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I 036. I
𝑪𝒖𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒅𝒐𝒓𝒔
❝ coming with us ❞
ARIADNE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO FLY. She was no angel or child of Zeus. And she didn't actually like flying, seeing as you were so far from the ground, it was a bit nauseating for her.
Jumping out a window five hundred feet above ground is not usually her idea of fun. Especially when she was wearing bronze wings and flapping her arms like a duck.
But somehow, she was better than Percy.
He plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. Annabeth yelled from next to Ariadne, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."
Percy spread his arms out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and his descent slowed. He soared downward, at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive.
Experimentally, he flapped his arms once. He arched into the sky.
No matter how nervous she was, Ariadne click the help but smile at the sight of Percy flying. It was odd to see him so happy to be in the air.
"Yeah!" Percy yelled.
He turned to look at them. Ariadne flew next to Annabeth, trying to keep herself up high enough to not crash into the rocks, but low enough that she wasn't all the way in the air.
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 climbers. Then the four of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of a 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, Ariadne could see Annabeth was right.
The self-adhesive seals that blind the wings to their backs were already melting, and they were shedding bronze feathers. It seemed a shame, but they click the fix them, and couldn't leave them around for the mortals, so they stuffed the wings in trash bins outside the cafeteria.
Ariadne used the tourist binocular camera to look up at the hill where Daedalus's workshop had been, but it had vanished. No more smile. 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?"
