A 1

“Pipes, what is it?” Jason asked. “That image in the blade…you’ve seen it before, haven’t you?”
She nodded, her eyes stinging. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I saw the room down there filling
with water. I saw the three of us drowning.”
Jason and Percy both frowned.
“I can’t drown,” Percy said, though he sounded like he was asking a question.
“Maybe the future has changed,” Jason speculated. “In the image you showed us just now, there
wasn’t any water.”
Piper wished he was right, but she suspected they wouldn’t be so lucky.
“Look,” Percy said. “I’ll check it out first. It’s fine. Be right back.”
Before Piper could object, he disappeared down the stairwell.
She counted silently as they waited for him to come back. Somewhere around thirty-five, she
heard his footsteps, and he appeared at the top, looking more baffled than relieved.
“Good news: no water,” he said. “Bad news: I don’t see any exits down there. And, uh, weird news:
well, you should see this.…”
They descended cautiously. Percy took the lead, with Riptide drawn. Piper followed, and Jason
walked behind her, guarding their backs. The stairwell was a cramped corkscrew of masonry, no more
than six feet in diameter. Even though Percy had given the “all clear,” Piper kept her eyes open for
traps. With every turn of the stairs, she anticipated an ambush. She had no weapon, just the
cornucopia on a leather cord over her shoulder. If worse came to worst, the boys’ swords wouldn’t do
much good in such close quarters. Maybe Piper could shoot their enemies with high-velocity smoked
hams.
As they wound their way underground, Piper saw old graffiti gouged into the stones: Roman
numerals, names and phrases in Italian. That meant other people had been down here more recently