Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore.
It was against the rules, but then again, nobody was watching. I ran down the hill and headed across the fields.
The front parlor of the Big House was strangely quiet. I was used to seeing Dionysus by the fireplace, playing cards and eating grapes and griping at satyrs, but Mr. D was still away.
I walked down the hallway, floorboards creaking under my feat. When I got to the base of the stairs, I hesitated. Four floors above would be a little trapdoor leading to the attic. Annabeth would be up there somewhere. I stood quietly and listened. But what I heard wasn’t what I had expected.
Sobbing. And it was coming from below me.
I crept around the back of the stairs. The basement door was open. I didn’t even know the Big House had a basement. I peered inside and saw two figures in the far corner, sitting amid a bunch of stockpiled cases of ambrosia and strawberry preserves. One was Clarisse. The other was a teenage Hispanic guy in tattered camouflage pants and a dirty black T-shirt. His hair was greasy and matted. He was hugging his shoulders and sobbing. It was Chris Rodriguez, the half-blood who’d gone to work for Luke.
“It’s okay,” Clarisse was telling him. “Try a little more nectar.”
“You’re an illusion, Mary!” Chris backed farther into the corner. “G-get away.”
“My name’s not Mary.” Clarisse’s voice was gentle but really sad. I never knew Clarisse could sound that way. “My name is Clarisse. Remember. Please.”
“It’s dark!” Chris yelled. “So dark!”
“Come outside,” Clarisse coaxed. “The sunlight will help you.”
“A…a thousand skulls. The earth keeps healing him.”
“Chris,” Clarisse pleaded. It sounded like she was close to tears. “You have to get better. Please. Mr. D will be back soon. He’s an expert in madness. Just hang on.”
Chris’s eyes were like a cornered rat’s—wild and desperate. “There’s no way out, Mary. No way out.”
Then he caught a glimpse of me and made a strangled, terrified sound. “The son of Poseidon! He’s horrible!”
I backed away, hoping Clarisse hadn’t seen me. I listened for her to come charging out and yell at me, but instead she just kept talking to Chris in a sad pleading voice, trying to get him to drink the nectar. Maybe she thought it was part of Chris’s hallucination, but…son of Poseidon? Chris had been looking at me, and yet why did I get the feeling he hadn’t been talking about me at all?
And Clarisse’s tenderness—it had never even occurred to me that she might like someone; but the way she said Chris’s name…She’d known him before he changed sides. She’d known him a lot better than I realized. And now he was shivering in a dark basement, afraid to come out, and mumbling about someone named Mary. No wonder Clarisse didn’t want anything to do with the Labyrinth. What had happened to Chris in there?
I heard a creak from above—like the attic door opening—and I ran for the front door. I needed to get out of that house.
“My dear,” Chiron said. “You made it.”
Annabeth looked at me first. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to warn me, or if the look in her eyes was just plain fear. Then she focused on Quintus. “I got the prophecy. I will lead the quest to find Daedalus’s workshop.”
Nobody cheered. I mean, we all liked Annabeth, and we wanted her to have a quest, but this one seemed insanely dangerous. After what I’d seen of Chris Rodriguez, I didn’t even want to think about Annabeth descending into that weird maze again.
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...”
We 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,” I added. “Not so great.”
“And?” Chiron asked. “What is the rest?”
“You shall rise or fall by the ghost king’s hand,” Annabeth said, “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.
No one answered. I thought about the Iris-message I’d seen of Nico summoning spirits. I 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. She never forgot something she heard.
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 me. “Will you come?”
I didn’t even hesitate. “I’m in.”
She smiled for the first time in days, and that made it all worthwhile. “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 was dozing in the corner.
“Wait, Annabeth,” Chiron said. “This goes against the ancient laws. A hero is allowed only two companions.”
“I need them all,” she insisted. “Chiron, it’s important.”
I didn’t know why she was so certain, but I was happy she’d included Tyson. I couldn’t imagine leaving him behind. He was huge and strong and great at figuring out mechanical things. Unlike satyrs, Cyclopes had no problem underground.
“Annabeth.” Chiron flicked his tail nervously. “Consider well. You would be breaking the ancient laws, and there are always consequences. Last winter, five went on a quest to save Artemis. Only three came back. Think on that. Three is a sacred number. There are three fates, three furies, three Olympian sons of Kronos. It is a good strong number that stands against many dangers. Four…this is risky.”
Annabeth took a deep breath. “I know. But we have to. Please.”
I could tell Chiron didn’t like it. Quintus was studying us, like he was trying to decide which of us 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.”
Quintus pulled me aside as the council was breaking up.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” he told me.
Mrs. O’Leary came over, wagging her tail happily. She dropped her shield at my feet, and I threw it for her. Quintus watched her romp after it. I remembered what Juniper had said about him scouting out the maze. I didn’t’ trust him, but when he looked at me, I saw real concern in his eyes.
“I don’t like the idea of you going down there,” he said. “Any of you. but if you must, I want you to remember something. The Labyrinth exists to fool you. It will distract you. That’s dangerous for half-bloods. We are easily distracted.”
“You’ve been in there?”
“Long ago.” His voice was ragged. “I barely escaped with my life. Most who enter aren’t that lucky.”
He gripped my shoulder. “Percy, keep your mind on what matters most. If you can do that, you might find the way. And here, I wanted to give you something.”
He handed me a little silver tube. It was so cold I almost dropped it.
“A whistle?” I asked.
“A dog whistle,” Quintus said. “For Mrs. O’Leary.”
“Um, thanks, but—”
“How will it work in the maze? I’m not a hundred percent certain it will. But Mrs. O’Leary is a hellhound. She can appear when called, no matter how far away she is. I’d feel better knowing you had this. If you really need help, use it; but be careful, the whistle is made of Stygian ice.”
“What ice?”
“From the River Styx. Very hard to craft. Very delicate. It cannot melt, but it will shatter when you blow it, so you can only use it once.”
I thought about Luke, my old enemy. Right before I’d gone on my first quest, Luke had given me a gift, too—magic shoes that had been designed to drag me to my death. Quintus seemed nice. So concerned. And Mrs. O’Leary liked him, which had to count for something. She dropped the slimy shield at my feet and barked excitedly.
I felt ashamed that I could even think about mistrusting Quintus. But then again, I’d trusted Luke once.
“Thanks,” I told Quintus. I slipped the freezing whistle into my pocket, promising myself that I would never use it, and I dashed off to find Annabeth.
As long as I’d been at camp, I’d never been inside the Athena cabin.
It was a silvery building, nothing fancy, with plain white curtains and a carved stone owl over the doorway. The owl’s onyx eyes seemed to follow me as I walked closer.
“Hello?” I called inside.
Nobody answered. I stepped in and caught my breath. The place was a workshop for brainiac kids. The bunks were all pushed against one wall as if sleeping didn’t matter very much. Most of the room was filled with workbenches and tables and sets of tools and weapons. The back of the room was a huge library crammed with old scrolls and leather-bound books and paperbacks. There was and architect’s drafting table with a bunch of rulers and protractors, and some 3-D models of buildings. Huge old war maps were plastered to the ceiling. Sets of armor hung under the windows, their bronze plates glinting in the sun.
Annabeth stood in the back of the room, rifling through old scrolls.
“Knock, knock?” I said.
She turned with a start. “Oh…hi. Didn’t hear you.”
“You okay?”
She frowned at the scroll in her hands. “Just trying to do some research. Daedalus’s Labyrinth is so huge. None of the stories agree about anything. The maps just lead from nowhere to nowhere.”
I thought about what Quintus had said, how the maze tries to distract you. I wondered if Annabeth knew that already.
“We’ll figure it out,” I promised.
Her hair had come loose and was hanging in a tangled blond curtain all around her face. Her gray eyes looked almost black.
“I’ve wanted to lead a quest since I was seven,” she said.
“You’re going to do awesome.”