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

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“Definitely,” Clarisse said. “If he could get an army of monsters inside Camp Half-Blood, just pop up in
the middle of the woods without having to worry about our magical boundaries, we wouldn’t stand a
chance. He could wipe us out easy. He must’ve been planning this for months.”
“He’s been sending scouts into the maze,” Annabeth said. “We know because…because we found
one.”
“Chris Rodriguez,” Chiron said. He gave Quintus a meaningful look.
“Ah,” Quintus said. “The one in the…Yes, I understand.”
“The one in the what?”I asked.
Clarisse glared at me. “The point is,Luke has been looking for a way to navigate the maze. He’s
searching forDaedalus’s workshop.”
I remembered my dream the night before—the bloody old man in tattered robes.“The guy who created
the maze.”
“Yes,” Annabeth said.“The greatest architect, the greatest inventor of all time. If the legends are true, his
workshop is in the center of the Labyrinth. He’s the only one who knew how to navigate the maze
perfectly. If Luke managed to find the workshop and convince Daedalus to help him, Luke wouldn’t
have to fumble around searching for paths, or risk losing his army in the maze’s traps. He could navigate
anywhere he wanted—quickly and safely.First to Camp Half-Blood to wipe us out.Then…to Olympus.”
The arena was silent except for Mrs. O’Leary’s toy yak getting disemboweled:SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
FinallyBeckendorf put his huge hands on the table. “Back up a sec, Annabeth, you said ‘convince
Daedalus’? Isn’t Daedalus dead?”
Quintus grunted. “I would hope so. He lived, what, three thousand years ago? And even if he were alive,
don’t the old stories say he fled from the Labyrinth?”
Chiron clopped restlessly on his hooves. “That’s the problem, my dear Quintus. No one knows. There
are rumors…well, there aremany disturbing rumors about Daedalus, but one is that he disappeared back
into the Labyrinth toward the end of his life. He might still be there.”
I thought about the old man I’d seen in my dreams. He’d looked sofrail, it was hard to believe he’d
lasted another week, much less three thousand years.
“We need to go in,” Annabeth announced. “We have to find the workshop before Luke does. If
Daedalus is alive, we convince him to help us, not Luke. IfAriadne’s string still exists, we make sure it
never falls into Luke’s hands.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “If we’re worried about an attack, why not just blow up the entrance? Seal the
tunnel?”
“Great idea!”Grover said. “I’ll get the dynamite!”
“It’s not so easy, stupid,” Clarisse growled. “We tried that at the entrance we found in Phoenix. It didn’t