JAWBREAKER

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣

The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels. Warren didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed them where to look, and she recognized the faint blue symbol etched in the metal.

"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said.

"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."

"No." Warren stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."

Sure enough, as soon as Warren put her hand on the mark, it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.

"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but Warren couldn't tell if she was pretending or not. She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and marker-colored jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face. "So...after you?"

"You're the guide," Warren said with mock politeness. "Lead on."

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark they couldn't see two feet in front of them, but Annabeth and Percy had restocked on flashlights. Warren stuck close to Percy's side, for light, and also so Rachel could see who belonged to who. But as soon as they switched the torches on, Rachel yelped.

A skeleton was grinning at them. It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing— at least ten feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent shivers down their spines was the single black eye socket in the center of its skull.

"A Cyclops," Annabeth said. "It's very old. It's not...anybody we know."

It wasn't Tyson, she meant. But that didn't make Warren feel much better. She still felt like it had been put there as a warning.

Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?"

"Tyson," Percy said. "My half brother."

"Your half brother."

"Hopefully we'll find him down here," he said. "And Grover. He's a satyr."

"Oh." Rachel's voice was small, and Warren suppressed a smile. "Well then, we'd better keep moving."

She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. They followed Rachel deeper into the maze.

After fifty feet they came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots.

Percy pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."

Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right, those old stones, that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."