Mari didn't end up sleeping. She was officially let out of the infirmary when Lee came to collect her the next morning with kouloúri and a glass of water. If he noticed the many, many scrunched up pieces of paper and broken pencils that littered the bed, he didn't comment past a raised eyebrow and a sigh. Mari tried to calm her jittery nerves by munching on the bread ring as she walked with Lee to the war council, but the dough just felt like warm, wet clay as it settled in her stomach.
Chiron had apparently decided to hold the war council in the sword arena, for some reason. It looked different - the dummies that usually took up the sparring grounds were shoved to the side, and had been replaced by a table with around twenty chairs. It almost seemed organised, apart from the fact that Mrs O'Leary the hellhound was gnawing on a life-sized chew toy in the corner. Mari shuddered. Chiron was standing in front of the weapon racks with Quintus, but Annabeth and Clarisse were seated in front of them. Annabeth waved at Mari and gestured towards a third chair beside her. Mari slid into it, frowning. "I thought this was starting at six, before breakfast. It's five past."
"Prissy is late," Clarisse growled. "Honestly, what did I expect?"
"You want to try finding out about all this in a single night and see how you handle it?" Annabeth snapped.
Percy arrived at ten past, looking frazzled. "Sorry! I overslept!"
"It's fine, Percy." Chiron smiled. "You're here now, let's begin."
Annabeth launched into an explanation of what Mari and Clarisse had been doing last winter, and how she'd been brought in after she was rescued from Luke. The whole time, Lee's eyes were trained on her, but Mari couldn't tell what exactly he was thinking. Was he mad at her? he had said he wasn't, but that was before everything had been laid out in front of him like this. Annabeth finally caught up to recent events, and Mari tuned back in.
"Luke must have known about the labyrinth entrance. He knew everything about camp," she said.
"That's what I was trying to tell you last night," Juniper bemoaned. According to Annabeth, before she and Percy had accidentally stumbled onto the entrance, Juniper had run into them and she'd been awfully on edge about something. This must be it. "The cave entrance has been there a long time. Luke used to use it."
"I'm sorry." Mari held up a hand. "You knew about this for how long, exactly? And you just decided to say something now?"
"I didn't know it was important." Juniper turned green. Well, greener than usual. "It seemed like it was just a cave. I don't like yucky old caves."
"She has good taste." Grover stage-whispered.
"I wouldn't have paid any attention except... well, it was Luke." Juniper went even greener, like fresh grass. Mari fake gagged.
"Forget what I said about good taste," Grover muttered.
"Interesting." Quintus was polishing his sword as he spoke, and the reflection gleamed in his eyes, making him look creepy. "And you believe this young man, Luke, would dare use the Labyrinth as an invasion route?"
"Definitely. 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." Clarisse scowled. "He could wipe us out easy. He must've been planning this for months."
"He's been sending scouts out into the maze," Annabeth said. "We know this because... Clarisse found one."
"And Mari's annoying little friend," Clarisse added.
"Adela isn't annoying!" Mari said, glaring.
"Chris Rodriguez." Chiron brought the meeting back to the topic at hand. "We already thought that Luke had been looking for a way to navigate the maze. But from what little Chris has been able to say, Luke has been specifically searching for Daedalus's workshop."
"Daedalus? He's the one who created the maze, right?" Percy asked.
"Yes." Annabeth nodded. "The greatest architect, the greatest inventor of all time. If the legends are true, his workshop is in the centre of the Labyrinth. He's the only one who knew how to navigate the maze perfectly. Mari can find some safe passages, but she's nowhere near as practised as he is. Luke had Circe teach her to use the mist to navigate, sure, but only as a last resort. If he managed to find the workshop and convince Daedalus to give him Ariadne's string, he wouldn't have to fumble around searching for paths, or risk losing his army to the maze's traps. He could navigate anywhere he wanted - quickly and safely. First to Camp Half-Blood to kill us all. Then... to Olympus."
Silence washed over the arena.
Beckendorf broke it. "Back up a sec," he said. "Annabeth, you said 'convince Daedalus'. Isn't Daedalus dead?"
"I should hope so," Quintus huffed. "He lived, what, three thousand years ago? And, even if he were alive, don't the old stories say he fled from the labyrinth?"
Mari frowned. This guy was full of it. She wasn't sure how, but the last time her instincts had told her someone at camp was bad news, she'd ignored it and ended up on Circe's island. She wasn't going to make the same mistake again. Even if she had no evidence that Quintus was shady, she was keeping her guard the fuck up around him.
"That's the problem, my dear Quintus." Chiron clopped his hooves. "No one knows. There are rumours... well, there are many disturbing rumours about Daedalus, but one is that he disappeared back into the labyrinth towards the end of his life. He might still be down there."
Mari cringed. That sounded horrible. Technology was a huge no-no for every demigod, so Mari hadn't tried to see if the labyrinth had wifi, but she was reasonably confident that the answer was a resounding 'absolutely not'. If the monsters didn't get the old guy, Mari was willing to bet that boredom definitely would.
"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. He has Ariadne's string, and we have to make sure it doesn't fall into Luke's hands."
"Wait a minute." Percy frowned. "If we're worried about an attack, why don't we just blow up the entrance? Seal the tunnel?"
"It's not so easy, stupid," Clarisse growled. "I went back to the entrance I found in the Grand Canyon, once I had Chris safe and Adela was gone... wherever she went. 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. Clarisse demolished a hunk of the Grand Canyon's rock with a wrecking ball." (Mari wasn't going to question how the fuck Clarisse managed to smuggle an entire wrecking ball into the Grand Canyon. She just wasn't) "The entrance just shifted a few metres. Clarisse didn't want to try again because the sacred Sipapu is somewhere in the canyon and she didn't want to trespass near that. The best we can do is prevent Luke from learning to navigate the labyrinth."
"We could fight," spoke up Lee. Most of the cabin counsellors had been quiet throughout the conversation, so Mari was surprised he'd said anything, but it certainly made her feel a lot better. Lee continued: "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 defences, but I fear Clarisse is right," Chiron said. "The magical borders have kept this camp safe for hundreds of years. If Luke manages to get a large army of monsters into the centre of camp, bypassing our boundaries... we may not have the strength to defeat him."
"Well then, we just have to get to Daedalus's workshop first." Annabeth tried to be positive, but it clearly wasn't working. If even Chiron thought that they didn't stand a chance, then they were absolutely fucked. "Find Ariadne's string and prevent Luke from using it."
"But if we can't navigate in there, what chance do we have?" Percy asked.
"Mari can," Annabeth said.
Lee fixed her with a look, shaking his head. Mari sighed. "I can get us around some safe shortcuts. Maybe. I could barely navigate last time with Clarisse, I don't..."
"I know," Annabeth said. "But you're not the only one who can guide us through. I've been studying the labyrinth for practically my whole life. I know it better than anybody."
"From reading about it." Percy's expression was flat.
"Well, yes."
"That's not enough."
"It has to be!"
"It isn't!"
"Are you going to help me, or not?"
At this point, the entire room was looking between Percy and Annabeth like spectators at a ping-pong match. Mari kind of wished she had popcorn.
"First things first." Chiron cleared his throat. "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 looked like it physically pained her to admit it. "Annabeth."
Mari nodded, giving Annabeth a thumbs up. The girl was a genius - she probably knew more than Hippomenes did, reddit account be damned. Everyone else seemed to agree, given the murmurs of assent from the rest of the table.
"I want Mari to come with me," Annabeth said, almost instantly. "And Clarisse, if she wants."
Clarisse shook her head. "I'm not going back there."
"Don't tell me you're scared." Connor Stoll laughed. "Clarisse, chicken?"
Mari clenched her fists.
"You don't understand anything, punk!" Clarisse stood with a deathly glare and it actually looked as if she was ready to beat Connor into something resembling Mrs. O'Leary's chew toy, but she apparently managed to rein that temper in. She spoke in a calm (well, the Clarisse version of calm, so still generally menacing) but also shaky voice. "I'm never going in there again. Never!"
Then she stormed out of the arena.
"You really didn't have to be such an arse, Connor," Mari told him.
"Marion," Chiron chided.
"I'm Travis," Conn- Travis said.
"Oh." Mari nodded. "You really didn't have to be such an arse, Travis."
"Language aside, Mari is right," Chiron sighed, raising a hand to stop Travis from interrupting. "The poor girl has had a difficult year. Now, do we have agreement that Annabeth should lead the quest?"
They all nodded. Quintus didn't, probably because he was a dick.
"Very well." Chiron smiled at Annabeth. The smile was strained. "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."
➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶
Percy was pacing. Back, forth, back, forth. If he did it any longer Mari was going to throw a rock at him. He was leaving tracks in the sand. Mari was sitting on one of the small tables, in a way that definitely counted as misuse of furniture, swinging one leg back and forth. The rest of the campers were on the other side of the room. Lee was chatting with Silena and Charles Beckendorf, occasionally glancing in Mari's direction. Mari wasn't sure how she and Percy had gravitated towards each other once the war council was over. It had kind of just happened. Maybe because Annabeth had said for sure she wanted Mari on the quest (even though the writing had been on the walls there anyway) and it was a given that Percy was going to be there, too. It was like they'd formed an ultra-exclusive 'get ready to die horribly' club.
"You're going to wear a hole in the sand," Mari told Percy. "I thought you liked beaches."
"I need some air," Percy muttered. Mari sighed. She didn't think he should be alone right now, so she hopped off the rock and flitted after him.
"You okay?" Mari asked.
"It didn't take this long to get my quest," Percy said. "What if-"
"Percy, it's the oracle," Mari interrupted. "The spirit of Delphi. It's stayed in a mummy for years, gods know why. It's not that far fetched that it wants to take a while for dramatic effect. And besides, Annabeth is a genius. She'll be fine."
"You sure?" Percy asked.
"Absolutely," Mari lied.
"Percy, Mari." Juniper appeared out of nowhere, materialising between two bushes and making Mari stumble back in shock.
"Oh my gods, don't do that," she breathed.
Juniper ignored her, which must mean it was urgent because Juniper was one of the politest Dryads Mari knew. "I need to tell you both something, you need to know..." There was something urgent about the way the words stumbled from Juniper's mouth. "Luke wasn't the only one I saw around that cave."
"What do you mean?" Percy asked.
"I was trying to say something." Juniper glanced back to the arena, apprehension in her vivid green eyes. "But he was right there."
"Who?" Mari asked. She didn't know why she bothered, because a part of her already knew the answer.
"The swordmaster," said Juniper. "He was poking around the rocks."
"I freakin' knew it!" Mari snarled.
"You knew it was Quintus?" Percy asked. "How?"
"You know my... instincts? They made me feel seriously off around Luke, that's why he kidnapped me. I felt the same around Quintus. Well, not exactly. Luke made me feel like I was going to throw up every time I was around him, but Quintus just makes me feel mildly nauseous." Mari turned towards Juniper. "When did you see him?"
The Dryad shook her head, looking positively miserable. "I don't know. I don't pay attention to time. I'm a part of nature. Time passes differently for us. Maybe a week ago, I think. When he first showed up."
"What was he doing? Did he go in?" Percy asked.
"I-I'm not sure. He's creepy. I didn't even see him come into the glade. Suddenly he was just there. You have to tell Grover it's too dangerous-"
"Already did that," Mari said. "I don't think it worked."
Juniper crumpled. "You have to try again, then. This quest isn't safe and Grover needs to understa-"
"Juniper?" That was Grover's voice, from inside the sword-fighting arena. Mari was a little shocked that Lee hadn't noticed she was gone, actually. Grover's voice filtered in again. "Where'd you go?"
Juniper sighed. "I'd better go in."
"Wait!" Mari stopped her. "Can you tell Lee where I am, if he asks? I don't want to worry him any more than I probably already have."
"Of course." Juniper nodded, which made the leaves in her hair ruffle as if being caught by a gust of wind. "Just remember what I said. Don't trust that man!"
She ran back into the sword arena, leaving Mari and Percy alone. Mari tried to say something to reassure him about Annabeth, but Percy started pacing again, hands over his mouth. Mari didn't know what she was supposed to say to interrupt that. Luckily, she didn't have to think about it for very long.
Something fell out of his pocket.
Percy didn't seem to notice, caught up in his own head, so Mari picked it up to give it to him, but stopped. It was a tiny figurine, of some guy sitting in a chair. It was made of some kind of black stone. Mari frowned. It looked familiar, but Mari didn't think she'd ever met anyone who was enough of a celebrity to have a merch line. One of the girls at her old foster home used to collect Avengers figures, but this looked nothing like any of those. Mari turned it over, looking at the shiny gold stamp on the bottom. Huh.
"I didn't know you liked mythomagic," Mari said.
Percy whirled around, eyes zeroing in on the figurine. He patted his back pocket and his face dropped. "I- that's, uh-"
The figurine was really well-carved, the cheeks even looked sallow, just as sunken in as the skulls around... the... throne. Wait a minute, was this Hades? "How did you get this? I'm pretty sure Hades is one of the rarest figurines in production. There are only, like, fifty in the whole world."
Percy gave her a weird look, and Mari shrugged. "Will used to love this game. He still plays if he's feeling particularly competitive. Which is often."
This was just another reason that it sucked that the kid who'd been in the big house waiting for his hunter sister who died (What was his name? Nico?) had run away. He'd seemed like he knew what he was talking about when it came to mythomagic, which was rare because the game was stupidly confusing and had a bunch of convoluted rules that made no sense. Mari and the rest of her siblings had played against Will nine times in the past year. He'd won every time. If that kid had actually beaten Will, she'd have handed him a hundred golden drachmas right there on the spot.
"Wouldn't your Dad be mad that you're carrying around a Hades figurine everywhere you go, anyway?" Mari asked him.
"It's not mine," Percy told her.
Mari frowned. Mythomagic wasn't a very popular game, which was surprising given the fact that it would be a really useful way of teaching new campers about the gods, even if there were some inaccuracies. The Apollo card only gave him +30 for health, for example. He was the god of healing, so he should have at least +6000, and that had nothing to do with the fact that Will had used this discrepancy to beat her twice. Anyway, Mari was pretty sure that only her cabin, a few Athena kids who would never admit it, and Pollux Manada for some reason, knew what mythomagic even was. Either way, if someone had lost that figurine at camp then that person would have torn each cabin apart looking for it, angering the gods be damned.
"If you don't want it, can I keep it then?" Mari asked.
"No!" Percy's head snapped up and for a second Mari thought he looked like he was going to cry.
"Okay, okay!" Mari threw up both her hands. "I'm sorry, it's just that you don't play and it's a really good figurine."
"I'm holding onto it for someone else." Percy told her.
"Who?"
"Just... someone."
"Someone from camp?" Mari asked.
Percy didn't say anything.
Now, Mari didn't want to say this out loud because it sounded mean, but Percy didn't have any friends outside of camp. Most campers didn't. Being a demigod who was continually chased by a bunch of angry, hungry monsters who weren't afraid to kill mortals as collateral damage kind of put a wrench in the whole 'friendship' thing. Plus, most schools weren't kind to kids who couldn't focus or sit still, and took longer than everyone else to read things. The other kids picked up on that, and it made demigods a target for bullying. Mari couldn't think of why Percy would bring the figurine to camp if he was going to give it to a mortal friend, anyway.
"Percy?" Mari asked.
"It's, um, it's..."
"Was it for that Nico kid who left, last winter?" He was the only other person Mari could think of who liked mythomagic. Actually, liked might have been too weak a word. Nico had been obsessed. But why would Percy lie about that?
"How did you know that?" Percy asked, voice guarded.
"So it is Nico? And it was a lucky guess. Why are you acting so weird?"
"I'm not!" Percy said quickly. Too quickly. "It's just, um, a rare statue. I've been carrying it around, since he left, just in case... I don't want to lose it, he'll be upset."
"He's already upset, his sister is dead," Mari told him. Percy winced. Mari's gut clenched. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound so harsh. I always thought it was effed, how everyone let you be the one to tell that kid his sister died. Chiron should have done it. I think he would've if there hadn't been so much going on."
"It isn't harsh," Percy gulped. "I got her killed."
Another face flashed through Mari's mind, saying almost the exact same thing. Mason's face.
"No, you didn't!" Mari shook her head, grip on the figurine tightening to the point she almost broke it. "You did not. I don't know what happened but I know you, and you're a good person. I don't ever want to hear you say such complete bullshit ever again. You don't... nobody should blame themselves for something out of their control. Especially something like that."
Percy sighed, and sat down on the ground, head in his hands. "Bianca died when we were in Hephaestus's junkyard. We weren't supposed to touch anything, but she found that statue there. She wanted it for Nico, said it was the only one he didn't have. I tried to give it to him when he ran away but he threw it at me. I've been carrying it since, just in case... I think he hates me."
"It still isn't your fault," Mari told him.
She turned the figurine over in her hands, frowning. Chiron had given them a lecture about that place, one which Mari had attended back when she was a year-round camper. Talos's junkyard was as much a mental junkyard as a physical one. Hephaestus really didn't like intruders, so he made sure that his scrapheap of nightmares produced the things that every intruder would be most tempted to pick up. It didn't make much sense, though. Why would Bianca want a mythomagic statue? Even if Bianca was trying to get the statue for her brother, there were better statues than Hades, rare as he was. If it was the only one Nico didn't have then he would still be better off with a duplicate statue of another god - if a player had multiple statues of one god or monster, then any damage points would be doubled. It was another stupid rule, but if Nico was that obsessed with mythomagic then Bianca would have known it too, right?
No, if Bianca still picked up a mythomagic statue of Hades in that junkyard, it must have been personal for her, too. Wait a minute, it was a statue of Hades... Mari gazed over the camp. The sword-fighting arena sat a little higher in the valley, giving it a panoramic view of the cabins, the beach and the dining pavilion. From here, she could still see the blemish in the marble, the crack of dark stone that had appeared in the dining pavilion the night Nico had run away. The dots connected in her brain, and her breath caught.
Di Immortales.
Hades. Nico was a son of Hades. Mari had been right when she had that hunch on Mount Olympus, all those months ago. She'd been right. And Percy knew and wasn't saying.
"You know fish used to call out to me when I visited the aquarium as a kid?"
Percy's voice was tired. Mari supposed he wanted to change the subject, not that she could blame him. He continued, "They used to complain to me about their problems all the time. You wouldn't guess from the name but angelfish have surprisingly scandalous lives."
"Yeah, like what?" she asked.
"Like, George - the fish - told me he was cheating on Larry - also a fish - with his adoptive cousin, who was another-"
"Fish?" Mari guessed. "Sounds like something off Coronation street. Minus the fish part."
"What's that?" Percy asked.
"British tv show. You wouldn't have heard of it."
"Oh." Percy nodded. "Yeah, I probably wouldn't have. It was weird, anyhow. I thought I was hallucinating. Then they started calling me Lord."
"Ha!" Mari laughed. "Did it make you feel like an egomaniac?"
"I don't know what an egom-ego-thing is." Percy shrugged. "Probably, though."
"Lucky. All I get is a wake-up call at the arsecrack of dawn. It sucks. Uh..." Mari looked at the sun, which suddenly seemed a lot more intense. "I mean, it's really great and it's an honour!" She gave a thumbs-up at the sun, and it went back to normal again.
"Yeah." Percy flicked sand up with his pointer finger. "So lucky."
"I didn't mean it like that. Sorry. That was insensitive. Look," Mari handed Percy the statue, lowering her voice. "I'm not going to tell anybody about Nico being... you know. Who his father is."
Percy's head snapped up and he stared. "How did you know?!"
"Seriously, Percy?" Mari asked. "You're not even going to try to deny it? If anybody else figures it out then you definitely should. To answer your question, I guess it was a mix of instincts and a few hunches." This technically wasn't a lie, but Percy didn't need to know that she'd had those 'instincts' months ago.
"I still think you should tell Chiron," Mari admitted. "But it isn't my choice to make. If that kid doesn't want to suffer then I don't blame him."
"You're calling Nico a kid?" Percy gave her a side-eye. "Mari, I hate to break it to you but he's your age."
"See this sand?" Mari scooped up a fist of it. "I'm gonna shove it in your eye."
"Yeah, that's mature." Percy snorted. Mari went to attack him with the sand (she was a woman of her word) but he grinned, grabbing her wrist and twisting it, making the sand spill between her fingers. Mari laughed and wrenched her hand back. She thought she'd at least cheered Percy up a bit (yes, violence could cheer people up if the person doing the violence was short enough. That was what Michael said, anyway) but he kicked at a stone, standing up again.
"I, um, need to use the bathroom," he said, turning away and practically legging it through the strawberry fields.
Mari frowned. Something about that made her uneasy, but she couldn't put her finger on what. She wandered back into the arena, settling next to Lee, who was sitting cross-legged in a circle with Silena Beauregard and Charles Beckendorf. "You okay?" Lee asked her. Mari wasn't sure how she was even supposed to begin to respond to that question, so she just made a vaguely high-pitched noise in the back of her throat and shrugged.
Lee seemed to take the answer, tossing an arm over her shoulder in comfort. Mari realised at that moment what had made her so confused about Percy. He'd gone through the strawberry fields. That... was not the way to the bathroom. Mari would've been afraid he was going towards the big house to spy on whatever the oracle was telling Annabeth, but he wasn't stupid enough for that, right?
Right.
Maybe he wanted to go pet his pegasus - Mari was pretty sure it was called Blackberry or something - to let off some steam. Percy was a Son of Poseidon, he'd naturally love horses, right? He could be trying to calm himself down, in a way that didn't involve doing something stupid. Yeah, that must be it.
Mari didn't even believe her own thoughts.
➴➵➶➴➵➶➴➵➶
"My dear." Chiron smiled as Annabeth came back to the sword-fighting arena. "You made it."
Percy had made it back to the arena twenty minutes earlier, looking like he'd seen something scarier than the... unsanitary end of Mrs. O'Leary. It probably didn't help that as soon as he'd entered the arena again, all heads had snapped up to stare at him. Mari had tried to wave, but Lee had lowered her hand, which Mari thought was quite rude.
Annabeth walked over to Percy and sat next to him on a bench, turning towards Quintus.
"I got the prophecy. I will lead the quest to find Daedalus's workshop," she said.
Nobody seemed all that enthused.
"What did the prophecy say exactly, my dear?" Chiron asked. "The wording is important."
"I, ah..." Annabeth sucked in a breath, "Well, it said:
You shall delve in the darkness of the endless maze,
The dead, the traitor and the lost one raise."
"The lost one!" Grover practically lit up. "That must mean Pan! That's great!"
"Yeah, with the dead and the traitor." Percy shot Grover a look. "Not so great."
"And what is the rest, Annabeth?" Chiron asked.
"One shall break from what lies ahead,
To bury what's already dead."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lee asked. "You don't bury things that are alive unless you're a very messed up person, and Luke isn't here right now so we can't ask him."
Mari held in a snicker, even thought she wanted to laugh. Lee had probably made the comment for her benefit, because she knew for a fact that even though he hadn't been friends with Luke, he'd been friendly. A lot of the older campers, especially the ones Luke had been close to who'd chosen to stay at camp, used humour to cope with what he'd done, but a lot of people didn't like the jokes. Annabeth, for one, looked particularly aggravated by Lee's statement.
"I think it's more worrying that someone may be split up from the rest of the group," Clarisse said. "Especially if it's in the labyrinth. If you're on your own in there... I barely..." Clarisse trailed off, huffing.
"Annabeth, what else did the prophecy say?" Chiron asked. Annabeth continued speaking, her words halting slightly at the end. Mari could see why.
"You shall rise or fall by the ghost king's hand,"
"The child of... the child of Athena's final stand!"
Mari's stomach dropped. Child of Athena... Annabeth was a child of Athena, probably the only one going on this quest. Final stand usually meant that the person making it was way too dead to make any stands after that, right? Even if it didn't, it definitely didn't mean anything good. Lee's grip on her shoulder froze for some reason. Mari shot him a confused look.
"Hey... we shouldn't jump to conclusions," Silena suggested. "Annabeth isn't the only child of Athena, right?"
"Are you trying to make things worse?" Lee hissed at her. Silena's face fell.
"What's your problem?!" Annabeth asked him.
"My 'problem', Annabeth, is that you're not the only person the prophecy might mean." Lee glared at her. "It might have escaped your notice, but Mari is a legacy of Athena."
Ohhhh.
"Oh, shi -" Clarisse slapped a hand over Mari's mouth before she could finish the sentence.
"Are you licking my hand?!" Clarisse tore her hand away, glaring.
"It probably isn't me." Mari elected to ignore Clarisse as she answered. "If it was, the prophecy would have said 'legacy', not child, right? Uh, sorry, Annabeth. I obviously don't want it to be you either or anything."
"You really want to risk that?" Lee asked.
"Not sure I have a choice. If I can help and I don't, then we could all die," Mari replied. It was a grim statement but it was true.
"But who's this 'ghost king'?" Beckendorf asked, probably trying to change the subject. Mari fixed Percy with a look. She had a pretty good idea who it was. If it was Nico Di Angelo and he had a personal grudge against Percy, then they were really screwed. Percy avoided her gaze, but Annabeth stared at Mari, wide-eyed.
"You know?" she mouthed. Mari gave her a subtle nod, jerking her head towards Percy. Annabeth sighed.
"Are there more lines?" Chiron asked. "The prophecy does not sound complete."
"I don't remember exactly." Annabeth was an amazing liar, but this was some of her worst work. Her voice was stilted and she had hesitated before talking. Not to mention, Annabeth was a child of Athena - remembering things was like breathing to them. Last summer Annabeth had remembered the entire canoe racing scoreboard, including every single camper when a Naiad dropped it in Zephyros creek. She wouldn't forget something this important.
"Um..." Annabeth shifted. "Something about... Destroy with a hero's final breath."
Well, that didn't sound good.
"And?" Chiron prompted, definitely not satisfied with Annabeth's answer.
"Look, the point is, I have to go in," Annabeth said. "I'll find the workshop and stop Luke. And... I need help." Annabeth turned towards Percy. "Will you come?"
"I'm in." Percy didn't even hesitate.
Annabeth turned towards Mari. "What about-"
"Yes." Mari nodded. Lee froze.
"Grover, you too?" Annabeth asked. "The wild god is waiting."
Mari frowned. That was more than three people. She trusted Annabeth, but really? After what happened last winter?
"I'll pack extra recyclables for snacks!" Grover seemed too excited to remember how non-satyr metabolisms worked. Annabeth nodded at him, turning towards Tyson. "I'll need you, too," she told him.
"Yay!" Tyson clapped his hands together. "Blow-things-up-time!"
Oh, wow. Mari liked Tyson and all (who didn't? He was absolutely adorable), but that really did not inspire confidence. And five people was even worse than four! If Mari remembered what she'd been told correctly, five people had gone on the quest last winter: Thalia, Percy, Grover, Zoë Nightshade and Nico's older sister. The last two died. Mari really, really did not want a repeat.
"Wait, Annabeth." Chiron frowned. "This goes against Ancient Laws. A hero is allowed only two companions."
"I need them all," Annabeth insisted. "Chiron, it's important."
"Annabeth, consider well," Chiron warned her. "You would be breaking the Ancient laws. There are always consequences. Even just four would be risky. Five is paramount to calling the fates to attention. Three is a sacred number: three fates, three furies, three Olympian sons of Kronos. It is a good, strong number that stands against many dangers. Think on that."
"I know." Annabeth nodded. "But we have to. Please."
Quintus was eyeing them all up like they were lambs to the slaughter and he was trying to decide which of them were going to end up on the chopping block. His eyes kept landing on Mari, for some reason. She was tempted to give him the middle finger but Lee already seemed stressed enough so she let him be.
"Very well." Chiron nodded, even though he clearly didn't like it. "Let us adjourn. The members of the quest must prepare themselves. Tomorrow at dawn, we send you into the labyrinth."
(Shout-out to my Dad who helped me edit this chapter because I don't know what apostrophes are. He kept calling monsters 'lobsters' as he read this and it made me giggle. He later criticised me for not having enough lobsters. AKA my Dad is really cool.)
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Hannah Murray as Marion Carter
Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase
Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson
Aryan Simhadri as Grover Underwood
Tarjei Sandvik Moe as Lee Fletcher
Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse La Rue
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