This Dark Night ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase¹

―vii. a picnic with the queen of the gods

In the middle of the room was a three-tiered fountain that looked like it had been dry for centuries.

"What is this place?" Naomi asked. "It looks—"

"Roman," Annabeth said. "Those mosaics are about two thousand years old."

"But how can they be Roman?" Percy asked.

"The Labyrinth is a patchwork," Annabeth explained. "I told you, it's always expanding, adding pieces. It's the only work of architecture that grows by itself."

"You make it sound like it's alive."

A groaning noise echoed from the tunnel before them.

"Let's not talk about it being alive," Grover whimpered. "Please?"

"All right," Annabeth said. "Forward."

"Down the hall with the bad sounds?" Tyson said.

"Yeah," Annabeth said. "The architecture is getting older. That's a good sign. Daedalus's workshop would be in the oldest part."

That made sense. Soon, though, the maze began to toy with them—they went fifty feet and the tunnel turned back to cement, with brass pipes running down the sides. The walls were spray-painted with graffiti. A neon tag sign read: moz rulz.

"Not Roman," Naomi guessed.

Annabeth took a deep breath, then forged ahead.

Every few feet the tunnels twisted and branched off. The floor beneath them changed from cement to mud to bricks and back again. There was no sense to anything. They stumbled into a wine cellar like they were walking through someone's basement, but there was no exit ahead, only more tunnels.

Later, the ceiling turned to wooden planks and I could hear voices above them and the creaking of footsteps, as if they were walking under some kind of bar. It was reassuring to hear actual people talk, but it wasn't like they could get to them. They were stuck underground with no way out.

Then they found their first skeleton.

He was dressed in white clothes, like some kind of uniform. A wooden crate of glass bottles sat next to him.

"A milkman," Annabeth said.

"What?" Percy asked.

"They used to deliver milk."

"Yeah, I know what they are, but... that was when my mom was little, like a million years ago," Percy said. "What's he doing here?"

Naomi looked at the skeleton. "He died of starvation," she said, not quite sure how she knew, but confident anyway. She supposed it was a Persephone-kid thing. "So... bright side: at least he wasn't attacked by anything."

"He was probably mortal," Annabeth said. "Monsters usually don't bother with them."

"But what's he doing here?" Percy asked again. "In the Labyrinth?"

"Some people wander in by mistake," Annabeth said. "Some come exploring on purpose and never make it back. A long time ago, the Cretans sent people in here as human sacrifices."

Naomi tried not to think about which category they fit into.

Grover gulped. "He's been down here a long time." He pointed to the skeleton's bottles, which were coated with white dust. The skeleton's fingers were clawing at the brick wall, like he had died trying to get out.

"Only bones," Tyson said. "Don't worry, goat boy. The milkman is dead."

"The milkman doesn't bother me," Grover said. "It's the smell. Monsters. Can't you smell it?"