𝒊𝒗. 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔

𝒙𝒊𝒊𝒊.

The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels. Percy didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed them where to look, and he recognized the faint blue symbol etched in the metal. 

"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said. 

"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut." 

"No." Annabeth stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."

Sure enough, as soon as Annabeth put her hand on the mark, it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down. 

"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but Noelle couldn't tell if she was pretending or not. She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and her regular marker-colored jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face. "So... after you?"

"You're the guide, princess," Annabeth said with mock politeness. "Lead on." 

Rachel flashed her a glare, but the tips of her ears had grown pink. "Don't call me that."

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark they couldn't see further than a foot in front of them, but Annabeth and Percy had restocked on flashlights and Noelle had her enhanced vision in the dark. As soon as the flashlights were switched on, Rachel yelped. 

A skeleton was grinning at them. It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing – at least eight feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent a shiver down my back was the single black eye socket in the center of its skull. 

"A Cyclops," Annabeth said. "It's very old. It's not... anybody we know."

It wasn't Tyson, she meant. But that didn't make Percy feel much better. He still felt like it had been put here as a warning. Whatever could kill a grown Cyclops, he didn't want to meet. 

Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?" 

"Tyson," Percy said. "My half-brother."

"Your half-brother?" 

"Hopefully we'll find him down here," Noelle said with a comforting smile. "And Grover. He's a satyr." 

"Oh." Her voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving." 

She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. Annabeth and I exchanged looks. Annabeth shrugged. We followed Rachel deeper into the maze. 

After fifty feet we came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots. 

I pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took." 

Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right—those old stones—that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop." 

"We need to go straight," Rachel said. 

Annabeth and I both looked at her. 

"That's the least likely choice," Annabeth said. 

"You don't see it?" Rachel asked. "Look at the floor." 

I saw nothing except well-worn bricks and mud. 

"There's a brightness there," Rachel insisted. "Very faint. But forward is the correct way. To the left, farther down the tunnel, those tree roots are moving like feelers. I don't like that. To the right, there's a trap about twenty feet down. Holes in the walls, maybe for spikes. I don't think we should risk it."