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Twelve minutes had never felt so long.
By the time the Doors opened with a hiss, Rory's body felt more sluggish than the time she held up the sky. Her shoulders hurt more than when she was stabbed with a poison dagger. Of everything she had ever endured, this may just have been the most painful. Though maybe the emotional toll was skewing with her senses, making her physical pains worse.
Black smoke billowed out of the elevator car and she and Percy fell face-first onto the floor.
Rory wasn't fully unconscious. Still, she had some wits about her.
She could feel the cold stone floor beneath her skin. She could hear voices talking around her, but they were muffled, like they were underwater. She couldn't move her limbs, but she could feel her heartbeat, pulsing faintly. She smelt Tartarus — but she couldn't tell if it was her and Percy that stunk like that from being there for so long, or if she and Percy were dying.
But whatever cognizance she had was being tampered with. Maybe she really had died — because all of sudden she could see her body, like a ghost leaving their physical form. Oh, gods, she and Percy certainly looked dead. But wait, she could see their chests rising and falling, albeit very slowly. No, they weren't dead.
Rory watched her body, at the feet of a giant, lurch like she had hit a power line. She rolled on her back, black smoke coiling from her mouth.
"I am not Pasiphaë." Rory spoke in a voice that wasn't hers — the words as deep as a bass guitar. "You have won nothing."
Even in this strange incorporeal state, Rory could sense her life force waning, her pulse becoming thready. Whatever was happening to her, whatever was pulling words from her mouth — it was killing her.
The giant nudged Percy's head with his foot. Percy's face lolled to one side.
"Not quite dead." The words boomed from Percy's mouth. "A terrible shock to the mortal body, I would imagine, coming back from Tartarus. They'll be out for a while."
More smoke poured from between Rory's lips. "I'll tie them up and take them to Porphyrion in Athens. Just the sacrifice we need. Unfortunately, that means I have no further use for you two."
Rory's mind was starting to become less contained. The scene flickered. She felt like she was floating away — losing her connection with her body. She had no anchor.
Her vision was tunneled on herself and Percy, but around their bodies she could hear the faint voices of some of her friends. A male voice and a female voice, but she couldn't distinguish who exactly.
Black fog spread farther across the room, covering Rory and Percy.
Whoever was controlling Rory chuckled, using her vocal cords this time. "You were counting on that, eh? It is true I do not like fire. But Leo Valdez's flames are not strong enough to trouble me."
