YOU ARE IN LOVE ↬ leo valdez x reader, book two

16. no proof, not much

"Obviously," Leo muttered.
"So will it be you two, or your friends in the elevator?" The sorceress spread her hands.
"What do you mean two? There's three of us." I pointed at us individually.
"You're not ours to kill, Y/N. You're reserved for Gaea. Shall we find out who we're taking to Athens?"
"No thanks." Leo said cheerfully.
"Well, let's just see who is still alive in twelve...actually, eleven minutes, now."

Pasiphaë stood only a few feet in front of them. Clytius waited silently at the Doors of Death. Hazel took one step forward and bumped into a wall that shouldn't have been there. Leo pressed his hands against the stone. "What the heck? Where are we?"
A corridor stretched out to our left and right. Torches guttered in iron sconces. The air smelled of mildew, as in an old tomb.

"Yes, I know," Hazel muttered to Gale on her shoulder. "It's an illusion."
Leo pounded on the wall. "Pretty solid illusion."
Pasiphaë laughed. Her voice sounded watery and far away. "Is it an illusion, Hazel Levesque, or something more? Don't you see what I have created?"
"The Labyrinth," Hazel said. "She's remaking the Labyrinth."
"What now?" Leo had been tapping the wall with a ball-peen hammer, but he turned and frowned at her. "I thought the Labyrinth collapsed during that battle at Camp Half-Blood—like, it was connected to Daedalus's life force or something, and then he died."

Pasiphaë's voice clucked disapprovingly. "Ah, but I am still alive. You credit Daedalus with all the maze's secrets? I breathed magical life into his Labyrinth. Daedalus was nothing compared to me—the immortal sorceress, daughter of Helios, sister of Circe! Now the Labyrinth will be my domain."
"It's an illusion," Hazel insisted. "We just have to break through it."

"Too late, too late," Pasiphaë crooned. "The maze is already awake. It will spread under the skin of the earth once more while your mortal world is leveled. You demigods...you heroes... will wander its corridors, dying slowly of thirst and fear and misery. Or perhaps, if I am feeling merciful, you will die quickly, in great pain!"
"How kind of you!" I shouted at nothing in particular.

Holes opened in the floor beneath my feet. Hazel grabbed Leo and pushed him aside, as a row of spikes shot upward, impaling the ceiling.
"Run!" she yelled.
Pasiphaë's laughter echoed down the corridor. "Where are you going, young sorceress? Running from an illusion?"
She pulled us down a side corridor, we leaped over a tripwire, then we stumbled to a halt in front of a pit twenty feet across.

"How deep is that?" Leo gasped for breath. His pants leg was ripped where one of the spikes had grazed him. All of Calypso's and my hardwork for his clumsiness.
"Eight minutes now," said the voice of Pasiphaë. "I'd love to see you survive, truly. That would prove you worthy sacrifices to Gaea in Athens. But then, of course, we wouldn't need your friends in the elevator."
"Stop commentating, gods."

"Seven minutes now," Pasiphaë lamented. "If only we had more time! So many indignities I'd like you to suffer."
"Guys, we're going to jump," Hazel said.
"But—"
"It's not as far as it looks. Go!" She grabbed our hand and we launched ourselves across the pit. When we landed, I looked back and saw no pit at all—just a three-inch crack in the floor.

"Come on!" she urged.
We ran as the voice of Pasiphaë droned on. "Oh, dear, no. You'll never survive that way. Six minutes."
The ceiling above us cracked apart. Gale the weasel squeaked in alarm
Pasiphaë sighed with disappointment. "You really aren't very good at this, my dear." my dear."
"Nobody asked you." Leo grunted.

The floor collapsed under us. Hazel jumped to one side, dragging us with her.
"Hold your breath," she warned. We plunged through a tunnel doused in toxic fog. My eyes felt as if they had spicy seasoning on them, stinging and watering.
"Five minutes," Pasiphaë said. "Alas! If only I could watch you suffer longer." We burst into a corridor with fresh air.
Leo coughed. "If only she would shut up."