ENTRAPPED ₂

74

WHILE THEY WALKED, ETHAN KEPT HIS PROMISE. He told them all about Circe―the tunnel full of his friends dying, and then his conversation with the witch. He told them how he hadn't seen her on the cliff, but she had tried to throw a knife at him in the tunnel, too.

"This was her goal," Ethan said. "Or my mother's goal, or someone's fucking goal. They wanted to send me to Tartarus with these two." He jerked his chin at Percy and Annabeth, carefully avoiding Madeleine's eyes.

"All your friends dying in a tunnel?" Percy asked, frowning. "Including me? I'm touched, Nakamura, but..."

"Yeah," Ethan said, "never say anything like that ever again. We're not touching."

"It's a phrase."

"Fuck off, Jackson," Ethan replied, but there was no heat in his words.

Madeleine doubted that Percy or Annabeth had caught it, but there was a very slight catch in Ethan's voice. She could tell he was hiding something, holding information back. He had told them enough to satisfy them―for now. But Madeleine was going to keep an eye on Ethan Nakamura.

There had been no secrets between them for so long that Madeleine was tempted to panic. What had happened? What had that stupid witch told him?

"I wonder why Circe wanted to warn Hazel and Leo about Pasiphae," Annabeth murmured. Her limp was more pronounced with every step. Percy kept trying to put his arm around her, but she shrugged him off each time.

"Pasiphae is Circe's sister, right?" Madeleine asked. "If I remember correctly. And Helios was their father. Ethan, Circe mentioned Apollo taking Helios's throne, too, right?"

Ethan nodded, his face grim. Clearly, those parts of the conversation weren't troubling him very much, though he seemed very troubled about something.

"We don't need to focus on it now," Percy decided, seeming to pick up on the vibe Ethan was giving off. "We got the message to Hazel and Leo, and Apollo isn't in any immediate danger. We need to focus on getting out of this hell hole, and then we can make plans. Circe thrives on vague bullshit anyway. Believe me, she turned me into a guinea pig. I mean, come on, dude. I was literally fifteen."

That made Ethan's mouth twitch. Madeleine was so, so grateful for Percy. She was so grateful to not be alone.

They reached the ledge, though, and Madeleine's optimism quickly faltered.

The cliff dropped more than eighty feet. At the bottom stretched a nightmarish scene: a river of fire cutting through a jagged obsidian crevasse, the glowing red current casting horrible shadows across the cliff faces.

"Looks like the Grand Canyon," Ethan remarked. He kicked a small rock, and it spiraled into the vast pit. "If Jason and Piper can survive that fall, this will be cake for us."

Madeleine wasn't entirely sure about that. Even from the top of the canyon, the heat was intense. The chill of the River Cocytus hadn't left Madeleine's bones, but now her face felt raw and sunburned. Every breath took more effort, as if her chest was filled with Styrofoam peanuts. She noticed that Annabeth and Ethan seemed to be bleeding more rather than less, which made her heart sink. They had both removed their makeshift casts, but every time Annabeth took a step or Ethan moved his arm, Madeleine didn't miss their unmistakable wincing. Percy didn't look very good, either―his lips were still blue, and his face was paler than Madeleine had ever seen it.

Madeleine cleared her throat. "My shoes aren't working," she said. This was true, and she had noticed it almost immediately.

Her shoes had sort of become one with her. She didn't have to use any command word to trigger them. They were like a second skin, as smoothly aligned with Madeleine as her knives. But now she willed them to take her into the sky, and the wings just continued to flutter weakly, like they were injured birds.