𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐈𝐋¹ || 𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐘 𝐉𝐀𝐂𝐊𝐒𝐎𝐍

𝐋𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐕

✦ 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐑 ✦

THE METAL DOOR WAS HALF HIDDEN BEHIND A LAUNDRY BIN FULL OF DIRTY TOWELS. Percy didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel showed him where to look, and he recognized 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." Aurora stepped forward, "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."

Sure enough, as soon as Aurora 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 Percy couldn't tell if she was pretending or not.

She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and her regular 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?" Rachel said.

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

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark they couldn't see further than a meter in front of them, but Aurora was here with them. As soon as she snapped her fingers, a ball of light hovered next to her, Rachel yelped.

A skeleton was grinning at them. It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing – at least two and a half meters 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 a shiver down Percy's back 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 Percy feel much better. He still felt like it had been put here as a warning. Whatever could kill a grown cyclops, Percy didn't want to meet.

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.

Percy, Aurora, and Annabeth exchanged looks. They followed Rachel deeper into the maze. After fifteen meters 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 earth and tree roots.