Wildflowers, Percy Jackson ₁

046, i need to buy a gun

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

₊˚࿐࿔ 𖥧‧₊⚘ ❀༉. 𓏲｡

Jumping out a window five hundred feet above ground is not usually Sylvie's idea of fun. Especially when she was wearing bronze wings and flapping her arms like a duck.

"We're gonna die, we're gonna die, we're gonna die!" she shouted the entire time.

Sylvie plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. She was pretty sure she was going to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods, as Annabeth yelled from somewhere above Sylvie, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended!"

The small part of her brain that wasn't engulfed in panic heard Annabeth, and her arms responded. As soon as Sylvie spread them out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and her descent slowed. She soared downward, but at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive.

"Yeah!" Percy yelled from somewhere. Because he was insane, and he probably enjoyed this, and Sylvie really did wish she hated him. She was screaming in fear while he was hollering in elation.

Everyone besides Percy was just spiraling and 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 cried.

"I don't want to find out!"

"We're gonna die!" Sylvie panicked.

They swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. Percy was confirmed crazy, because he did a complete circle around one of the rock spires—he freaked out Sylvie and a couple of climbers, though it was probably for different reasons. 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 the devices, Sylvie 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. They couldn't fix the wings, but couldn't leave them around for mortals, so they stuffed the wings in the trash bin outside the cafeteria.

Sylvie 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?"

"You want to go back?" Sylvie said incredulously.

Percy didn't respond, and Annabeth gazed at the summit of Pikes Peak in the distance. "Maybe we can't," she said. "If Daedalus died... he said his life force was tied to the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke and Eurydice's invasion."