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"old enemy"
LOSING HER SIGHT HAD BEEN BAD ENOUGH. Being isolated from Ariadne had been horrible.
But now that she could see again, watching her die slowly from Medusa's curse and being unable to do anything about it—that was the worst curse of all.
Bob slung Ariadne over his shoulder like a bag of sports equipment while the skeleton kitten Small Bob curled up on Ariadne's back and purred. Bob lumbered along at a fast pace, even for a Titan, which made it almost impossible for Annabeth to keep up.
Her Ming's rattled. Her skin had started to blister again. She probably needed another drink of fire water, but they'd left the River Phlegethon behind. Her body was so sore and battered that she'd forgotten what it was like not to be in pain.
"How much longer?" she wheezed.
"Almost too long," Bob called back. "But maybe not."
The landscape changed again. They were still going downhill, which should have made traveling easier, but the ground slopes at just the wrong angle—too steep to jog, too treacherous to let her guard down even for a moment. The surface was sometimes loose gravel, sometimes patches of slime. Annabeth stepped around random bristles sharp enough to impale her foot, and clusters of...well, not rocks exactly. More like warts the size of watermelons. If Annabeth had to guess she supposed Bob was leading her down the length of Tartarus's large intestine.
The air got thicker and stank sewage. The darkness maybe wasn't quite as intense, but she could only see Bob because of the glint of his white hair and the point of his spear. She noticed he hadn't retracted the spearhead on his broom since their fight with the arai. That didn't reassure her.
Ariadne flopped around, causing the kitten to readjust his nest in the small of Ariadne's back. Occasionally Ariadne would groan in pain, and Annabeth felt like a fist was squeezing her heart.
She thought about how Ariadne was apart of Percy's daydream of New Rome—the two of them settling down there, going to college together. At first, the idea of losing her two best friends among Romans had appalled her.
Now she is willing to accept it, if she also got to do it with Andrea, her poor girlfriend who was most definitely worried and wanting to wring her neck.
She had to concentrate on the present, putting one foot in front of the other, taking this downhill intestinal hike one giant wart at a time.
Her knees felt warm and wobbly, like wire hangers bent to the point of snapping. Ariadne groaned and muttered something she couldn't make out.
Bob stopped suddenly. "Look."
Ahead in the gloom, the terrain leveled out into a black swamp. Sulphur-yellow mist hung in the air. Even without sunlight, there were actual plants—clumps of reeds, scrawny leafless trees, even a few sickly-looking flowers blooming in the muck. Mossy trails wound between bubbling tar pits. Directly in front of Annabeth, sunk into the bog, were footprints the size of trash can lids, with long, pointed toes.
