¹ON THIS SPRING DAY. p. jackson

018.

ON THIS SPRING DAY
━━━━━ chapter eighteen

━━━━━ FLYING THROUGH THE air with such flimsy wings made Violet so nervous she was nearly sick. ( And puking on someone's head from five hundred feet into the air had never been on her bucket list—shockingly. )

               If you really thought about it, Violet should've been comfortable flying through the air on some wings—Eros was often depicted with those wings—but Violet was getting a bit sick of her parents ( and she had just spent copious amounts of time in the Labyrinth and the Underworld; her stomach was reeling from all the sudden changes ). Besides, those wings on Eros's back were growing out of his back. The God of Love had never flown with golden metal wings that were only attached to his back by strips of adhesive.

               The air was thin as Violet took a long breath in. She kept her arms extended, feeling a bit like a gigantic duck. Far below her, Percy was flying lower and lower to the ground. "Spread your arms!" she yelled. "Keep them extended!"

               She watched warily as Percy flapped his arms once and soared away from the tips of mountains rolling beneath them. The wind whistled in Violet's ears as she looked for AJ and Nico—the blond looked green in the face and he didn't tip his head down to look at the ground. Nico was to her right, and he looked as green in the face as AJ did. He sent Violet a look she couldn't read but figured the message read; This is all your fault!

               ( And it was Violet's fault. She had dragged him into this. )

               The six were spiraling through the air, glinting in the sunlight like piles of pennies. Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop.

               "Land!" Annabeth yelled, her voice carried by the wind. "These wings won't last forever!"

               AJ's eyes flashed. "How long?" he cried.

               "I don't want to find out," admitted Annabeth.

               They swooped down towards the Garden of the Gods. Violet frowned as she watched Perc do a complete circle around one of the rock spires and scare a couple of climbers. Then the six 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, Violet 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. They couldn't leave the wings around for the mortals, so they stuffed the wings in the bin outside the cafeteria.

               AJ swiveled 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. Even Violet could see that from where she stood, shading her eyes from the sun beating down.

               "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 to the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke's invasion."

               Violet sucked in her bottom lip. If she focused hard enough, she faintly heard a rapid beating in her ears—Daedalus's heartrate maybe? But it was also a bit like buzzing, not the same ringing she heard when Zoë was dying. It was more like satic than ringing. And Grover and Tyson ... if Daedalus had died and Violet's ears were telling her wrong, that means ... She didn't want to think about it.