WINGED ₁

50

ALMOST AS SOON AS THEY FOUND THEMSELVES UNDERGROUND, MADELEINE KNEW THEY WERE HOPELESSLY LOST. It was by no fault of Annabeth's. The tunnel shifted around them, making grotesque movements wherever they stepped.

The tunnel looked nothing like what Percy and Annabeth had described. It was round like a sewer, constructed of red brick with iron-barred portholes evenly spaced every ten feet. Percy shined his flashlight through one of the portholes, but Madeleine couldn't make anything out. It opened into infinite darkness. Something whispered on the other side, like wind or voices or perhaps the dead.

Annabeth tried her best to guide them. 

"If we keep one hand on the left wall and follow it," she reasoned, "we should be able to find our way out again by reversing course."

As if the maze was listening, the left wall disappeared, and they found themselves in the middle of a circular chamber with eight tunnels leading out, as if they'd teleported there.

"Um, which way did we come in?" Grover asked nervously.

"Just turn around," Annabeth told him.

They each turned toward a different tunnel. 

"Left walls are mean," Tyson decided.

Madeleine was, unfortunately, starting to understand the Labyrinth. It was malevolent chaos with a consciousness.

"It'll tell us which way we need to go," Madeleine guessed. "It knows what we want. Think of it like a god. If we please it, it'll return the favor."

"Or, if we don't please it," Percy deduced, "it'll murder us in a very humiliating way."

"Thank you for your optimism," Madeleine told him primly.

"Which way now?" Tyson asked.

Annabeth swept her flashlight beam over the archways of the eight tunnels. They looked identical to Madeleine, but Annabeth pointed to one and said, "That way."

"How do you know?" Percy asked.

"Deductive reasoning."

"So... you're guessing."

"Just come on," she said. 

"All we have are guesses," Madeleine told Percy, already exhausted of the ping-pong match between he and Annabeth. They either needed to sleep together to get rid of the tension or have a nice and clean conversation. Madeleine didn't figure either was likely to happen any time soon.

The tunnel Annabeth had chosen narrowed rapidly. The walls turned to gray cement, and the ceiling lowered so quickly that they all had to hunch over except for Tyson, who was so tall that he had to crawl.

The sound of Grover hyperventilating echoed through the tunnel. "I can't stand it anymore," he whispered. "Are we there yet?"

"We've been down here maybe five minutes," Annabeth told him.

"Or five hours," Madeleine suggested pleasantly. "Time is fluid here, I think."

"You're not helping," Grover said. "And why would Pan be down here? This is the opposite of the wild!"

They kept shuffling forward. Just when Madeleine was certain that the tunnel was going to become too narrow to crawl through and force them to backtrack, it opened up into a large room. They shined their flashlights over the walls and Percy said, "Woah."

The walls were covered in mosaic tiles. The pictures were grimy and faded, but Madeleine could still make out the colors that must have once been vivid. There were hues of red, blue, green, and gold. The frieze showed the Olympians at a feast. There was Percy's father, Poseidon, with his trident, holding out grapes for Dionysus to turn into wine. Zeus was partying with satyrs, which was surprising, because Madeleine didn't think Zeus could party. Her own father, Hermes, was flying through the air on his winged sandals, which made Madeleine smile fondly about the own shoes on her feet. Another point for Madeleine, another loss for Luke.