LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE . . . pjo

XVIII.

JUMPING OUT A window five hundred feet aboveground is not usually Mia's idea of fun. Especially when she's wearing bronze wings and flapping her arms like a chicken or whatever.

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 below her, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."

The small part of Mia's brain that wasn't engulfed in panic heard her, and Mia's arms responded. As soon as she spread them out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and her descent slowed. She soared, flapping her arms, the wind whistling in her ears.

Mia let out an elated laugh, spinning in midair. She forgot how much she'd liked skydiving the two times that she's done it.

"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. Mia 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, Mia 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.

Mia looked 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."

Mia 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. But he wasn't dead. Mia could feel it.

"No," Nico said. "He isn't dead."

Mia minutely nodded in agreement.

"How can you be sure?" Percy asked.

"I know when people die," Nico explained. "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."

"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."

"We could just take a plane," Rachel said.

Percy shuddered. "I don't fly."

"But you just did."

"That was low flying," Percy said, "and even that's risky. Flying up really high — that's Zeus's territory. I can't do it. Besides, we don't even have time for a flight. The labyrinth is the quickest way back."

"So we need a car to take us into the city," Mia said, looking at Rachel. "We'll take care of it?"

Rachel grimaced, but she nodded. "Yeah. Even though your name is probably bigger than mine."