You'll Learn to Love Me

Chapter 67: Clytius

Laylana felt like she was on drugs the moment her vision came back. She was slightly disoriented, having been able to see in the dark before that, but that hadn't been the case. Part of her knew she was still in the cavern. Pasiphaë stood only a few feet in front of them. Clytius waited silently at the Doors of Death. But layers of Mist enfolded them, twisting her sense of reality. 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 hell? Where are we?"

A corridor stretched out to their left and right. Torches guttered in iron sconces. The air smelled of mildew, as in an old tomb. On Hazel's shoulder, Gale barked angrily, digging her claws into Hazel's collarbone.

"Yes, I know," Hazel muttered to the weasel. "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?"

Laylana felt so off-balance she could barely stand, much less think straight. Her whip that was previously wrapped around her bicep had disappeared. She was left with her daggers strapped to her hips. She held a hand upwards and tried to draw the shadows towards her, but nothing happened.

"My powers..." She mumbled. "What is this place?" 

"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."

"It did..." Laylana confirmed, turning in all directions as she remembered how to Labyrinth looked. It was eerily similar.

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."

Even as she said it, the walls seemed to grow more solid, the smell of mildew more intense.

"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 levelled. 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!"

Holes opened in the floor beneath their feet. Laylana gasped as she jumped out of the way, pulling Leo with her as Hazel dodged with them. A row of spikes shot upward, impaling the ceiling.

"Run!" Laylana yelled, and the three of them took off.

Pasiphaë's laughter echoed down the corridor. "Where are you going, young sorceress? Running from an illusion?"

Hazel didn't answer, neither did Leo. They just took off running behind Laylana. Behind them, row after row of spikes shot towards the ceiling with a persistent thunk, thunk, thunk. Hazel pulled them down a side corridor, leaped over a tripwire, then stumbled to a halt in front of a pit twenty feet across.

"How deep is that?" Leo gasped for breath. His pant leg was ripped where one of the spikes had grazed him.

"It's far..." Laylana grimaced. She pressed her palm into the side of her head and tried to break out of whatever the Mist was doing to her. Whatever magic this was, it was definitely reminding her far too much of the Labyrinth. That horrible place had robbed her of all her senses for what felt like weeks. This was no different.