The Battle of the Labyrinth

enemy.
    Hecate, Janus, and Nemesis, as well. Zeus knows how many more.” Thunder rumbled in the distance. “Strike that,” Dionysus said. “Even Zeus doesn’t know.
    Now, I want to hear Grover’s story. Again, from the top.”
    “But, my lord,” Silenus protested. “It’s just nonsense!”
    Dionysus’s eyes flared with purple fire. “I have just learned that my son Castor is dead, Silenus. I am not in a good mood. You would do well to humor me.”
    Silenus gulped, and waved at Grover to start again.
    When Grover was done, Mr. D nodded. “It sounds like just the sort of thing Pan would do. Grover is right. The search is tiresome. You must start thinking for yourselves.” He turned to a satyr. “Bring me some peeled grapes, right away!”
    “Yes, sire!” The satyr scampered off.
    “We must exile the traitor!” Silenus insisted.
    “I say no,” Dionysus countered. “That is my vote.”
    “I vote no as well,” Chiron put in.
    Silenus set his jaw stubbornly. “All in favor of the exile?
    ” He and the two other old satyrs raised their hands.
    “Three to two,” Silenus said.
    “Ah, yes,” Dionysus said. “But unfortunately for you, a god’s vote counts twice. And as I voted against, we are tied.”
    Silenus stood, indignant. “This is an outrage! The council cannot stand at an impasse.”
    “Then let it be dissolved!” Mr. D said. “I don’t care.”
    Silenus bowed stiffly, along with his two friends, and they left the grove. About twenty satyrs went with them. The rest stood around murmuring uncomfortably.
    “Don’t worry,” Grover told them. “We don’t need a council to tell us what to do. We can figure it out ourselves.”
    He told them again the words of Pan—how they must save the wild a little at a time. He started dividing the satyrs into groups—which ones would go to the national parks, which ones would search out the last wild places, which ones would defend the parks in big cities.
    “Well,” Annabeth said to me, “Grover seems to be growing up.”
    Later that afternoon I found Tyson at the beach, talking to Briares. Briares was building a sand castle with about fifty of his hands. He wasn’t really paying attention to it, but his hands had constructed a three-story compound with fortified walls, a moat, and a drawbridge.
    Tyson was drawing a map in the sand.
    “Go left at the reef,” he told Briares. “Straight down when you see the sunken ship. Then about one mile east, past the mermaid graveyard, you will start to see fires burning.”
    “You’re giving him directions to the forges?” I asked.
    Tyson nodded. “Briares wants to help. He will teach Cyclopes ways we have forgotten, how to make better weapons and armor.”
    “I want to see Cyclopes,” Briares agreed. “I don’t want to be lonely anymore.”
    “I doubt you’ll be lonely down there,” I said a little wistfully, because I’d never even been in Poseidon’s kingdom. “They’re going to keep you really busy.”
    Briares’s face morphed to a happy expression. “Busy sounds good! I only wish Tyson could go, too.”
    Tyson blushed. “I need to stay here with my brother. You will do fine, Briares. Thank you.”
    The Hundred-Handed One shook my hand about a hundred times. “We will meet again, Percy. I know it!”
    Then he gave Tyson a big octopus hug and waded out into the ocean. We watched until his enormous head disappeared under the waves.
    I clapped Tyson on the back. “You helped him a lot.”
    “I only talked to him.”
    “You believed in him. Without Briares, we never would’ve taken down Kampê.”
    Tyson grinned. “He throws good rocks!”
    I laughed. “Yeah. He throws really good rocks. Come on, big guy. Let’s have dinner.”
    It felt good to have a regular dinner at camp. Tyson sat with me at the Poseidon table. The sunset over Long Island Sound was beautiful. Things weren’t back to normal by a long shot, but when I went up to the brazier and scraped part of my meal into the flames as an offering to Poseidon, I felt like I really did have a lot to be grateful for. My friends and I were alive. The camp was safe. Kronos had suffered a setback, at least for a while.
    The only thing that bothered me was Nico, hanging out in the shadows at the edge of the pavilion. He’d been offered a place at the Hermes table, and even at the head table with Chiron, but he had refused.
    After dinner, the campers headed toward the amphitheater, where Apollo’s cabin promised an awesome