A 1

Above her in the gloom, a voice spoke. “For ages I have known that you would come, my sweet.”
Annabeth shuddered. Suddenly she was seven years old again, hiding under her covers, waiting for
the spiders to attack her in the night. The voice sounded just as Percy had described: an angry buzz in
multiple tones, female but not human.
In the webs above the statue, something moved—something dark and large.
“I have seen you in my dreams,” the voice said, sickly sweet and evil, like the smell in the corridors.
“I had to make sure you were worthy, the only child of Athena clever enough to pass my tests and
reach this place alive. Indeed, you are her most talented child. This will make your death so much
more painful to my old enemy when you fail utterly.”
The pain in Annabeth’s ankle was nothing compared to the icy acid now filling her veins. She
wanted to run. She wanted to plead for mercy. But she couldn’t show weakness—not now.
“You’re Arachne,” she called out. “The weaver who was turned into a spider.”
The figure descended, becoming clearer and more horrible. “Cursed by your mother,” she said.
“Scorned by all and made into a hideous thing…because I was the better weaver.”
“But you lost the contest,” Annabeth said.
“That’s the story written by the winner!” cried Arachne. “Look on my work! See for yourself!”
Annabeth didn’t have to. The tapestries were the best she’d ever seen—better than the witch
Circe’s work, and, yes, even better than some weavings she’d seen on Mount Olympus. She wondered
if her mother truly had lost—if she’d hidden Arachne away and rewritten the truth. But right now, it
didn’t matter.
“You’ve been guarding this statue since the ancient times,” Annabeth guessed. “But it doesn’t
belong here. I’m taking it back.”
“Ha,” Arachne said.