LUNACY; percy jackson

04.13

[act four; chapter thirteen     -     lord of time]

Jumping out a window five hundred feet aboveground is not usually Andromeda's idea of fun. Especially when she's wearing bronze wings and flapping his arms like a duck, and feels like she's about to pass out from pain.

They plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. She was pretty sure they were 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."

The small part of Andromeda's brain that wasn't engulfed in panic when she heard her, and her arms responded. As soon as she spread them out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and her descent slowed, but the stabbing pain in her side only got worse. They soared downward, but at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive.

In front of her, Percy experimentally flapped his arms once. He arced into the sky, the wind whistling in his ears.

"Yeah!" He yelled, and Andromeda couldn't help the little wheeze of a laugh that left her.

He turned and saw his friends—Andromeda, Rachel, Annabeth, and Nico—spiralling above him, 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. Then the five of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor centre. 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.