¹𝐇𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐋𝐈𝐀. percy jackson

XXXVI.

ｔｈｅ ｂａｔｔｌｅ ｏｆ ｔｈｅ ｌａｂｙｒｉｎｔｈ

LUCIA HAD THE SUDDEN URGE TO START SINGING BREAKING FREE from High School Musical while falling five hundred feet above the ground. 'soaring' and 'flying' felt kind of appropriate when she was flapping her arms like a duck mid-air.

However, the urge to break into song was soon forgotten as she plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. She was pretty sure she was going to break more than her legs in the Garden of the Gods, until Annabeth yelled from somewhere above her, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."

The small part of her brain that wasn't engulfed in panic heard her, and her arms responded. As soon as Lucia 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, She flapped her arms once. she arced into the sky, the wind whistling in her ears.

"Awesome!" She yelled.

The feeling was unbelievable. After getting the hang of it, She 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. 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.

"got you," Percy whispered when Lucia stumbled on her landing

"Mmthanks" she muttered

It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty, but they ripped off their wings as quickly as they could. Looking at them, Lucia 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, 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.

Percy 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?" He asked. "How do we get back into 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."

Lucia 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?" Percy asked.

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

"What about Tyson and Grover, then?"

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