—petrified children, satyrs, and centaurs—all smiling grotesquely. In the center of the garden was an orchard of pomegranate trees, their orange blooms neon bright in the dark. “The garden of Persephone,” Annabeth said. “Keep walking.”
