The Battle of the Labyrinth

monsters we’d seen. With a few strokes she caught the likeness of a dracaena perfectly.
    “We’ll follow the path,” she said. “The brightness on the floor.”
    “The brightness that led us straight into a trap?” Annabeth asked.
    “Lay off her, Annabeth,” I said. “She’s doing the best she can.”
    Annabeth stood. “The fire’s getting low. I’ll go look for some more scraps while you guys talk strategy.” And she marched off into the shadows.
    Rachel drew another figure with her stick—an ashy Antaeus dangling from his chains.
    “Annabeth’s usually not like this,” I told her. “I don’t know what her problem is.”
    Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Are you sure you don’t know?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Boys,” she muttered. “Totally blind.”
    “Hey, don’t you get on my case, too! Look, I’m sorry I got you involved in this.”
    “No, you were right,” she said. “I can see the path. I can’t explain it, but it’s really clear.” She pointed toward the other end of the room, into the darkness. “The workshop is that way. The heart of the maze. We’re very close now. I don’t know why the path led through that arena. I—I’m sorry about that. I thought you were going to die.”
    She sounded like she was close to crying.
    “Hey, I’m usually about to die,” I promised. “Don’t feel bad.”
    She studied my face. “So you do this every summer? Fight monsters? Save the world? Don’t you ever get to do just, you know, normal stuff ?”
    I’d never really thought about it like that. The last time I’d had something like a normal life had been . . . well, never. “Half-bloods get used to it, I guess. Or maybe not used to it, but . . .” I shifted uncomfortably. “What about you? What do you do normally?”
    Rachel shrugged. “I paint. I read a lot.”
    Okay, I thought. So far we are scoring a zero on the similarities chart. “What about your family?”
    I could sense her mental shields going up, like this was not a safe subject. “Oh . . . they’re just, you know, family.”
    “You said they wouldn’t notice if you were gone.”
    She set down her drawing stick. “Wow, I’m really tired. I may sleep for a while, okay?”
    “Oh, sure. Sorry if . . .”
    But Rachel was already curling up, using her backpack as a pillow. She closed her eyes and lay very still, but I got the feeling she wasn’t really asleep.
    A few minutes later, Annabeth came back. She tossed some more sticks on the fire. She looked at Rachel, then at me.
    “I’ll take first watch,” she said. “You should sleep, too.”
    “You don’t have to act like that.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like . . . never mind.” I lay down, feeling miserable. I was so tired I fell asleep as soon as my eyes closed.
    * * *
    In my dreams I heard laughter. Cold, harsh laughter, like knives being sharpened.
    I was standing at the edge of a pit in the depths of Tartarus. Below me the darkness seethed like inky soup.
    “So close to your own destruction, little hero,” the voice of Kronos chided. “And still you are blind.”
    The voice was different than it had been before. It seemed almost physical now, as if it were speaking from a real body instead of . . . whatever he’d been in his chopped-up condition.
    “I have much to thank you for,” Kronos said. “You have assured my rise.”
    The shadows in the cavern became deeper and heavier. I tried to back away from the edge of the pit, but it was like swimming through oil. Time slowed down. My breathing almost stopped.
    “A favor,” Kronos said. “The Titan lord always pays his debts. Perhaps a glimpse of the friends you abandoned . . .”
    The darkness rippled around me, and I was in a different cave.
    “Hurry!” Tyson said. He came barreling into the room. Grover stumbled along behind him. There was a rumbling in the corridor they’d come from, and the head of an enormous snake burst into the cave. I mean, this thing was so big its body barely fit through the tunnel. Its scales were coppery. Its head was diamond-shaped like a rattler, and its yellow eyes glowed with hatred. When it opened its mouth, its fangs were as tall as Tyson.
    It lashed at Grover, but Grover scampered out of the way. The snake got a mouthful of dirt. Tyson picked up a boulder and threw it at the monster, smacking it between the eyes, but the snake just recoiled and hissed.
    “It’s going to eat you!” Grover yelled at Tyson.
    “How do you know?”
    “It just told me!