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

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She smiled, which I was glad to see, but the smile faded quickly.
“Percy, what did Hera mean when she said you knew the way to get through the maze?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Honestly.”
“You’d tell me if you did?”
“Sure. Maybe…”
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe if you told me the last line of the prophecy, it would help.”
Annabeth shivered. “Not here. Not in the dark.”
“What about the choiceJanus mentioned? Hera said—”
“Stop,” Annabeth snapped. Then she took a shaky breath. “I’m sorry, Percy. I’m just stressed. But I
don’t…I’ve got to think about it.”
We sat in silence, listening to strange creaks andgroans in the maze, the echo of stones grinding together
as tunnels changed, grew, and expanded. The dark made me think about the visions I’d seen of Nicodi
Angelo, and suddenly I realized something.
“Nico is down here somewhere,” I said. “That’s how he disappeared from camp. He found the
Labyrinth. Then he found a path that led down even farther—to the Underworld. But now he’s back in
the maze. He’s coming after me.”
Annabeth was quiet for a long time. “Percy, I hope you’re wrong. But if you’re right…” she stared at the
flashlight beam, casting a dim circle on the stone wall. I had a feeling she was thinking about her
prophecy. I’d never seen her look more tired.
“How about I take first watch?” I said. “I’ll wake you if anything happens.”
Annabeth looked like she wanted to protest, but she just nodded, slumped into her bedroll, and closed
her eyes.
When it was my turn to sleep, I dreamed I was back in the old man’s Labyrinth prison.
***
It looked more like a workshop now. Tables were littered with measuring instruments. A forge burned
red hot in the corner. The boy I’d seen in the last dream was stoking the bellows, except he was taller
now, almost my age. A weird funnel device was attached to the forge’s chimney, trapping the smoke and
heat and channeling it through a pipe into the floor, next to a big bronze manhole cover.
It was daytime. The sky above was blue, but the walls of the maze cast deep shadows across the
workshop. After being in tunnels so long,i found it weird that part of the Labyrinth could be open to the
sky. Somehowthat made the maze seem like even a crueler place.