The Battle of the Labyrinth

left a warm chocolaty aftertaste. Nectar of the gods. Then the girl’s face appeared above me.
    She had almond eyes and caramel-color hair braided over one shoulder. She was . . . fifteen? Sixteen? It was hard to tell. She had one of those faces that just seemed timeless. She began singing, and my pain dissolved. She was working magic. I could feel her music sinking into my skin, healing and repairing my burns.
    “Who?” I croaked.
    “Shhh, brave one,” she said. “Rest and heal. No harm will come to you here. I am Calypso.”
    The next time I woke I was in a cave, but as far as caves go, I’d been in a lot worse. The ceiling glittered with different-color crystal formations—white and purple and green, like I was inside one of those cut geodes you see in souvenir shops. I was lying on a comfortable bed with feather pillows and white cotton sheets. The cave was divided into sections by white silk curtains. Against one wall stood a large loom and a harp. Against the other wall were shelves neatly stacked with jars of fruit preserves. Dried herbs hung from the ceiling: rosemary, thyme, and a bunch of other stuff. My mother could’ve named them all.
    There was a fireplace built into the cave wall, and a pot bubbling over the flames. It smelled great, like beef stew.
    I sat up, trying to ignore the throbbing pain in my head. I looked at my arms, sure that they would be hideously scarred, but they seemed fine. A little pinker than usual, but not bad. I was wearing a white cotton T-shirt and cotton drawstring pants that weren’t mine. My feet were bare. In a moment of panic, I wondered what happened to Riptide, but I felt my pocket and there was my pen, right where it always reappeared.
    Not only that but the Stygian ice dog whistle was back in my pocket, too. Somehow it had followed me. And that didn’t exactly reassure me.
    With difficulty, I stood. The stone floor was freezing under my feet. I turned and found myself staring into a polished bronze mirror.
    “Holy Poseidon,” I muttered. I looked as if I’d lost twenty pounds I couldn’t afford to lose. My hair was a rat’s nest. It was singed at the edges like Hephaestus’s beard. If I saw that face on somebody walking down a highway intersection asking for money, I would’ve locked the car doors.
    I turned away from the mirror. The cave entrance was to my left. I headed toward the daylight.
    The cave opened onto a green meadow. On the left was a grove of cedar trees and on the right a huge flower garden. Four fountains gurgled in the meadow, each shooting water from the pipes of stone satyrs. Straight ahead, the grass sloped down to a rocky beach. The waves of a lake lapped against the stones. I could tell it was a lake because . . . well, I just could. Fresh water. Not salt. The sun sparkled on the water, and the sky was pure blue. It seemed like a paradise, which immediately made me nervous. You deal with mythological stuff for a few years, you learn that paradises are usually places where you get killed.
    The girl with the braided caramel hair, the one who’d called herself Calypso, was standing at the beach, talking to someone. I couldn’t see him very well in the shimmer from the sunlight off the water, but they appeared to be arguing. I tried to remember what I knew about Calypso from the old myths. I’d heard the name before, but . . . I couldn’t remember. Was she a monster? Did she trap heroes and kill them? But if she was evil, why was I still alive?
    I walked toward her slowly because my legs were still stiff. When the grass changed to gravel, I looked down to keep my balance, and when I looked up again, the girl was alone. She wore a white sleeveless Greek dress with a low circular neckline trimmed in gold. She brushed at her eyes like she’d just been crying.
    “Well,” she said, trying for a smile, “the sleeper finally awakes.”
    “Who were you talking to?” My voice sounded like a frog that had spent time in a microwave.
    “Oh . . . just a messenger,” she said. “How do you feel?”
    “How long have I been out?”
    “Time,” Calypso mused. “Time is always difficult here. I honestly don’t know, Percy.”
    “You know my name?”
    “You talk in your sleep.”
    I blushed. “Yeah. I’ve been . . . uh, told that before.”
    “Yes. Who is Annabeth?”
    “Oh, uh. A friend. We were together when—wait, how did I get here? Where am I?”
    Calypso reached up and ran her fingers through my mangled hair. I stepped back