THE BATTLE OF THE LABYRINTH Percy Jackson ... - No one's invited.

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teach us as if we had minds of our own. Perhaps your daughter felt the same way.”
Minos tried to sit up, butAelia’s sisters pushed him back into the water.Aelia came up behind him. She
held three tiny orbs in her palm. At first I thought they were bath beads. But she threw them in the water
and the beads sprouted bronze threads that began wrapping around the king, tying him up at the ankles,
binding his wrists to his sides, circling his neck. Even though I hated Minos, it was pretty horrible to
watch. He thrashed and cried out, but the girls were much stronger. Soon he was helpless, lying in the
bath with his chin just above the water. The bronze strands were still wrapping around him like a cocoon,
tightening across his body.
“What do you want?” Minos demanded. “Why do you do this?”
Aeliasmiled. “Daedalus has been kind to us, Your Majesty. And I do not like you threatening our
father.”
“You tell Daedalus,” Minos growled. “You tell him I will hound him even after death! If there is any
justice in the Underworld, my soul will haunt him for eternity!”
“Brave words, Your Majesty,”Aelia said. “I wish you luck finding your justice in the Underworld.”
And with that, the bronze threads wrapped aroundMinos’s face, making him a bronze mummy.
The door of the bathhouse opened. Daedalus stepped in, carrying a traveler’s bag.
He’d trimmed his hair short. His beard was pure white. He looked frail and sad, but he reached down
and touched the mummy’s forehead. The threads unraveled and sank to the bottom of the tub. There was
nothing inside them. It was as if King Minos had just dissolved.
“A painless death,” Daedalus mused. “More than he deserved. Thank you, my princesses.”
Aeliahugged him. “You cannot stay here, teacher. When our father finds out—”
“Yes,” Daedalus said. “I fear I have brought you trouble.”
“Oh, do not worry for us. Father will be happy enough taking that old man’s gold. And Crete is a very
long way away. But he will blame you forMinos’s death. You must flee to somewhere safe.”
“Somewhere safe,” the old man repeated. “For years I have fled from kingdom to kingdom, looking for
somewhere safe. I fear Minos told the truth. Death will not stop him from hounding me. There is no place
under the sun that will harbor me, once word of this crime gets out.”
“Then where will you go?”Aelia said.
“A place I swore never to enter again,” Daedalus said. “My prison may be my only sanctuary.”
“I do not understand,”Aelia said.
“It’s best you did not.”
“But what of the Underworld?” one of her sisters asked. “Terrible judgment will await you! Every man
must die.”