The Battle of the Labyrinth

name was, but the sea demons jarred me back to reality.
    “There!” one yelled. The entire class of telekhines charged across the bridge toward me. I ran for the middle of the platform, surprising the four elder sea demons so much they dropped the red-hot blade. It was about six feet long and curved like a crescent moon. I’d seen a lot of terrifying things, but this unfinished whatever-it-was scared me worse.
    The elder demons got over their surprise quickly. There were four ramps leading off the platform, and before I could dash in any direction, each of them had covered an exit.
    The tallest one snarled. “What do we have here? A son of Poseidon?’
    “Yes,” another growled. “I can smell the sea in his blood.”
    I raised Riptide. My heart was pounding.
    “Strike down one of us, demigod,” the third demon said, “and the rest of us shall tear you to shreds. Your father betrayed us. He took our gift and said nothing as we were cast into the pit. We will see him sliced to pieces. He and all the other Olympians.”
    I wished I had a plan. I wished I hadn’t been lying to Annabeth. I’d wanted her to get out safely, and I hoped she’d been sensible enough to do it. But now it was dawning on me that this might be the place I would die. No prophecies for me. I would get overrun in the heart of a volcano by a pack of dog-faced sea-lion people. The young telekhines were at the platform now, too, snarling and waiting to see how their four elders would deal with me.
    I felt something burning against the side of my leg. The ice whistle in my pocket was getting colder. If I ever needed help, now was the time. But I hesitated. I didn’t trust Quintus’s gift.
    Before I could make up my mind, the tallest telekhine said, “Let us see how strong he is. Let us see how long it takes him to burn!”
    He scooped some lava out of the nearest furnace. It set his fingers ablaze, but this didn’t seem to bother him at all. The other elder telekhines did the same. The first one threw a glop of molten rock at me and set my pants on fire. Two more splattered across my chest. I dropped my sword in sheer terror and swatted at my clothes. Fire was engulfing me. Strangely, it felt only warm at first, but it was getting hotter by the instant.
    “Your father’s nature protects you,” one said. “Makes you hard to burn. But not impossible, youngling. Not impossible.”
    They threw more lava at me, and I remember screaming. My whole body was on fire. The pain was worse than anything I’d ever felt. I was being consumed. I crumpled to the metal floor and heard the sea demon children howling in delight.
    Then I remembered the voice of the river naiad at the ranch: The water is within me.
    I needed the sea. I felt a tugging sensation in my gut, but I had nothing around to help me. Not a faucet or a river. Not even a petrified seashell this time. And besides, the last time I’d unleashed my power at the stables, there’d been that scary moment when it had almost gotten away from me.
    I had no choice. I called to the sea. I reached inside myself and remembered the waves and the currents, the endless power of the ocean. And I let it loose in one horrible scream.
    Afterward, I could never describe what happened. An explosion, a tidal wave, a whirlwind of power simultaneously catching me up and blasting me downward into the lava. Fire and water collided, superheated steam, and I shot upward from the heart of the volcano in a huge explosion, just one piece of flotsam thrown free by a million pounds of pressure. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was flying, flying so high Zeus would never have forgiven me, and then beginning to fall, smoke and fire and water streaming from me. I was a comet hurtling toward the earth.

TWELVE

I TAKE A PERMANENT VACATION
    I woke up feeling like I was still on fire. My skin stung. My throat felt as dry as sand.
    I saw blue sky and trees above me. I heard a fountain gurgling, and smelled juniper and cedar and a bunch of other sweet-scented plants. I heard waves, too, gently lapping on a rocky shore. I wondered if I was dead, but I knew better. I’d been to the Land of the Dead, and there was no blue sky.
    I tried to sit up. My muscles felt like they were melting.
    “Stay still,” a girl’s voice said. “You’re too weak to rise.”
    She laid a cool cloth across my forehead. A bronze spoon hovered over me and liquid was dribbled into my mouth. The drink soothed my throat and