DARKNESS. ENDLESS DARKNESS.
Naomi scrambled to her feet, her nightmare coming to life around her, the darkness pressing in. "No, no, no!"
Hands grabbed her face before the panic could take hold completely. "Nay!"
Like they usually did, Naomi's eyes adjusted with relative ease, allowing her to see Percy's face in front of hers, his brow pinched with worry. His hands were warm and calloused on her cheeks, anchoring her back to reality, out of that awful, awful nightmare.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his voice echoing.
The darkness wasn't endless. Not with that echo.
She swallowed hard against the lingering panic. "Sorry," she gasped. "I—sorry."
Percy studied her face, clearly worried. "You don't have to apologize. Just breathe."
Naomi forced herself to take a deep breath, tasting the moss in the air.
When Percy seemed to deem her okay, he let go of her face, but he put a hand on her arm. He drew his sword with the other, the faint glow of the blade just enough to illuminate Annabeth's frightened face and the mossy stone walls on either side of them.
Their breathing echoed against stone.
"Wh—where are we?" Annabeth said.
"Safe from scorpions, anyway," Percy said.
It didn't make sense—there shouldn't be a cave here. It was like the ground had opened up and swallowed them, like the fissure in the dining room pavilion. Was that what had happened to them?
Percy lifted his sword higher for more light.
"It's a long room," he muttered.
"It's not a room," Annabeth said. "It's a corridor."
She was right. The darkness felt empty. There was a warm breeze, like in subway tunnels, only it felt older, more dangerous somehow.
But still not as terrifying as the darkness in Naomi's nightmare. She was glad for that.
Percy started forward, but Annabeth stopped him. "Don't take another step," she warned. "We need to find the exit."
She sounded really scared now.
"It's okay," Percy promised. "It's right—"
He faltered.
Naomi looked up the way they'd come, but she couldn't see where they'd fallen in from. The ceiling was solid stone. The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions.
Percy's hand slipped from Naomi's arm and grabbed her hand.
"Two steps back," Annabeth advised on Percy's other side.
They stepped backwards together like they were in a minefield.
"Okay," she said. "Help me examine the walls."
"What for?" Percy asked.
"The mark of Daedalus."
"Uh, okay. What kind of—"
"Got it!" Annabeth said with relief. She set her hand on the wall and pressed against a tiny fissure, which began to glow blue. A Greek symbol appeared: Δ, the ancient Greek Delta.
The roof slid open and they saw the night sky, stars blazing. It was a lot darker than it should've been. Metal ladder rungs appeared on the side of the wall, leading up, and Naomi could hear people yelling their names.
"Percy! Annabeth! Naomi!" Tyson's voice bellowed the loudest, but others were calling out, too.
The three looked at each other nervously. Then they began to climb.
❊
They made their way around the rocks and ran into Clarisse and a bunch of other campers carrying torches.
"Where have you three been?" Clarisse demanded. "We've been looking forever."
"But we were only gone a few minutes," Percy said.
Chiron trotted up, followed by Tyson and Grover.
"Percy!" Tyson said. "You are okay?"
"We're fine," Percy told him. "We fell in a hole."
The others looked at him skeptically, then at Annabeth and Naomi.
"Honest!" Percy said. "There were three scorpions after us, so we ran and hid in the rocks. But we were only gone a minute."
"You've been missing for almost an hour," Chiron said. "The game is over."
"Yeah," Grover muttered. "We would've won, but a Cyclops sat on me."
"Was an accident!" Tyson protested, and then he sneezed.
Clarisse was wearing the gold laurels, but she didn't even brag about winning them, which wasn't like her. "A hole?" she said suspiciously.
Annabeth took a deep breath. She looked around at the other campers. "Chiron...maybe we should talk about this at the Big House."
Clarisse gasped. "You found it, didn't you?"
Annabeth bit her lip. "I—Yeah. Yeah, we did."
Naomi's stomach twisted with dread.
A bunch of campers started asking questions, looking confused, but Chiron raised his hand for silence. "Tonight is not the right time, and this is not the right place." He stared at boulders as if he'd just noticed how dangerous they were. "All of you, back to your cabins. Get some sleep. A game well played, but curfew is past!"
There was a lot of mumbling and complaints, but the campers drifted off, talking among themselves and giving the trio suspicious looks.
"This explains a lot," Clarisse said. "It explains what Luke is after."
"Wait a second," Percy said. "What do you mean? What did we find?"
Annabeth turned toward him, her eyes dark with worry. "An entrance to the Labyrinth. An invasion route straight into the heart of the camp."
❊
As the campers headed back to their cabins, Silena fussed over Naomi like the big sister she was.
"I thought Percy and Annabeth snuck off to canoodle or something," Drew said boredly, even though she was watching Silena check Naomi over with just as critical an eye. "'Til we realized you were missing, too."
Silena scowled at her sister. "Hush, Drew."
Connor Stoll squeezed in between Drew and Naomi, earning a scowl from the former. "Sucks being the third wheel, doesn't it?" he said. "If I have to listen to my brother and your aunt threaten to kill each other with those stupid puppy-dog eyes one more time—"
"Get lost, Stoll," Drew said, shoving him back toward his own cabin.
"You love me, Tanaka!" Connor called as he walked away.
"I'd sacrifice you to Hades for a stale Cheez-it!" Drew shouted back. She snorted a laugh once he was out of earshot. "He's right, though. Being the third-wheel sucks." She looked pointedly at Silena over Naomi's head. "We'll have to find you someone by the time Percy and Annabeth finally admit they're in love and start dating. Sherman Yang's single."
"Sherman Yang's an asshole," Silena said. "Don't listen to her, Nay."
"It's a fair warning," Drew said innocently. "Third-wheeling can and should be avoided whenever possible. It's easier when everyone's got somebody."
Silena rolled her eyes. "Sleep well, Naomi," she said as they reached the Aphrodite cabin. "I'll see you in the morning."
Naomi bid the sisters good night, trailing after her own cabinmates back to her cabin. She tried to ignore the way the pit in her stomach had doubled in size.
Third-wheel.
Was that what she was becoming?
❊
It was almost impossible to sleep after all of that, and when the sun rose once again, Naomi wasn't sure she'd gotten any actual REM sleep during the night. She still felt groggy as she followed Katie to the war council.
Usually Naomi wasn't let in on the war council, seeing as she wasn't a cabin counselor, but since she'd been with Percy and Annabeth when they discovered the Labyrinth entrance, Chiron had invited her to join.
The meeting was held in the sword arena rather than the Big House, which was strange, but Naomi was pleased to see Mrs. O'Leary having the time of her life chewing on a giant squeaky toy. There was something precious about watching a dog play—even when that dog was the size of a school bus.
Naomi sat down between Katie and Silena. Chiron and Quintus stood at the front by the weapons rack, Clarisse and Annabeth sitting together as they led the briefing. Tyson and Grover sat as far away from each other as possible. Also present were Percy, Juniper, Beckendorf, the Stolls, Lee Fletcher, and even Argus, the camp's hundred-eyed head of security. That's how Naomi knew this was serious—Argus only showed up when something really major was going on. The whole time Annabeth spoke, he kept his hundred blue eyes trained on her so hard, his whole body turned bloodshot.
"Luke must have known about the Labyrinth entrance," Annabeth said. "He knew everything about camp."
Juniper cleared her throat. "That's what I was trying to tell you last night. The cave entrance has been there a long time. Luke used it use it."
Silena frowned. "You knew about the Labyrinth entrance, and you didn't say anything?"
Juniper's face flushed green. "I didn't know it was important. Just a cave. I don't like yucky old caves."
"She has good taste," Grover said.
"I wouldn't have paid any attention except... well, it was Luke." She blushed even greener.
Grover huffed. "Forget what I said about good taste."
"Interesting." Quintus polished his sword as he spoke—far more casual in this emergency war council than Naomi would have been able to be. Then again, he was a middle-aged demigod—he was probably used to this kind of stress. "And you believe this young man, Luke, would dare use the Labyrinth as an invasion route?"
"Definitely," Clarisse said. "If he could get an army of monsters inside Camp Half-Blood, just pop up in the middle of the woods without having to worry about our magical boundaries, we wouldn't stand a chance. He could wipe us out easy. He must've been planning this for months."
"He's been sending scouts into the maze," Annabeth said. "We know because... because we found one."
"Chris Rodriguez," Chiron said. He gave Quintus a meaningful look.
"Ah," Quintus said. "The one in the... Yes, I understand."
"The one in the what?" Percy asked.
Clarisse glared at him. "The point is, Luke has been looking for a way to navigate the maze. He's searching for Daedalus's workshop."
"The guy who created the maze," Percy said.
"Yes," Annabeth said. "The greatest architect, the greatest inventor of all time. If the legends are true, his workshop is in the center of the Labyrinth. He's the only one who knew how to navigate the maze perfectly. If Luke managed to find the workshop and convince Daedalus to help him, Luke wouldn't have to fumble around searching for paths, or risk losing his army in the maze's traps. He could navigate anywhere he wanted—quickly and safely. First to Camp Half-Blood to wipe us out. Then... to Olympus."
The arena was silent except for Mrs. O'Leary's yak-shaped chew toy's last words as the hellhound disemboweled it: SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
Finally Beckendorf put his huge hands on the table. "Back up a sec, Annabeth, you said 'convince Daedalus'? Isn't Daedalus dead?"
Quintus grunted. "I would hope so. He lived, what, three thousand years ago? And even if he were alive, don't the old stories say he fled from the Labyrinth?"
Chiron clopped restlessly on his hooves. "That's the problem, my dear Quintus. No one knows. There are rumors... well, there are many disturbing rumors about Daedalus, but one is that he disappeared back into the Labyrinth toward the end of his life. He might still be there."
"We need to go in," Annabeth announced. "We have to find the workshop before Luke does. If Daedalus is alive, we convince him to help us, not Luke. If Ariadne's string still exists, we make sure it never falls into Luke's hands."
"Wait a second," Percy said. "If we're worried about an attack, why not just blow up the entrance? Seal the tunnel?"
"Great idea!" Grover said. "I'll get the dynamite!"
"It's not so easy, stupid," Clarisse growled. "We tried that at the entrance we found in Phoenix. It didn't go well."
Annabeth nodded. "The Labyrinth is magical architecture, Percy. It would take huge power to seal even one of its entrances. In Phoenix, Clarisse demolished a whole building with a wrecking ball, and the maze entrance just shifted a few feet. The best we can do is prevent Luke from learning to navigate the Labyrinth."
"We could fight," Lee Fletcher said. "We know where the entrance is now. We can set up a defensive line and wait for them. If an army tries to come through, they'll find us waiting with our bows."
"We will certainly set up defenses," Chiron agreed. "But I fear Clarisse is right. The magical borders have kept this camp safe for hundreds of years. If Luke manages to get a large army of monsters into the center of camp, bypassing our boundaries... we may not have the strength to defeat them."
Naomi fidgeted with her fingers anxiously. Chiron had always tried to be an optimist, at least in front of the campers. If he was predicting they couldn't hold off an attack, that didn't bode well for any of them.
"We have to get to Daedalus's workshop first," Annabeth insisted. "Find Ariadne's string and prevent Luke from using it."
"But if nobody can navigate in there," Percy said, "what chance do we have?"
"I've been studying architecture for years," she said. "I know Daedalus's Labyrinth better than anybody."
"From reading about it."
"Well, yes."
"That's not enough."
"It has to be!"
"It isn't!"
"Are you going to help me or not?"
Everyone was watching Annabeth and Percy go back and forth like they were watching a tennis match. Mrs. O'Leary's squeaky yak went EEK! as she ripped off its pink rubber head.
Chiron cleared his throat. "First things first. We need a quest. Someone must enter the Labyrinth, find the workshop of Daedalus, and prevent Luke from using the maze to invade this camp."
"We all know who should lead this," Clarisse said. "Annabeth."
There was an expected murmur of agreement. Naomi knew Annabeth had been waiting for her own quest since she was a little kid, but she looked uncomfortable, either from the attention or from the very idea of venturing into the Labyrinth.
"You've done as much as I have, Clarisse," she said. "You should go, too."
Clarisse shook her head. "I'm not going back in there."
Travis Stoll laughed. "Don't tell me you're scared. Clarisse, chicken?"
Clarisse got to her feet. In a shaky voice, she said, "You don't understand anything, punk. I'm never going in there again. Never!"
She stormed out of the arena.
Travis looked around sheepishly. "I didn't mean to—"
Chiron raised his hand. "The poor girl has had a difficult year. Now, do we have agreement that Annabeth should lead this quest?"
The entire council nodded.
"Very well." Chiron turned to Annabeth. "My dear, it's your time to visit the Oracle. Assuming you return to us in one piece, we shall discuss what to do next."
❊
Annabeth did return in one piece, but it took far longer than Naomi's sanity could take.
"My dear," Chiron finally said, looking toward the entrance. "You made it."
Annabeth walked into the arena. She sat on a stone bench and stared at the floor.
"Well?" Quintus asked.
Annabeth looked at Naomi, then at Percy. There was a haunted look in her eyes, as if she'd met her own ghost, and she wasn't much older than her.
Then she focused on Quintus. "I got the prophecy. I will lead the quest to find Daedalus's workshop."
Nobody cheered, though it wasn't for lack of love for Annabeth. Naomi doubted there was anyone unhappy to see Annabeth finally get a quest, but this one already seemed deadlier than most.
Chiron scraped a hoof on the dirt floor. "What did the prophecy say exactly, my dear? The wording is important."
Annabeth took a deep breath. "I, ah... well, it said, You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze..."
They waited.
"The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise."
Grover perked up. "The lost one! That must mean Pan! That's great!"
"With the dead and the traitor," Naomi added, chewing on her bottom lip. "Not so great."
"And?" Chiron asked.
Annabeth hesitated. "The flower listens to the shadow's calls." She swallowed. "Lost in darkness, the chosen falls."
Naomi tried to ignore the not-so-subtle glances thrown her way.
Lost in darkness... Could it be the darkness from her nightmares? She prayed not, but... what else could it be?
"What is the rest?" Chiron asked.
"You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand," Annabeth finished, "the child of Athena's final stand."
Everyone looked around uncomfortably. Annabeth was a daughter of Athena—and a final stand didn't sound good.
"Hey... we shouldn't jump to conclusions," Silena said. "Annabeth isn't the only child of Athena, right?"
"But who's this ghost king?" Beckendorf asked.
Nobody answered. Naomi thought about the Iris-message she'd seen of Nico summoning spirits. She had a bad feeling the prophecy was connected to that.
"Are there more lines?" Chiron asked. "The prophecy does not sound complete."
Annabeth hesitated. "I don't remember exactly."
Chiron raised an eyebrow. Annabeth was known for her memory—forgetting was practically unheard of from her.
Annabeth shifted on her bench. "Something about... Destroy with a hero's final breath."
"And?" Chiron asked.
She stood. "Look, the point is, I have to go in. I'll find the workshop and stop Luke. And... I need help." She turned to Naomi. "The line about the flower... Will you come?"
"Of course," Naomi answered without hesitation.
"And Percy?" Annabeth asked.
"I'm in."
Annabeth smiled slightly, looking relieved. "Grover, you too? The wild god is waiting."
Grover seemed to forget how much he hated the underground. The line about the "lost one" had completely energized him. "I'll pack extra recyclables for snacks!"
"And Tyson," Annabeth said. "I'll need you too."
"Yay! Blow-things-up time!" Tyson clapped so hard he woke up Mrs. O'Leary, who'd dozed off in the corner.
"Wait, Annabeth," Chiron said. "This goes against the ancient laws. A hero is allowed only three companions."
"I need them all," she insisted. "Chiron, it's important."
"Annabeth." Chiron flicked his tail nervously. "Consider well. You would be breaking ancient laws, and there are always consequences. Last winter, six went on a quest to save Artemis. Only four came back."
Annabeth took a deep breath. "I know," she said. "But we have to. Please."
It was clear Chiron didn't like it. Quintus was studying the questers, like he was trying to decide which of them would come back alive.
Chiron sighed. "Very well. Let us adjourn. The members of the quest must prepare themselves. Tomorrow at dawn, we send you into the Labyrinth."
❊