ENTRAPPED ₂

90

MADELEINE THOUGHT THAT SHE HAD BEEN LIVING IN A HALF-LIT BLUR FOR MOST OF HER LIFE, SO THIS WASN'T A HUGE DIFFERENCE TO NORMALCY.

Except, here was the hard part: it was.

When Percy Jackson had first found Madeleine Aetos, she had been barely a person, her memories of her fifteen years alive gone, her only friends stuck in the Lotus Hotel and Casino, no idea who she was or where she came from, putting her life into the hands of two fourteen-year-olds and a satyr. That was a half-lit blur.

And then, slowly, those things became less of a problem. Madeleine found friends and lovers and parents, and her life slowly unraveled itself. She remembered who she was and she found things that mattered. The world was clearest when she was with her friends.

Even when Hera had wiped her memories and abducted her, the world was not unfamiliar. She had awoken holding hands with Percy Jackson, one of her dearest friends, and she still knew Ethan's name.

Now, she felt like everything she had ever worked for, four long years of effort, was crumbling around her.

She could hear Tartarus taunting Damasen: What is this? Why have you come, my disgraced son?

She could hear the Maeonian drakon stamping its feet and snarling.

She could hear Damasen replying calmly: "Father, you wished for a more worthy opponent? I am one of the giants you are so proud of. You wished me to be more warlike? Perhaps I will start by destroying you!"

But Madeleine could not see. She did not know if her friends were gone. Her entire body felt like an enormous, useless bag of bones. She tasted blood.

She was never expecting Luke, but there he was again, kneeling by her side the same way he had when she was laid low by a hundred curses, as if he had never died. There was the scar right below his eye, and his eyes were startlingly blue, and his face was miraculously undamaged.

He rested a cool hand against her forehead. His eyes were very sad.

"Hold on, Madeleine," he whispered. "Please. Just for a little while longer."

She opened her mouth. It hurt to talk, but it needed to be said: "I'm tired, Luke."

If he could have possibly looked sadder, he did. His entire face changed, until he looks years older than he really was, burdened by grief.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I failed you. We all did."

Madeleine blinked. She could hear the sounds of battle: the Maeonian drakon spitting poison, Damasen shouting at Tartarus, the monster army screaming for blood.

"Luke," Madeleine whispered. With infinite strength, she reached up and curled her fingers around his terribly solid wrist. "You're dead."

"Yes," he agreed, his lips quirking upward. He looked like Jason now, and that hurt more than anything else.

"Then what are you?" she asked. "What am I?"

"You," he answered, "are alive."

Luke never answered Madeleine's first question. Hands clamped down on her shoulders, real and warm, and Annabeth's face hovered into her vision. She was covered in cuts and grime and she was white as a sheet.

Madeleine looked at Luke. He was gone.

"Was that―" Annabeth didn't seem to be able to say his name. "Was―"

Then she looked at Madeleine, and her expression furrowed. She had a cut on her lip like the one Luke had inflicted on her during their battle on Mount Olympus. She looked as young as she had then and just as determined.