The Battle of the Labyrinth

napkin, and immediately an invisible servant whisked the bowl away. “Percy, this island, Ogygia, is my home, my birthplace. But it is also my prison. I am under . . . house arrest, I guess you would call it. I will never visit this Manhattan of yours. Or anywhere else. I am alone here.”
    “Because your father was Atlas.”
    She nodded. “The gods do not trust their enemies. And rightly so. I should not complain. Some of the prisons are not nearly as nice as mine.”
    “But that’s not fair,” I said. “Just because you’re related doesn’t mean you support him. This other daughter I knew, Zoë Nightshade—she fought against him. She wasn’t imprisoned.”
    “But, Percy,” Calypso said gently, “I did support him in the first war. He is my father.”
    “ What? But the Titans are evil!”
    “Are they? All of them? All the time?” She pursed her lips. “Tell me, Percy. I have no wish to argue with you. But do you support the gods because they are good, or because they are your family?”
    I didn’t answer. She had a point. Last winter, after Annabeth and I had saved Olympus, the gods had had a debate about whether or not they should kill me. That hadn’t been exactly good. But still, I felt like I supported them because Poseidon was my dad.
    “Perhaps I was wrong in the war,” Calypso said. “And in fairness, the gods have treated me well. They visit me from time to time. They bring me word of the outside world. But they can leave. And I cannot.”
    “You don’t have any friends?” I asked. “I mean . . . wouldn’t anyone else live here with you? It’s a nice place.”
    A tear trickled down her cheek. “I . . . I promised myself I wouldn’t speak of this. But—”
    She was interrupted by a rumbling sound somewhere out on the lake. A glow appeared on the horizon. It got brighter and brighter, until I could see a column of fire moving across the surface of the water, coming toward us.
    I stood and reached for my sword. “What is that?”
    Calypso sighed. “A visitor.”
    As the column of fire reached the beach, Calypso stood and bowed to it formally. The flames dissipated, and standing before us was a tall man in gray overalls and a metal leg brace, his beard and hair smoldering with fire.
    “Lord Hephaestus,” Calypso said. “This is a rare honor.”
    The fire god grunted. “Calypso. Beautiful as always. Would you excuse us, please, my dear? I need to have a word with our young Percy Jackson.”
    Hephaestus sat down clumsily at the dinner table and ordered a Pepsi. The invisible servant brought him one, opened it too suddenly, and sprayed soda all over the god’s work clothes. Hephaestus roared and spat a few curses and swatted the can away.
    “Stupid servants,” he muttered. “Good automatons are what she needs. They never act up!”
    “Hephaestus,” I said, “what’s going on? Is Annabeth—”
    “She’s fine,” he said. “Resourceful girl, that one. Found her way back, told me the whole story. She’s worried sick, you know.”
    “You haven’t told her I’m okay?”
    “That’s not for me to say,” Hephaestus said. “Everyone thinks you’re dead. I had to be sure you were coming back before I started telling everyone where you were.”
    “What do you mean?” I said. “Of course I’m coming back!”
    Hephaestus studied me skeptically. He fished something out of his pocket—a metal disk the size of an iPod. He clicked a button and it expanded into a miniature bronze TV. On the screen was news footage of Mount St. Helens, a huge plume of fire and ash trailing into the sky.
    “Still uncertain about further eruptions,” the newscaster was saying. “Authorities have ordered the evacuation of almost half a million people as a precaution. Meanwhile, ash has fallen as far away as Lake Tahoe and Vancouver, and the entire Mount St. Helens area is closed to traffic within a hundred-mile radius. While no deaths have been reported, minor injuries and illnesses include—”
    Hephaestus switched it off. “You caused quite an explosion.”
    I stared at the blank bronze screen. Half a million people evacuated? Injuries. Illness. What had I done?
    “The telekhines were scattered,” the god told me. “Some vaporized. Some got away, no doubt. I don’t think they’ll be using my forge any time soon. On the other hand, neither will I. The explosion caused Typhon to stir in his sleep. We’ll have to wait and see—”
    “I couldn’t release him, could I? I mean,