𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 - 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐨𝐜

.•°*¯'*¤° 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧 °¤*'¯*°•.

Jumping out a window five hundred feet aboveground was Phoenix's exact definition of fun.

To Percy it looked like she had been training for it all her life. They way she gracefully sailed through the air.

Especially when he was flapping his arms like a duck.

As he plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. He was pretty sure he was going to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods.

Annabeth yelled from somewhere above Percy, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."

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

Phoenix smiled as the wind hit her face.

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. Percy did a complete circle around one of the rock spires and freaked out a couple of climbers. Then the six 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, Phoenix 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.

Davey placed his hand on Phoenix's shoulder, "how do you feel? Do you need to lie down?"

"I'm fine Davey, don't worry!" Phoenix smiled.

Percy 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."

Phoenix thought about Grover and Tyson, still down there somewhere. And Daedalus...even though he'd done some terrible things and put everybody she cared about at risk, it seemed like a pretty horrible way to die.

"No," Nico said. "He isn't dead."

"How can you be sure?" Davey 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."

"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."

"We could just take a plane," Rachel said.

Percy shuddered. "I don't fly."

"But you just did."