The Battle of the Labyrinth

You will never escape me!”
    Icarus grabbed the wax gun and sprayed it at the king, who stepped back in surprise. The guards rushed forward, but each got a stream of hot wax in his face.
    “The vent!” Icarus yelled to his father.
    “Get them!” King Minos raged.
    Together, the old man and his son pried open the manhole cover, and a column of hot air blasted out of the ground. The king watched, incredulous, as the inventor and son shot into the sky on their bronze wings, carried by the updraft.
    “Shoot them!” the king yelled, but his guards had brought no bows. One threw his sword in desperation, but Daedalus and Icarus were already out of reach. They wheeled above the maze and the king’s palace, then zoomed across the city of Knossos and out past the rocky shores of Crete.
    Icarus laughed. “Free, Father! You did it.”
    The boy spread his wings to their full limit and soared away on the wind.
    “Wait!” Daedalus called. “Be careful!”
    But Icarus was already out over the open sea, heading north and delighting in their good luck. He soared up and scared an eagle out of its flight path, then plummeted toward the sea like he was born to fly, pulling out of a nosedive at the last second. His sandals skimmed the waves.
    “Stop that!” Daedalus called. But the wind carried his voice away. His son was drunk on his own freedom.
    The old man struggled to catch up, gliding clumsily after his son.
    They were miles from Crete, over deep sea, when Icarus looked back and saw his father’s worried expression.
    Icarus smiled. “Don’t worry, Father! You’re a genius! I trust your handiwork—”
    The first metal feather shook loose from his wings and fluttered away. Then another. Icarus wobbled in midair. Suddenly he was shedding bronze feathers, which twirled away from him like a flock of frightened birds.
    “Icarus!” his father cried. “Glide! Extend the wings. Stay as still as possible!”
    But Icarus flapped his arms, desperately trying to reassert control.
    The left wing went first—ripping away from the straps.
    “Father!” Icarus cried. And then he fell, the wings stripped away until he was just a boy in a climbing harness and a white tunic, his arms extended in a useless attempt to glide.
    I woke with a start, feeling like I was falling. The corridor was dark. In the constant moaning of the Labyrinth, I thought I could hear the anguished cry of Daedalus calling his son’s name, as Icarus, his only joy, plummeted toward the sea, three hundred feet below.
    There was no morning in the maze, but once everyone woke up and had a fabulous breakfast of granola bars and juice boxes, we kept traveling. I didn’t mention my dream. Something about it had really freaked me out, and I didn’t think the others needed to know that.
    The old stone tunnels changed to dirt with cedar beams, like a gold mine or something. Annabeth started getting agitated.
    “This isn’t right,” she said. “It should still be stone.”
    We came to a cave where stalactites hung low from the ceiling. In the center of the dirt floor was a rectangular pit, like a grave.
    Grover shivered. “It smells like the Underworld in here.”
    Then I saw something glinting at the edge of the pit— a foil wrapper. I shined my flashlight into the hole and saw a half-chewed cheeseburger floating in brown carbonated muck.
    “Nico,” I said. “He was summoning the dead again.”
    Tyson whimpered. “Ghosts were here. I don’t like ghosts.”
    “We’ve got to find him.” I don’t know why, but standing at the edge of that pit gave me a sense of urgency. Nico was close. I could feel it. I couldn’t let him wander around down here, alone except for the dead. I started to run.
    “Percy!” Annabeth called.
    I ducked into a tunnel and saw light up ahead. By the time Annabeth, Tyson, and Grover caught up with me, I was staring at daylight streaming through a set of bars above my head. We were under a steel grate made out of metal pipes. I could see trees and blue sky.
    “Where are we?” I wondered.
    Then a shadow fell across the grate and a cow stared down at me. It looked like a normal cow except it was a weird color—bright red, like a cherry. I didn’t know cows came in that color.
    The cow mooed, put one hoof tentatively on the bars, then backed away.
    “It’s a cattle guard,” Grover said.
    “A what?” I asked.
    “They put them at the gates of ranches so cows can’t get out. They can’t walk on them.”
    “How do you