[1] something new | pjo

xli. forty one

DAPHNE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW WHAT IT IS FEEL LIKE TO FLY.

But jumping out a window five hundred feet aboveground is not usually her idea of fun. Especially when she's wearing bronze wings and flapping her arms like a duck.

Daphne plummeted toward the valley and the red rocks below. She was pretty sure that she was going to become a grease spot in the Garden of the Gods, as Annabeth yelled from somewhere above her, "Spread your arms! Keep them extended."

The small part of Daphne's brain that wasn't engulfed in panic heard Annabeth, and her arms responded. As soon as she spread them out, the wings stiffened, caught the wind, and her descent slowed. Daphne soared downward, but at a controlled angle, like a kite in a dive.

Experimentally, she flapped her arms once. Daphne arced into the sky, the wind whistling in her ears.

"Yeah!" Daphne heard Percy yelled and she smiled.

The feeling was unbelievable. After getting the hang of it, she felt like the wings were part of her body. Daphne could soar and swoop and dive anywhere she wanted to.

Percy turned and saw the others—Rachel, Annabeth, Daphne and Nico—spiraling above me, glinting in the sunlight. Behind them, smoke billowed from the windows of Daedalus's workshop.

"Land!" Annabeth yelled. "These wings won't last forever."

"How long?" Rachel asked.

"I don't want to find out!" Annabeth said.

They swooped down toward the Garden of the Gods. Daphne did a complete circle around one of the rock spires and freaked out a couple of climbers. Then the five of them soared across the valley, over a road, and landed on the terrace of the visitor center. It was late afternoon and the place looked pretty empty, but they ripped off their wings as quickly as they could. Looking at the others, Daphne could see Annabeth was right. The self-adhesive seals that bound the wings to their backs were already melting, and they were shedding bronze feathers. It seemed a shame, but they couldn't fix them, and couldn't leave them around for the mortals, so they stuffed the wings in trash bins outside the cafeteria.

Percy used the tourist binocular camera to look up at the hill where Daedalus's workshop had been, but it had vanished. No more smoke. No broken windows. Just the side of a hill.

"The workshop moved," Annabeth guessed. "There's no telling where."

"So what do we do now?" Percy asked. "How do we get back in the maze?"

Annabeth gazed at the summit of Pikes Peak in the distance. "Maybe we can't. If Daedalus died...he said his life force was tied into the Labyrinth. The whole thing might've been destroyed. Maybe that will stop Luke's invasion."

"No," Nico said. "He isn't dead."

"How can you be sure?" Daphne asked.

"I know when people die. It's this feeling I get, like a buzzing in my ears."

"What about Tyson and Grover, then?"

Nico shook his head. "That's harder. They're not humans or half-bloods. They don't have mortal souls."

"We have to get into town," Annabeth decided. "Our chances will be better of finding an entrance to the Labyrinth. We have to make it back to camp before Luke and his army."

"We could just take a plane," Rachel said.

Percy shuddered. "I don't fly."

"But you just did."

"That was low flying," Percy said, "and even that's risky. Flying up really high—that's Zeus's territory. I can't do it. Besides, we don't even have time for a flight. The labyrinth is the quickest way back."