This Dark Night ― Percy Jackson & Annabeth Chase¹

―xviii. not a faithless hope

THE BRIDGE TO OLYMPUS WAS DISSOLVING. They stepped out of the elevator onto the white marble walkway and immediately cracks appeared at their feet.

"Jump!" Grover said, which was easy for him since he was part mountain goat.

He sprang to the next slab of stone while theirs tilted sickeningly.

"Gods, I hate heights!" Thalia yelled as she, Percy, and Naomi leaped. But Annabeth was in no shape for jumping. She stumbled back.

Percy caught her hand as the pavement fell, crumbling into dust. Naomi thrust her hand down, and Annabeth caught it with her other hand, and Naomi and Percy pulled her back up.

They lay trembling on the pavement in a tangle of limbs like vines on a house. When she realized this, Annabeth tensed.

"Um, thanks," she muttered.

Percy managed a very distinguished, "Uh, duh."

"Keep moving!" Grover tugged Percy's shoulders. The trio untangled themselves and sprinted across the sky bridge as more stones disintegrated and fell into oblivion. They made it to the edge of the mountain just as the final section collapsed.

Annabeth looked back at the elevator, which was now completely out of reach—a polished set of metal doors hanging in space, attached to nothing, six hundred stories above Manhattan.

"We're marooned," she said. "On our own."

"Blah-ha-ha!" Grover said. "The connection between Olympus and America is dissolving. If it fails—"

"The gods won't move on to another country this time," Thalia said. "This will be the end of Olympus. The final end."

They ran through the streets. Mansions were burning. Statues had been hacked down. Trees in the parks were blasted to splinters. It looked like someone had attacked the city with a giant Weedwacker.

"Kronos's scythe," Percy said.

They followed the winding path toward the palace of the gods. Naomi didn't remember the road being so long. Maybe Kronos was making time go slower, or maybe it was just dread slowing them down. The whole mountaintop was in ruins—so many beautiful buildings and gardens gone.

A few minor gods and nature spirits had tried to stop Kronos. What remained of them was strewn about the road: shattered armor, ripped clothing, swords and spears broken in half.

Somewhere ahead of them, Kronos's voice roared: "Brick by brick! That was my promise. Tear it down BRICK BY BRICK!"

A white marble temple with a gold dome suddenly exploded. The dome shot up like the lid of a teapot and shattered into a billion pieces, raining rubble over the city.

"That was a shrine to Artemis," Thalia grumbled. "He'll pay for that."

They were running under the marble archway with the huge statues of Zeus and Hera when the entire mountain groaned, rocking sideways like a boat in a storm.

"Look out!" Grover yelped. The archway crumbled. Naomi looked back in time to see a twenty-ton scowling Hera topple over on Percy and Annabeth. They would've been flattened, but Thalia shoved them from behind and they landed just out of danger.

"Thalia!" Grover cried.

When the dust cleared and the mountain stopped rocking, they found her still alive, but her legs were pinned under the statue.

They tried desperately to move it, but it would've taken several Cyclopes. When they tried to pull Thalia out from under it, she yelled in pain.

"I survive all those battles," she growled, "and I get defeated by a stupid chunk of rock!"