JAWBREAKER

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙞𝙭𝙩𝙚𝙚𝙣

Jumping out a window five hundred feet above ground would be Warren's idea of fun if she was wearing a parachute, but bronze wings were a different story.

She plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. She was pretty sure she was going to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods, as Annabeth yelled from somewhere above her, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."

As soon as Warren spread them out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and her descent slowed. She soared downward, but at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive. Experimentally, Warren flapped her arms once. She arced into the sky, the wind whistling in her ears.

She let out an elated yell and laughed. The feeling was unbelievable. After getting the hang of it, Warren felt like the wings were part of her body. She could soar and swoop and dive anywhere she wanted to.

She turned and saw her friends spiraling above her, glinting in the sunlight. Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop.

"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. Warren 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, Warren 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.

Warren 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."

Warren thought about Grover and Tyson, still down there somewhere. And Daedalus...even though he'd done some terrible things and put everybody she 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?" Warren asked.

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