𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗿𝘂𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘀, luke castellan

ꜱɪxᴛʏ-ꜱɪx

When One Deal Isn’t Enough.

🧶

It was only when the man’s corpse hit the ground with a sickening thud that Rory snapped out of her thoughts. Her mouth hung open, not in triumph as she had imagined a moment ago, but in sheer, unfiltered shock. The life that had so recently animated the man’s face was gone, replaced by the empty stillness of death. The bustling sounds of the market continued unabated around them, as though nothing had happened. None of the market-goers seemed to have noticed the commotion, their gazes unfocused and their chatter undisturbed.

The Mist was at work. It cloaked the truth in a haze of normalcy, making sure no mortal eyes saw what had truly transpired. Her earlier idea—of forcing a mortal into the labyrinth with them—fizzled into impossibility. Kelli’s swift, brutal action had ensured that. It had been done so quickly, too quickly, with no hesitation or remorse.

“What did you do that for?” Luke hissed, his voice tight with anger and barely controlled anxiety. He glanced around, his eyes darting from one passerby to the next, as though expecting someone to sound the alarm. But no one stopped. No one even looked their way. The Mist was heavy, blanketing the scene in its insidious protection, and everyone seemed content to carry on with their lives.

Rory remained frozen, her heart pounding in her chest. She couldn’t even process what had just happened. The act had been so seamless, so casual, that she had barely registered it before the man was dead. The thought sent a chill down her spine. If Kelli had, for some reason or another, decided to turn that lethal precision on her instead… Rory shuddered. She would’ve been dead in seconds, too distracted and too slow to react.

She couldn’t afford to be distracted. Not now.

Kelli shrugged, utterly unfazed. A casual smirk tugged at her lips as she nudged the body with the toe of her boot, as though it were no more significant than a piece of trash left on the sidewalk. “He was no use to us now,” she said, her tone almost bored. “Mortals don’t make good witnesses.”

Rory’s fists clenched at her sides. The words she wanted to say burned on her tongue, but as she had grown so accustomed to doing, she bit them back.

Her gaze drifted to the ground as her thoughts spiraled. They needed to navigate the maze—it was their only way to infiltrate Camp Half-Blood. Without that crucial step, their plans would unravel. The demigods had to be eliminated so that Kronos’s army could march unchallenged to Olympus. That much was clear. But between those two monumental tasks, there was another demand: Kronos would need a physical body.

Rory’s mind lingered on her epiphany about the clear-sighted mortal. She was almost certain that this was what Daedalus had been hinting at—a tool more precise than Ariadne’s String, one capable of navigating the ever-shifting labyrinth with unerring accuracy. It made sense. Mortals with clear sight could perceive the truths hidden by the Mist, could see through the illusions and distortions. But knowing that the solution was within her grasp didn’t make her feel relieved.

What would happen if she told them? If she turned to Luke and said, “This is it. This is how we win”? She could already imagine the dismissive sneers, the cold laughter. The army wasn’t known for embracing new ideas, especially ones that veered so far from their doctrine of brute strength and overwhelming force. Luke’s reaction earlier, when she suggested simply asking a mortal for help, had been sharp and scathing enough to plant seeds of doubt in her mind. If she voiced her theory now, it would likely be laughed off entirely, never tested, dismissed as foolish and naive.

But the idea of being ignored wasn’t the worst part. As the thought lingered, a desperate plan began to take shape in her mind, one born of equal parts hope and fear. What if she didn’t tell them? What if she kept the solution to herself?