Y/N plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. Around him, the others were flapping their arms like ducks, trying to fly as best they could with bronze wings.
"Spread your arms!" he yelled. "Keep them extended!"
He transformed into an eagle and spread his wings out. They caught the wind, and his descent slowed. Underneath he saw Annabeth's wings stiffening, and she soared downward at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive.
Next to him, Percy experimentally flapped his arms once. He arced into the sky and yelled, "Yeah!"
Y/N turned and saw Ethan, Rachel, and Nico spiraling above him, glinting in the sunlight. Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop.
"Land!" Annabeth yelled. "These wings won't last forever."
"How long?" Rachel cried.
"I don't want to find out!" Ethan said.
They all swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. Y/N did a complete circle around a pine tree and narrowly dodged a hiker's face. Then the six of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor center. It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty, but Annabeth, Ethan, Percy, Nico and Rachel ripped off their wings as quickly as they could and stuffed them in the trash bin outside the cafeteria.
Y/N used his eagle eyes to look up at the hill where Daedalus's workshop had been, but it had vanished. No more smoke. No broken windows. Just the side of a hill.
He changed back to human shape. "The workshop moved," he guessed. "No telling where."
"So what do we do now?" Percy asked. "How do we get back into the maze?"
"Maybe we can't." Annabeth gazed at the summit of Pikes Peak in the distance. "If Daedalus died. . . . He said his life force was tied to the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke's invasion."
"No," Nico said. "He isn't dead."
"How can you be sure?" Rachel asked.
"I know when people die. It's this feeling I get, like a buzzing in my ears."
"What about Tyson and Grover, then?" Percy asked.
Nico shook his head. "That's harder. They're not humans or half-bloods. They don't have mortal souls."
"We have to get into town," Annabeth decided. "Our chances will be better finding an entrance to the Labyrinth. We have to make it back to camp before Luke and his army."
"We could just take a plane," Rachel said.
Percy shuddered. "I don't fly."
"But you just did."
"That was low flying," Y/N said. "Too low to say that we really were in the sky. Flying up really high—that's Zeus's territory. Percy can't do it, being the son of Poseidon. Besides, we don't even have time for a flight. The Labyrinth is the quickest way back."
"So we need a car to take us into the city," Annabeth said.
Rachel looked down into the parking lot. She grimaced, as if she were about to do something she regretted. "I'll take care of it."
"How?" Ethan asked.
"Just trust me."
"I'm going to buy a prism in the gift shop," Annabeth said, "try to make a rainbow, and send an Iris-message to camp."
"I'll go with you," Y/N said.
"Me too," Nico said. "I'm hungry."
"You'll give me your napkin?" Ethan asked him. "I'd like a little snack myself."
Nico shrugged and nodded, as if it made perfect sense.
"I'll stick with Rachel, then," Percy said. "Meet you guys in the parking lot."
Y/N, Annabeth, Ethan and Nico headed to the visitor center while Percy and Rachel went toward a big black car parked at the edge of the lot.
Overall, the visitor center was made of two parts: cafeteria and convenience store. There also was the gift shop, with postcards, keychains, that kind of stuff.
"Wait for me at the cafeteria," Annabeth said. "I'll meet you there once I got what we need."
"Do you want anything to eat?" Y/N asked.
She glanced over his shoulder at the menu. "The third sandwich and a Coke. Don't take anything too long to eat. We need to hurry."
And she dashed into the gift shop's aisles.
Y/N, Ethan and Nico got what they ordered quickly—they were the only ones inside for the moment.
As they were taking seats, Y/N said, "It feels nice having you back with us, Nico."
Nico's eyes lowered. He didn't seem suspicious or afraid as he had last time, when he had run away. He looked ashamed. "I'm sorry, Y/N. I shouldn't have listened to Minos. Sometimes I thought about going back to camp, but I couldn't make myself do it. I . . . I feared what people would say, what you would say."
"Don't worry about that," Y/N said. "Now you're back. That's what matters."
"I owed Ethan and Annabeth for the ranch, Y/N," Nico said. "And Minos tricked me into thinking you were in danger. That's why I went back into the Labyrinth. Plus . . . I wanted to see Daedalus for myself. Minos was right, in a way. Daedalus should die. Nobody should be able to avoid death that long. It's not natural."
"Now I understand what you were after all along. Trading Daedalus's soul for your sister's."
Nico ate some fries before answering. "It hasn't been easy, you know. I mean, at camp. Knowing that I'll never be accepted by the living. Having only the dead for true company. Only they respect me, and they only do that out of fear."
"You're safe at camp."
"The dead have hundreds of years of training, and they can't die again. I am safe enough with them."
"The dead aren't good company," Y/N said. "You could be accepted. You could have friends at camp."
Nico stared at him. "Do you really believe that, Y/N?"
He didn't answer. To tell the truth, Nico had always been a little different. Since Bianca's death, he'd gotten almost . . . scary. He had his father's eyes—that intense, manic fire that made you suspect he was either a genius or a madman. And the way he'd banished Minos, and called himself the king of ghosts—it was kind of impressive, but it was enough to make anybody uncomfortable, too.
Y/N realized what he was thinking, and shook his head. "Maybe your father isn't accepted on Olympus, but that doesn't mean you can't be accepted at camp. We are not our parents. We're ourselves."
Nico looked puzzled.
Before he could add anything, Annabeth came out of the gift shop, holding a prism. She took her food, and they all went outside, behind the cafeteria.
Annabeth used her flashlight to make a rainbow with the prism. "Has anyone got a drachma?"
Ethan handed one golden coin over.
She raised it over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering."
She threw the drachma into the rainbow, and it disappeared in a golden shimmer.
"Camp Half-Blood, Chiron," Annabeth said.
The rainbow rippled, and they could see the rec room inside the Big House, with the ping-pong table. Chiron was listening to music—some horrible song by Dean Martin.
"Chiron," Ethan called.
Chiron turned to them, beaming. "Ethan! Annabeth! Y/N! You're all safe. And is that Nico I see there? Where is Percy?"
"He's looking for a way back to camp," Annabeth said. She explained everything they had gone through in the last few hours.
"In that case," Chiron said once she'd finished, "we need to get ready to defend the camp. Come back as soon as possible. We're going to need every hero available."
"We'd better get going right away, then," Y/N said.
Chiron nodded. "Be careful."
His image disappeared into the rainbow.
When they returned to the parking lot, Percy and Rachel were waiting for them.
"The driver's ready when we are," Rachel said.
She headed toward the big black car parked at the edge of the lot. It was a chauffeured Lexus, the kind Y/N had seen driving around Manhattan. The driver was out front, reading a newspaper. He wore a dark suit and tie.
A minute later they were cruising down the road. The seats were leather. Though they were six at the back, there was plenty of legroom. The backseat had flat-panel TVs built into the headrests and a mini-fridge stocked with bottled water, sodas, and snacks. They started pigging out.
"Where to, Miss Dare?" the driver asked.
Y/N frowned and glanced at Rachel. Then he figured that being a half-blood was far more strange than being a mortal girl with wealthy parents.
"I'm not sure yet, Robert," she said. "We just need to drive through town and, uh, look around."
"Whatever you say, miss."
Percy looked at Rachel. "Do you know this guy?"
"No."
"But he dropped everything to help you. Why?"
"Just keep your eyes peeled," she said. "Help me look."
Which didn't exactly answer the question.
They drove through Colorado Springs for about half an hour and saw nothing that Rachel considered possible Labyrinth entrance. The car was comfortable, but with the six of them in there, Y/N got very aware of Annabeth's shoulder pressing against his.
After about an hour they decided to head north toward Denver, thinking that maybe a bigger city would be more likely to have a Labyrinth entrance, but they were all getting nervous. They were losing time.
Then, right as they were leaving Colorado Springs, Rachel sat bolt upright. "Get off the highway!"
The driver glanced back. "Miss?"
"I saw something, I think. Get off here."
The driver swerved across traffic and took the exit.
"What did you see?" Percy asked, and Y/N wondered the same, because they were pretty much out of city now. There wasn't anything around except hills, grassland, and some scattered farm buildings.
Rachel had the driver turn down an unpromising dirt road. They drove by a sign too fast for Y/N to read but Ethan said, "Western Museum of Mining & Industry."
For a museum, it didn't look like much—a little house like an old-fashioned railroad station, some drills and pumps and old steam shovels on display outside.
"There." Rachel pointed to a hole in the side of a nearby hill—a tunnel that was boarded up and chained. "An old mine entrance."
"A door to the Labyrinth?" Annabeth asked. "How can you be sure?"
"Well, look at it!" Rachel said. "I mean . . . I can see it, okay?"
She thanked the driver and they all got out. He didn't ask for money or anything. "Are you sure you'll be all right, Miss Dare? I'd be happy to call your—"
"No!" Rachel said. "No, really. Thanks, Robert. But we're fine."
The museum seemed to be closed, so nobody bothered them as they climbed the hill to the mine shaft. When they got to the entrance, Y/N saw the mark of Daedalus engraved on the padlock, though how Rachel had seen something so tiny all the way from the highway he had no idea. He touched the padlock and the chains fell away. They kicked down a few boards and walked inside. For better or worse, they were back in the Labyrinth.
The dirt tunnels turned to stone. They wound around and split off and basically tried to confuse Y/N, Annabeth, Ethan, Percy, and Nico, but Rachel had no trouble guiding them. They told her they needed to get back to New York, and she hardly even paused when the tunnels offered a choice.
Surprisingly, Annabeth and Rachel started up a conversation as they walked. Annabeth asked Rachel more about her background, but Rachel was evasive, so they started talking about architecture. It turned out Rachel knew something about it from studying art. They talked about different facades on buildings around New York—"Have you seen this one," blah, blah, blah.
Suddenly Y/N felt like something was missing. He turned around, and said, "Guys . . . where's Percy?"
Everyone stopped at once, and he almost bumped into Annabeth. Behind them, the tunnel was a straight line.
"He didn't get lost, right?" Ethan said.
"No, that can't be," Rachel said. "He was right next to us not a minute ago. . . ."
"Let's go back to the last crossroads," Y/N said. "Maybe he saw something and we didn't hear him going away."
"We would have heard him," Nico insisted. "He was right next to us."
"Sound can be weird in the Labyrinth."
They retraced their steps back to a crossroads. They hadn't stopped before, but a side tunnel T'd off to the left—a circular shaft carved from black volcanic rock.
"Listen," Nico said.
Y/N heard wind coming down the tunnel, as if the exit were close. And he smelled something vaguely familiar—something that brought back bad memories.
"Eucalyptus trees," Ethan said. "Like in California."
Last winter, when they'd faced Luke and the Titan Atlas on the top of Mount Tamalpais, the air had smelled just like that.
"There's something evil down that tunnel," Rachel said. "Something very powerful."
"And the smell of death," Nico added. Maybe he wanted to make them feel better.
"Luke's entrance," Annabeth guessed. "The one to Mount Othrys—the Titans' palace."
"We have to check it out," Y/N said. "If Percy went there, we have to help him."
Annabeth hesitated. "Then let's go."
"No big deal," Ethan said.
And they sneaked down the dark stone tunnel.
Before Y/N even got to the exit he felt his sword forming in his hand, and he rushed forward. But he had only made one step when a voice rooted him to the spot. "Run, little hero. Run!"
The voice was like a razor blade running over Y/N's skin. He felt as if he knew it, but at the same time didn't. Under a first layer was another, more horrible sound—an ancient, cold sound like metal scraping against rock inside his own skull.
Y/N pulled himself together and crept toward the end of the tunnel.
A blast of cold air hit him as he emerged. He was standing near the top of Mount Tam. The Pacific Ocean spread out below, gray under a cloudy sky. At the mountain's peak loomed a black marble fortress. It looked like an oversized mausoleum, with walls fifty feet high. It should've been impossible for mortals to miss it, yet they did. Everything below the summit seemed fuzzy to Y/N, as if there were a thick veil between him and the lower half of the mountain. There was magic going on here—really powerful Mist. Overhead, the sky swirled into a huge funnel cloud. Y/N couldn't see Atlas, but he could hear him groaning in the distance, still laboring under the weight of the sky, just beyond the fortress.
Between Y/N and the fortress stood a telekhine. When it saw him, it bared its seal teeth. "Trespassers! Tres—"
Y/N cut it in half and ran toward the fortress, his pulse pounding in his ears.
He dashed through a dark foyer and into the main hall. The floor shined like a mahogany piano—pure black and yet full of light. Black marble statues lined the walls. At the end of the room, between two bronze braziers, was a dais, on which was a golden sarcophagus. And before the dais stood Luke.
But it wasn't Luke. His eyes were no longer blue. They were golden, the same color as the coffin. He made one step forward, and where his feet touched the floor, the marble froze like craters of ice. In his hands, he held a scythe.
Kronos, the Titan lord, had found a new body.
Y/N couldn't move. He couldn't say a word.
His eyes saw other things: Ethan Nakamura, collapsed in terror, his hands covering his hands; telekhines trembling; Percy, running in slow-motion, as if the world around him had turned to jello. But he saw nothing except Kronos.
The Titan approached Percy leisurely, swinging his scythe as if he were enjoying the feel of having it in his hands again. No weapon in the world would stop him. No amount of celestial bronze.
He was ten feet away from Percy when Y/N heard a voice on his left, "PERCY!"
Rachel's voice.
She threw something, and a blue plastic hairbrush hit Kronos in the eye.
"Ow!" he yelled. For a moment it was only Luke's voice, full of surprise and pain. Percy was freed and he ran straight into Y/N, Annabeth, Ethan, Nico, and Rachel.
"Luke?" Annabeth called. "What—"
Y/N grabbed her by the shirt and hauled her after him. There wasn't any thought to it. No debate in his mind about whether he should stand up to Kronos and try to fight. No. He simply ran.
He ran as fast as he had ever run, straight out of the fortress. They were almost back to the Labyrinth entrance when he heard the loudest bellow in the world—the voice of Kronos, coming back into control. "AFTER THEM!"
"No!" Nico yelled. He clapped his hands together, and a jagged spire of rock the size of an eighteen-wheeler erupted from the ground right in front of the fortress. The tremor it caused was so powerful that the front columns of the building came crashing down. Y/N heard muffled screams from the telekhines inside. Dust billowed everywhere.
They plunged into the Labyrinth and kept running, the howl of the Titan lord shaking the entire world behind them.
A/N: Hey! I hope you liked the chapter.
I would've uploaded this chapter yesterday, but I needed to sleep so I could wake up at 4:30 this morning. I went hiking. It was really nice—I saw chamois and marmots, and the scenery at the top of the mountain was beautiful—but I could've done without waking so early XD
Anyway, see you next time and happy reading!