𝒊𝒗. 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐘𝐎𝐔

𝒙𝒗.

Jumping out a window five hundred feet aboveground was not usually Noelle's idea of fun. But it wouldn't have been the first time she had fallen from such heights. Noelle was grateful her experience at the St. Louis Arch a few summers ago didn't result in a fear of heights.

She watched as her friends plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. She was pretty sure Percy was going to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods, before she risked turning back to human for a second to yell, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended." 

The small part of Percy's brain that wasn't engulfed in panic heard her, and his arms responded. As soon as he spread them out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and his descent slowed. He soared downward, but at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive. 

Experimentally, he flapped his arms once. Percy arced into the sky, the wind whistling in his ears. 

"Yeah!" he yelled. The feeling was unbelievable, and he couldn't believe Noelle could just do this anytime she wanted. After getting the hang of it, Percy felt like the wings were part of his body. He could soar and swoop and dive anywhere he wanted to. 

Percy turned and saw his friends—Rachel, Annabeth, and Nico—spiraling above him, glinting in the sunlight. Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop. He briefly wondered where Noelle was before he saw a blur of brown pass him.

"Land!" Annabeth yelled. "These wings won't last forever." 

"How long?" Rachel asked. 

"I don't want to find out!" Annabeth said. 

They swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. Percy did a complete circle around one of the rock spires and freaked out a couple of climbers. Then the five of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor center. It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty, but they ripped off their wings as quickly as they could. Looking at them, Percy could see Annabeth was right. The self-adhesive seals that bound the wings to their backs were already melting, and they were shedding bronze feathers. It seemed a shame, but they couldn't fix them, and couldn't leave them around for the mortals, so they stuffed the wings in trash bins outside the cafeteria. 

Noelle turned back to her normal self and used the tourist binocular camera to look up at the hill where Daedalus's workshop had been, but it had vanished. No more smoke. No broken windows. Just the side of a hill. 

"The workshop moved," Annabeth guessed. "There's no telling where." 

"So what do we do now?" Percy asked. "How do we get back in the maze?" 

Annabeth gazed at the summit of Pikes Peak in the distance. "Maybe we can't. If Daedalus died...he said his life force was tied into the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke's invasion." 

Percy thought about Grover and Tyson, still down there somewhere. And Daedalus...even though he'd done some terrible things and put everybody Percy cared about at risk, it seemed like a pretty horrible way to die. 

"No," Nico said. "He isn't dead." 

"How can you be sure?" Noelle asked. 

"I know when people die. It's this feeling I get, like a buzzing in my ears." 

"What about Tyson and Grover, then?" Percy asked

Nico shook his head. "That's harder. They're not humans or half-bloods. They don't have mortal souls." 

"We have to get into town," Annabeth decided. "Our chances will be better of finding an entrance to the Labyrinth. We have to make it back to camp before Luke and his army."