FREE FALLING | percy jackson

viii. into the maze

"Knock, knock?" A voice said behind her.

Hana spun around quickly. Percy was peeking his head in through the cabin door. He had a carefree smile on his face which Hana thought wasn't very fitting for the quest they had just been given but Percy seemed unfazed.

Kade's words rung in her head: He's been on a suicide quest every summer he's been here. Maybe he was just used to it by now.

Whether Percy was actually terrified or not, his appearance distracted Hana's thoughts as she smiled back at him, "Hey, I didn't hear you open the door."

"You okay over here?" He asked. Taking Hana's hello as a welcome into the cabin. He walked in closer to her bed. Hana was suddenly aware of the mess on her bed. She had taken an unnecessary amount of clothes out of her drawer and laid all of it down on her bed in order to see what she had to work with. Her maps were piled on top of her clothes.

"Yeah, I'm good," Hana said, putting the map in her hand on top of the pile on her bed. She turned back to look at Percy, and she shrugged, "The maps I have are kind of useless though. I guess mapping out something that continuously changes is pretty hard, who knew?"

Percy's smile turned from a carefree one to an amused one, "Yeah, who would've guessed?"

A small silence lapped the cabin until Hana spoke up, "How are you doing with all of this?"

The boy shrugged, the same way Hana had. He leaned against the corner of Hana's bed as he said, "I'm used to this kind of thing. It always works out in the end for the most part. We'll figure it out."

Hana nodded and looked down at her hands. "Did Annabeth say anything to you about the rest of the prophecy?"

Percy shook his head, "Nah, she seems pretty freaked out about it though. I've never really seen her like that before. Sure she's gotten worried before, but not like this..." He trailed off, "Why? Do you know something about it?"

"Nothing for sure, no. But—like you said—we'll figure it out. I believe in us."

Percy snorted.

"Say, if I wanted to call Rachel and tell her I am alive, what would be the best way for me to do that without signaling all of the monsters?"

"Easiest way is probably sending an Iris-message. It's like a FaceTime call but godly, you know." Percy said.

"A godly FaceTime?" Hana repeated with a surprised smile, "Sounds intriguing. How would I set up one of these Iris-messages?"

"You need to find a mist of water that makes a rainbow and then you toss a coin into said rainbow and then bam, you tell the goddess Iris who you want to talk to and you've got yourself a Iris-message." Percy explained, no doubt laughing at the confused expression on Hana's face.

"Huh? How is that the easiest way?" Hana asked in disbelief.

Percy pushed himself off of the bedpost and started to walk towards the door of the cabin, "Lucky for you, I've got just the fountain. Come on."

Absolutely nothing coming from Percy's mouth was making sense. He had a fountain? What? Percy led her over to his cabin. The Poseidon cabin was fairly modest compared to the rest of the cabins. It had a low ceiling and was made out of sea stone and had pieces of seashell and coral embedded on the exterior walls. The inside was just as beachy as the outside. The walls seemed to glow slightly like abalone and there were bronze hippocampi decorations on the ceiling. There were six bunk beds, but it looked like two of them were occupied. Percy and Tyson.

"Welcome to cabin three." Percy said, walking into the cabin. "Tyson? You here?"

"I'm here." Tyson replied. Hana had never formally met Tyson before, sure she had seen him around—he was kind of hard to miss—but she wasn't sure he would know who she was.