A 1

“The weaver…” Annabeth realized with a sinking feeling what the pater was talking about: the
thing in the dark from Percy’s dream, the guardian of the shrine. This was one time she wished she
didn’t know the answer, but she tried to maintain her calm. “The weaver fears me. She doesn’t want
me to follow the Mark of Athena. But you will let me pass.”
“You must choose an ordeal!” the pater insisted. “Fire or dagger! Survive one, and then, perhaps!”
Annabeth looked down at the bones of her siblings. The failures of your predecessors will guide you.
They’d all chosen one or the other: fire or dagger. Maybe they’d thought they could beat the
ordeal. But they had all died. Annabeth needed a third choice.
She stared at the altar statue, which was glowing brighter by the second. She could feel its heat
across the room. Her instinct was to focus on the dagger or the torch, but instead she concentrated on
the statue’s base. She wondered why its legs were stuck in stone. Then it occurred to her: maybe the
little statue of Mithras wasn’t stuck in the rock. Maybe he was emerging from the rock.
“Neither torch nor dagger,” Annabeth said firmly. “There is a third test, which I will pass.”
“A third test?” the pater demanded.
“Mithras was born from rock,” Annabeth said, hoping she was right. “He emerged fully grown
from the stone, holding his dagger and torch.”
The screaming and wailing told her she had guessed correctly.
“The big mother knows all!” a ghost cried. “That is our most closely guarded secret!”
Then maybe you shouldn’t put a statue of it on your altar, Annabeth thought. But she was thankful for
stupid male ghosts. If they’d let women warriors into their cult, they might have learned some
common sense.
Annabeth gestured dramatically to the wall she’d come from. “I was born from stone, just as
Mithras was! Therefore, I have already passed your ordeal!”