Jumping out a window five hundred feet aboveground was fun.
"Guys this is brilliant!" Daphne shrieked, the biggest smile on her face.
Percy plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. Daphne was pretty sure he was going to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods, as Annabeth yelled from somewhere below her, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."
"Yeah!" Percy yelled.
The feeling was unbelievable. After getting the hang of it, Daphne felt like the wings were part of her body. She could soar and swoop and dive anywhere she wanted to.
Daphne turned and saw her friends-Rachel, Annabeth, and Nico-spiraling below her, glinting in the sunlight. Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop.
"Land!" Annabeth yelled. "These wings won't last forever."
"How long?" Rachel asked.
"I don't want to find out!" Annabeth said.
They swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. Daphne did a complete circle around one of the rock spires and freaked out a couple of climbers.
Then the five of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor center. It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty, but they ripped off their wings as quickly as they could.
Looking at them, Daphne could see Annabeth was right. The self-adhesive seals that bound the wings to their backs were already melting, and they were shedding bronze feathers.
It seemed a shame, but they couldn't fix them, and couldn't leave them around for the mortals, so they stuffed the wings in trash bins outside the cafeteria.
Daphne used the tourist binocular camera to look up at the hill where Daedalus's workshop had been, but it had vanished. No more smoke. No broken windows. Just the side of a hill.
"The workshop moved," Annabeth guessed. "There's no telling where."
"So what do we do now?" Percy asked. "How do we get back in the maze?"
Annabeth gazed at the summit of Pikes Peak in the distance. "Maybe we can't. If Daedalus died...he said his life force was tied into the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke's invasion."
"No," Nico said. "He isn't dead."
"How can you be sure?" Daphne asked.
"I know when people die. It's this feeling I get, like a buzzing in my ears."
"What about Tyson and Grover, then?"
Nico shook his head. "That's harder. They're not humans or half-bloods. They don't have mortal souls."
"Val and Ellis? What about them?" Daphne asked.
Nico looked at her. "I think they're alive."
It wasn't the answer Daphne was looking for, she hoped he would be more confident in his answer. But, she would take it.
"We have to get into town," Annabeth decided. "Our chances will be better of finding an entrance to the Labyrinth. We have to make it back to camp before Luke and his army."
And Daphne had to prepare herself to join the other side for good. Silena would be staying at Camp but Daphne would be leaving.
"We could just take a plane," Rachel said.
Percy shuddered. "I don't fly."
"But you just did."
"That was low flying," Percy said, "and even that's risky. Flying up really high-that's Zeus's territory. I can't do it. Besides, we don't even have time for a flight. The labyrinth is the quickest way back."

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A web of fates | Percy Jackson and the Olympians
FanfictionDaphne Evans, a thirteen year old girl. On the outside, she's just an ordinary girl but in reality that's not true. At the age of nine, she watched her mother die and then she was dragged to Camp Halfblood by a satyr. She's a demigod. That's what th...