ENTRAPPED ₂

86

AFTER THEIR FALL INTO TARTARUS, JUMPING THREE HUNDRED FEET TO THE MANSION OF NIGHT SHOULD HAVE FELT QUICK.

Instead, time seemed to slow down, as if Kronos was watching and laughing at them. Between the seconds, Madeleine had ample time to do her praying.

She knew that Tartarus wasn't a godless place. She had been to godless places. Tartarus was inhabited by all means of entities, both bold and timid, good and bad. Madeleine just had to get the attention of the right one.

Dionysus, she thought.

Ethan was gripping her so tightly that it hurt.

God of wine, revelry. You do like gambling.

She could hear Annabeth's sharp, panicked breathing.

I am not known to beg very often, so I will beg now: please.

Percy was making a strangled sound in the back of his throat.

I want to see Castor again.

The wind was rushing through Madeleine's hair as if she were flying.

I don't want to die, Dionysus.

She could feel the wings on her shoes fluttering helplessly.

Please, Dionysus. I want to see my father again.

She felt, then, that she had extracted too many favors, or had picked the wrong god. Dionysus had helped her enough. She had asked too much of him. Saving Castor once had not been enough, and there was no time to pray to someone different. They were all going to die.

Ethan was clinging to her.

Please, Madeleine thought. Please, please.

Madeleine prayed with every molecule in her body. She thought of Connor and Castor in the Hermes Cabin, intertwined.

At the very last second, the wings on her shoes fluttered like they had just been shocked back to life.

It didn't save their fall, not exactly. But Madeleine gripped Ethan in one arm and Annabeth in the other and let loose a terrible, anguished shout. She had known for a very long time that the shoes were connected to her, and now, they did their job.

Just before they were flung into Chaos, Madeleine's shoes somehow―she had no idea how it happened, because there were four of them―but they dragged them back up, up, up to the edge of Nyx's mansion. Madeleine grappled for purchase on the slick floor and managed, with her friends' help, to regain her footing.

For a moment, they all just stood there, holding one another, panting. Madeleine could hear Ethan's breathing, which was shakier than the rest: he was still gripping Madeleine like a lifeline.

"Thank you," Madeleine whispered.

Then there was no more time for gratitude. Annabeth began to run, and Madeleine followed, dragging Ethan and Percy along behind them.

Above them in the dark, Nyx and her children scuffled and yelled, "I've got them! My foot! Stop it!"

Madeleine kept running, still gripping Annabeth's and Ethan's hands. She couldn't see anyway, so she closed her eyes. She used her other senses―listening for the echo of open spaces, feeling for cross-breezes against her face, sniffing for any scent of danger―smoke, or poison, or the stench of demons.

It was the first time Madeleine had plunged blindly through darkness, but she knew recklessness. She was the daughter of Hermes. She could feel the wings on her shoes fluttering in tandem with her footsteps, and the fact that they were working again motivated her to keep moving.