𝐕𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐲.

Fight Club

The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels. They couldn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed them where to look, and Lilia recognised the faint blue symbol etched in the metal.

"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said.

"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."

"No." Annabeth stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood." Sure enough, as soon as Annabeth put her hand on the mark, it glowed blue. The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.

"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but Lilia could read people, she was faking it.

She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and marker-colored jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face.

"So...after you?"

"You're the guide," Lilia said with mock politeness. "Lead on."

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark they couldn't see two feet in front of them, but they'd restocked on flashlights. As soon as they switched them on, Rachel yelped.

A skeleton was grinning at them. It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing at least ten feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent shivers down her spine was the single black eye socket in the center of its skull.

"A Cyclops," Annabeth said. "It's very old. It's not...anybody we know." It wasn't Tyson, she meant. But that didn't make anyone feel much better. That felt like a warning.

Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?"

"Tyson," Percy said. "My half brother?"

"Your half brother?"

"Hopefully we'll find him down here," Percy said. "And Grover. He's a satyr."

"Oh." Her voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving." She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking. Annabeth and Lilia exchanged looks. Annabeth shrugged. They followed Rachel deeper into the maze.

After fifty feet they came to a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots.

Percy pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."

Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right, those are old stones, that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."

"We need to go straight," Rachel said.

They all looked at her.

"That's the least likely choice," Annabeth said.

"You don't see it?" Rachel asked. "Look at the floor."

Lilia looked down, kicking the dirt. She didn't see anything.

"There's a brightness there," Rachel insisted. "Very faint. But forward is the correct way. To the left, farther down the tunnel, those tree roots are moving like feelers. I don't like that. To the right, there's a trap about twenty feet down. Holes in the walls, maybe for spikes. I don't think we should risk it."

Lilia didn't see anything like she was describing, but Percy nodded. "Okay. Forward."

"You believe her?" Lilia asked.