XXXVI. Gladiator in arena consilium capit

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AURORA WOULD BE LYING IF SHE SAID, the metal door which was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of towels was something she expected to be the entrance of the Labyrinth,  but Rachel showed them where to look, and she recognized the faint blue sy...

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AURORA WOULD BE LYING IF SHE SAID, the metal door which was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of towels was something she expected to be the entrance of the Labyrinth,  but Rachel showed them where to look, and she recognized the faint blue symbol etched into the metal.

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

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

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

Sure enough, as soon as Annabeth out her hand on the mark, it flowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase.

"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but Aurora could tell she was pretending. She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art t-shirt and her regular 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 gold glitter on her face.
"So... after you."

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

"What did the mortal did to you two so bad that you two hate her?" Atlas asked Percy and Annabeth, they shrugged.

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was dark and Aurora was thankful for her nocturnal vision, except her everyone lit up their torches and As soon as they switched them 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 kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent shivers down her spine 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 Aurora feel much better. She still felt like it had been put here as a warning. Whatever could kill a grown Cyclops, she didn't want to meet.

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

"Tyson," Percy said. "He is our half brother."

"You two's half brother."

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

"Oh." Her voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving."

She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. 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. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."

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