Love Against All Odds

Percy - Flying & Colorado Springs

Jumping out of a window five hundred feet above the ground wasn't Percy's idea of fun, especially not while donning bronze wings and flapping his arms like a duck. Plummeting toward the valley and the red rocks below, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was about to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods. 

Annabeth's voice pierced through his panic, yelling from somewhere above, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."

Not consumed by fear, a small part of Percy's brain registered her instructions, and his arms obeyed. As he spread them out, the wings stiffened, catching the wind and slowing his descent. Soaring downward at a controlled angle, he felt like a kite in a dive.

Experimentally, he flapped his arms once and arced into the sky, the wind whistling in his ears. "Yeah!" he yelled, the sensation unbelievable. Once he got the hang of it, the wings felt like a natural extension of his body, allowing him to soar, swoop, and dive anywhere he pleased.

Turning, he spotted his friends— Oskar, Rachel, Annabeth, Nico, Zoe and Thalia—spiralling above him, glinting in the sunlight. Smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop behind them.

"Land!" Annabeth's voice carried urgency. "These wings won't last forever."

"How long?" Rachel inquired.

"I don't want to find out!" Annabeth retorted.

Swooping down toward the Garden of the Gods, Percy completed a circle around one of the rock spires, startling a couple of climbers. Then, the four of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor centre. It was late afternoon, and the place appeared deserted. They hastily removed their wings, noting the self-adhesive seals melting and bronze feathers shedding. Though it seemed a shame, they couldn't repair them and couldn't risk leaving them for mortals to discover. Thus, they stuffed the wings into trash bins outside the cafeteria.

Percy used the tourist binocular camera to scan the hill where Daedalus's workshop had stood, only to find it had vanished. There was no more smoke, no broken windows—just the side of a hill.

"The workshop moved," Zoe speculated. "There's no telling where."

"So what do we do now?" Percy questioned. "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 would be tied to the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke's invasion."

Percy thought about Grover and Tyson, still down there somewhere, and Daedalus... despite his wrongdoings, it seemed like a pretty grim fate.

"No," Oskar interjected. "He isn't dead."

"How can you be sure?" Percy asked.

"I know when people die. I get this feeling, 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 off finding an entrance to the Labyrinth. We have to return to camp before Luke and his army."

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

Percy, along with Thalia, Oskar and Nico, shuddered. "We don't fly."

"But you just did."

"That was low flying," Percy clarified, "even that's risky. Flying up high—that's Zeus's territory. We can't do it as children of Hades and Poseidon. Besides, we don't even have time for a flight. The labyrinth is the quickest way back."