71 pages • 2 hours read
The Lost Hero
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BetaChapters 25-28Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 25 Summary
Still passed out from the Cyclops’ blow, Jason dreams of Hera. She explains more of the current predicament to him. First, she tells him that as a goddess, she can be in many places all at once. Then, she explains that Zeus has ceased contact with the demigods because he believes that the gods’ involvement on earth has created the recent catastrophes. Hera disagreed, and slipped out of Olympus, only to be trapped. Jason asks about her gamble, and she tells him, “You are my peace offering, Jason” (273). He awakes to find Festus repaired. He tells his friends about Hera’s message. They see a ventus and decide to follow it.
Chapter 26 Summary
They follow the ventus to Chicago, where they climb down into a sewer. Piper’s ankle is still injured, so they stop to rest; Leo makes vegetarian tacos. The friends discuss Leo’s ability with fire, and Jason assures him he shouldn’t be ashamed or afraid of his power. Jason ponders the difficulty of being a demigod, and all the responsibility that comes with it. He wonders if he is up to the task of leading the demigods, and is reminded of Boreus’s prediction, “you’ll tear each other apart” (289). After a rest, the group proceeds down the tunnel and finds a large, magical department store. Coach Hedge is in a gilded cage on the ground level. The female owner of the store appears.
Chapter 27 Summary
Piper senses that the store owner, who introduces herself as a princess, is evil. She shows them magical mixtures, including one that can restore memory. The princess states that price is “always tricky” (298). She reveals she betrayed her father to help her lover, but the lover never paid what he owed her in return. Piper tries to figure out her true identity based on these details. Jason and Leo are clearly in a trance, and Piper realizes it’s thanks to the woman’s charmspeak. The princess tells Piper that the two boys will die in the Bay Area.
Chapter 28 Summary
Piper persuades the princess to reveal more of her story, and accuses her of “‘kill[ing] your own brother’” (305). Her brainwashed friends are indifferent. As they look at appliances, as well as the cages filled with venti and Coach Hedge, the boys decide to make several purchases. Rather than letting her friends negotiate, Piper reveals the woman’s true identity as Medea, who helped the original Jason steel the golden fleece, before murdering her children to take revenge on him for leaving her. Medea defends her actions, and also reveals that Piper’s father’s assistant, Jane, is at her command. She urges Piper to abandon her friends. Piper speaks with all the feeling and sincerity she can muster to make her friends understand that they are in danger. Finally, they understand, and a fight breaks out. The group, along with Coach Hedge, escapes on Festus’s back.
Chapters 25-28 Analysis
In these chapters, Jason and Piper both confront the responsibility that comes with superhuman power. They also must weigh their responsibilities to their parents.
In the tunnels, Jason feels the weight of being a leader—especially a leader without any memory of who he is, and why or how he serves as a “bridge” or “offering” from Hera. From Hera, he has learned that Zeus has turned his back on his demigod children. It is up to Jason to muster a sense of what’s right without paternal guidance.
Piper has her first display of real strength and courage. She is confronted with the opportunity to betray her friends and save her father, but she turns it down. Furthermore, she realizes that effective charmspeak is not about lying, but rather about making people see the truth. She uses her power to rescue her friends. In these pages, Medea is a foil to Piper: someone who uses her charm and beauty for evil, rather than for good. These chapters also reintroduce Coach Gleeson Hedge to the main narrative arc.
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