𝒎𝒊𝒓𝒓𝒐𝒓𝒃𝒂𝒍𝒍 - 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒄𝒚 𝒋𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔𝒐𝒏 𝒙 𝒐𝒄

.•°*¯'*¤° 𝑬𝑳𝑬𝑽𝑬𝑵 °¤*'¯*°•.

The metal door was half hidden behind a laundry bin full of dirty hotel towels.

Phoenix didn't see anything strange about it, but Rachel pointed where to look, and she recognized the faint blue symbol etched in the metal.

"It hasn't been used in a long time," Annabeth said.

"I tried to open it once," Rachel said, "just out of curiosity. It's rusted shut."

"No." Annabeth stepped forward. "It just needs the touch of a half-blood."

Sure enough, as soon as Annabeth put her hand on the mark, it glowed blue.

The metal door unsealed and creaked open, revealing a dark staircase leading down.

"Wow." Rachel looked calm, but Phoenix couldn't tell if she was pretending or not.

She'd changed into a ratty Museum of Modern Art T-shirt and her regular marker-colored jeans, her blue plastic hairbrush sticking out of her pocket. Her red hair was tied back, but she still had flecks of gold in it, and traces of the gold glitter on her face.

"So...after you?"

"You're the guide," Annabeth said with mock politeness. "Lead on."

The stairs led down to a large brick tunnel. It was so dark Phoenix couldn't see two feet in front of her, but Annabeth and Percy had restocked on flashlights.

As soon as they switched them on and Phoenix and Davey had used their hands as a light, Rachel yelped.

A skeleton was grinning at the five.

It wasn't human. It was huge, for one thing-at least ten feet tall. It had been strung up, chained by its wrists and ankles so it made a kind of giant X over the tunnel. But what really sent shivers down my spine was the single black eye socket in the center of its skull.

"A Cyclops," Davey said. "It's very old. It's not...anybody we know."

It wasn't Tyson, he meant. But that didn't make them feel much better. She still felt like it had been put here as a warning. Whatever could kill a grown Cyclops,
Phoenix didn't want to meet.

Rachel swallowed. "You have a friend who's a Cyclops?"

"Tyson," Percy said. "My half brother."

"Your half brother."

"Hopefully we'll find him down here," Percy said. "And Grover. He's a satyr."

"Oh." Her voice was small. "Well then, we'd better keep moving."

She stepped under the skeleton's left arm and kept walking.

Annabeth and Phoenix exchanged looks. Annabeth shrugged.

They followed Rachel deeper into the maze.

After fifty feet they came to a crossroads.

Ahead, the brick tunnel continued. To the right, the walls were made of ancient marble slabs. To the left, the tunnel was dirt and tree roots.

Percy pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."

Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right-those old stones-that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."

"We need to go straight," Rachel said.

They all looked at her.

"That's the least likely choice," Phoenix said.

"You don't see it?" Rachel asked. "Look at the floor."

Phoenix saw nothing except well-worn bricks and mud.