"Relax Will," Nico finally said casually enough while Percy ungracefully balanced on one foot. "If what they said bothered me, I'd tell them." As much as it still surprised him Will did it at all, Percy would never stop seeing him as a kid if Will kept this up.

Percy cautiously put his foot down instead of pretending he was a flamingo and began his cautious walk to get the book from Alex.

Will wasn't so sure, Nico spent to much time bottling up everything, the guy was like a pincushion for everybody else to put their problems in.

Percy was wandering back over to his seat with the book like the instance had already left his mind, and he shared why as he read the new chapter title with a wince for getting five minute glimpses into the next thing he'd be dealing with. "Haven't I had enough of these things?" He groaned, waving his hand around so the old scar of his last interaction with a scorpion would have been on display if it was still there. "I really hope I'm not it!"

"I bet they're cheaters anyways," Alex sniffed.

"It does seem a little unfair to you, playing against someone with so many extra legs," Magnus agreed, trying his hardest to mind wave away the obvious deadly aspects of this game like a champ. He was almost succeeding. "Hopefully you don't try playing jax with ambidextrous people too."

"His brother played fetch with a hellhound earlier that week," Thalia needlessly reminded. "It's good to see him branching out, trying new games."

"How do you think ISpy with a cyclops would go?" Jason grinned. "Is his vision better than yours because his brain doesn't have to filter twice as much?"

Percy groaned loudly and started reading.

The next morning there was a lot of excitement at breakfast.

"I didn't realize your dreams were such high class news," Thalia snickered.

"Obviously we all got super excited hearing Nico's alive," Will said as dramatically as possible.

"It's probably because they all heard Quintus beat Percy's butt in sword practice and are all a flutter about it," Jason chuckled.

Percy kept reading loudly over them, knowing full well they wouldn't take the hint.

...a drakon had been spotted at the borders of camp. I slept right through the noise.

"I will never get over dragon or drakon attacks being normal," Magnus sighed.

"And I will never get used to their eyes," Will agreed. Those disturbing, yellow, soleless slits.

...stay alert, but stay calm. This has happened before."

"Exactly how many times have you guys been attacked by dragons?" Alex asked with intrigue.

"Hey, that's my line," Jason smirked.

"More than enough," Will assured them both. "We have one of those, It's Been Blank Days Since Our Last Attack, signs up on the side of the Big House. Last I saw it, I think it was 37, but Gavin forgets to erase those sometimes."

Magnus looked ready to go into a corner and pray for his sanity to stay intact.

...Some had died. Some had joined Luke. Some had just disappeared.

Will shifted around restlessly in place. Names didn't always have a face attached anymore, and visa versa. There had just been to many to keep track of, and most hadn't bothered to try. The jumble got confusing, sickening if he tried to think of them all to long.

"You okay?" Nico asked quietly beside him.

"Not really," he admitted restlessly. Percy wasn't a year around camper to know the half of it.

Nico considered for a moment, but absolutely nothing had freaked out Will yet, this probably wouldn't. "There's a list in my dad's realm, of all those who have passed through camp. Would you want to see it?"

"Yeah!" Will grinned. It was an expression Nico was getting used to seeing. He should probably stop that.

...good time for new war games," Quintus said. "We'll see how you do tonight."

"Which will involve scorpions, and tagging," Percy needlessly reminded, but they hadn't been there to see how the excitement from Quintus had made them all a bit uneasy.

"I'm imagining you with a can of spray paint and it's going to be disastrous and awesome," Thalia snickered.

... I hoped the gods liked raisin toast and Froot Loops.

"I bet it's Mr. D's favorite," Nico smirked.

Percy sniffed, "He doesn't get a sacrifice, he's right there."

"Do his kids come up and just dump their portion of food onto his plate?" Magnus asked with interest.

"It's meant to be a general offering to all the gods, we try to avoid playing favorites," Will corrected. "Nobody wants Zeus showing up complaining Dionysus's punishment isn't going well if that happened."

Percy shivered at just the thought.

"Poseidon," I said.

"What?" Percy grinned at all the blank looks as he instantly disregarded what Will said. "It's my sacrifice, and my dad is usually the only god I regularly think about, let alone like."

Will still flinched like he expected to hear a clap of thunder in the distance for Percy's usual insolence.

... I could've stood there all morning, but I headed back to the table.

"The last time you were at that brazier, you got what you asked for," Jason reminded confidently. "You asked for help, and I'm not sure I believe in the coincidence you got a baby Cyclops for a brother that same school year."

"Yeah," Percy agreed just a little more hopefully than usual. It was true, his dad might be cryptic and long distance to the extreme, but he'd yet really let Percy down.

... Grover's shirt was inside out as he slumped next to me.

"Grover needs a nap," Will said with absolute confidence.

"It doesn't sound like he even woke up first," Magnus said in concern.

"Fingers crossed Percy doesn't greet him by telling him how awful he looks," Jason muttered.

...lumbered off leaving his breakfast half-eaten.

Percy not-so-subtly readjusted the book and would later deny to anyone who asked Tyson's plate had been clean when it was whisked away.

... Was it possible Chiron knew about the weird Iris-message I'd gotten?

"Chiron doesn't know about every Iris Message in and out of camp does he?" Alex demanded. "That's a weird invasion of privacy."

"Can't blame him for keeping an eye on communications," Will uneasily reminded, though it hadn't stopped the spy by any means. It shut up Alex though, for now.

...He gave Grover a meaningful look, then trotted out of the pavilion.

"Subtle as a kick to the face," Thalia snorted.

"What's he talking about?" I asked Grover.

Grover chewed his eggs, and the tines off his fork.

"Mixing dessert and breakfast, that's a new one," Alex snorted.

"Nobody can ever accuse these guys of not getting enough of, anything in their system," Magnus agreed.

"He wants you to convince me," he mumbled.

Percy wasn't the only one who shifted his weight around uncomfortably. Why was this all suddenly so important and everybody was gung-ho to talk about the thing clearly terrifying Grover?!

Somebody else slid next to me on the bench: Annabeth.

Percy gazed blearily down at that sentence like he suddenly needed glasses.

"Sometimes I think Annabeth went out of her way to break the rules for you," Will laughed at his dumbstruck expression. "She couldn't have come to you before breakfast or right after, no, she had to do this now."

"Sounds like our girl, why sit on something that needs doing," Thalia agreed with pride.

"I'll tell you what it's about," she said. "The Labyrinth."

"A fancy maze?" Magnus asked.

"It's not a hedge maze is it?" Alex asked with equal parts concern and intrigue.

... Annabeth was right next to me. I mean right next to me.

Thalia slammed their beanbags together, then threw her arm over his shoulder and pressed right into his side like they all needed a demonstration, though Annabeth had never had such a shit-eating grin on her face, and Percy certainly hadn't shoved her back away with a roll of his eyes.

"You're not supposed to be here," I said.

"And a good morning to you too," Will sniffed.

... Mr. D wasn't here. Chiron had already left the pavilion.

"Now I'm just imagining Athena showing up and lecturing you and her on proper etiquette," Magnus shivered.

"Or Zeus finally having an excuse to throw a thunderbolt at you Poseidon couldn't get mad about," Jason said uneasily.

Quintus looked over and raised an eyebrow, but he didn't say anything.

"Nice, you got a cool teacher at least," Alex grinned.

... the Labyrinth. That's what Clarisse and I have been investigating."

"Cool!" Jason blurted like somebody was waving a new dictionary under his nose. "What is that!" They certainly said Labyrinth like it was 'a thing' in the same way they did Mount Olympus.

"Bet you Percy's going to have to have it explained to him," Thalia smirked.

Percy stuck his tongue out at the pair, even knowing he couldn't argue the point.

I shifted my weight, trying to think clearly.

Her hair had still been damp from a morning shower. It had smelled like lemons, a fresh, crisp scent not to pungent. The ocean breeze always came in heavily and had been wiping her blonde hair into his face, and he kept absently brushing at nothing in here now.

"You mean the maze where they kept the Minotaur in the old days?"

"You say that like it's a casual thing people should know about," Magnus reminded.

"I'd offer you my old Latin notes from class, but I think Grover ate them on that bus ride," Percy shrugged. "Basically there was this king, and he pissed off my dad, something to do with a bull I think, and so he cursed his wife to fall in love with a bull, feel free to-"

"Ewww," Magnus was already happily telling him.

"Yeah, that." Percy nodded, "old Greek myths are full of that response. So, he now had a half-bull child as an heir, and he stuck him in the Labyrinth, which was supposed to be the greatest and most complicated maze ever or something and his whole kingdom feared him for it." He finished, feeling rather proud even knowing he'd forgotten plenty of details didn't stop him from giving a very superior look at Thalia and Jason for actually being the one to explain that for a change.

"It's moments like this I really get how you got that C on your test," Thalia shook her head affectionately. He got the highlights anyways.

"C+," he robustly insisted. "Best grade of my life!"

..."The Labyrinth is under some building in America."... I was feeling pretty proud of myself.

"This is the part where Annabeth calls him an idiot?" Jason asked Thalia casually.

"This is the part where Annabeth calls him an idiot," Thalia nodded.

... It wouldn't fit under a single city, much less a single building."

"Close enough," they snickered together.

...is the Labyrinth part of the Underworld?"... "may be passages, I'm not sure.

Nico's smile was answer enough, and they all had to repress a collective shiver just how many layers were usually under their feet ready to kill them.

...the Underworld is way down. The Labyrinth is kind of like a second skin.

"It's a sewer system?" Alex asked in disgust.

"You are not entirely wrong on that assessment, people tend to shit themselves frequently down there," Nico nodded.

... You can get anywhere through the Labyrinth."

"Technically anybody can walk anywhere, they don't need a maze to do it, just plenty of time," Magnus said uneasily, clearly knowing he was missing something.

"It's a Mist thing," Will shook his head as he cautioned. "You could walk in at New York, take a right, and pop out at Albuquerque in five minutes, or you could wander in one side of North Texas and pop out on the Mexican border and be gone for a month. There is zero rhyme or reason to it unless you have a guide."

"I'm guessing breadcrumbs won't do you much good down there," Alex, as usual, sounded way to intrigued about something so obviously deadly. Thalia contemplated the Norse kids curiously, and then eyed Jason. They were, different. Did the Mist affect them the same way it did them? Would they need Rachel as a guide?

"If you don't get lost," Grover muttered, "and die a horrible death."

"Technically you can do that anywhere," Nico shrugged.

"What's the most boring place you've heard of someone dying in?" Alex asked as if this were a matter of life and death.

Nico hesitated to answer. He was the one who had said something, Alex maybe wasn't just asking this of him because he was the Death kid...hopefully. He had to think about it for a moment before he offered, "pillow factory? I thought the ghost was kidding about that one."

There was no interrogation, no screaming and shivering he spoke to ghosts. Alex threw his head back and laughed, and Nico couldn't help but smile along. It was still so weird he was treated, normally down here. If Percy hadn't kept reading when he subsided into giggles with his own surprised chuckle, Nico was pretty sure he could have just kept talking about all the strange things he'd said to ghosts over the years and nobody would have batted an eye.

"Grover, there has to be a way," Annabeth said...they'd had this conversation before.

Percy grumbled for a moment, trying not to feel left out this had all been going on without him. The alternative was having to give up time with his mom though while listening to an apparently circular argument, so nothing of this sounded like a win.

"Clarisse lived."..."And the other guy—" "He was driven insane. He didn't die."

"And we have Annabeth, for the technicality win," Magnus groaned as he rubbed his eyes. His cousin really needed to work on her encouragement skills.

"I think she's got the right spirit, all societies have their niche place for the crazies," Jason grinned.

Thalia and Percy exchanged equally concerned and curious looks what on Earth was in Jason's past none of them had a clue about.

... What's this about Clarisse and a crazy guy?"

"I assume any guy around Clarisse goes crazy in a not to short period of time," Percy said fairly.

Will made a noise of discomfort in the back of his throat only Nico heard. Something in Nico ticked, a dormant idea he hadn't acted on in...years. He watched Will in concern, he wanted to ask what about that had caused something unpleasant in his mind. Like a normal person might do if they noticed their friend was upset.

..."Last year, Clarisse went on a mission." "I remember, it was secret."

"You only remember because it was secret," Jason rolled his eyes.

"If we tried to keep your homework a secret from you, you might ace it," Thalia smacked the side of her head.

"Don't hold your breath," he scoffed at her.

... I liked the fact that she'd broken the rules to come sit next to me.

"Magnus, I think Percy has a crush on your cousin," Alex informed him in a grand voice of announcing top news.

"I'm not the one you need to break that news to," Magnus snorted as Percy wavered back and forth in front of them of dreamy, smiling dope and a giant question mark for a face as his brain seemed at war with himself over this.

"It was secret because she found Chris Rodriguez."

"That guy from Luke's ship?" Jason easily recalled. He wasn't even a camper, but the sting of betrayal and the gut-punching understanding of why there were other half-bloods on Luke's side was still vivid in his mind.

Will flinched like Jason had slapped him. Chris would loathe that's how he'd be remembered by these guys when all was said and done. Clarisse might decapitate Jason if he ever said that around them. None of which came close to how much that hurt him to think about. Had Luke known he was sending his own half-brother off to die and not even cared?

...Chris was one of the half-bloods who'd joined the Titan Army.

Percy wished his own brain would stop giving discount flashbacks. Having to live through it once had been enough, twice was going to cause his head to cave in. The third blips of looking back felt like salt in the wound, a feeling he wasn't sure he'd experienced outside of this.

..."Last summer he just appeared near Clarisse's mom's house."

"I have, so many questions," Jason admitted. Clarisse was a year around Camper, how had her mom contacted her to tell her this? Why did it feel so on point the desert was her home? What the heck were the odds of that?

"You won't be getting many answers," Percy already said in exasperation. If he ever got one answer out of anybody he considered it a success.

...wandering around the desert in full Greek armor, babbling about string."

"None of that makes anybody inherently crazy," Alex sniffed. "People have their own hobbies."

"I think I'll stick to skateboarding," Percy said.

... Luke's men have been exploring the Labyrinth."

The feeling of sandpaper being rubbed over their face would have hurt less. Wasn't Luke's whole argument the gods didn't care about their kids enough? And then here was this guy, who'd apparently been driven mad and abandoned by whatever Luke was up to.

Percy's anger was trying to shake loose inside him at it all. The last three times he'd faced Luke, he hadn't been able to do a thing to him. He owed Luke a good ass kicking just for the principle of his stupid, defective army all being hypocrites and monsters!

I shivered, though I wasn't exactly sure why.

"The idea of being out of your mind, alone, in a desert, is enough to make anyone shiver," Will assured.

"Let alone the string," Jason added dubiously.

...What could've driven him mad? ...Grover was chewing up the rest of his fork.

"I can see how that would make someone a little confused about the world," Magnus raised his hand in agreement. He'd never seen it in person and it made his brain hurt a little to imagine it, as well as his jaw.

Percy snickered at the doofus, breaking a bit of the tension.

... Her expression turned a little dreamy. "Daedalus was a genius.

"I think I found Annabeth's role model," Magnus snorted.

The troubled look on Nico's face practically telegraphed the message that wasn't going to stay a great thing.

..."Full of horrible traps. Dead ends. Illusions. Psychotic goat-killing monsters."

"What was that last one?" Thalia grinned.

"Illusions, very tricky, but some mortals can pull those off," Percy said innocently.

"Surely he meant the dead ends. I guess he's not a fan of cul-de-sacs." Jason smirked, before they burst out laughing.

...The closest entrance found wouldn't help Luke get past our borders.

"She just said there are entrances all over the place," Jason protested. "My first thought would be this camp having a backdoor."

Percy shivered, and Will tried his best to laugh off, "right, yeah, kids just fall off the face of Camp in one spot and we never noticed." Which did nothing to erase the dubious looks he got as that seemed exactly what was happening around there.

... the Labyrinth might be the key to Grover's problem."

It took a second for their brains to rewire back to what had started this conversation.

"How could a god be lost in a maze?" Magnus shook his head. "Let alone a nature god? Mazes are, um, natural. Kind of?"

"But this maze isn't," Alex reminded with interest. "Annabeth said Daedalus made it? Some powerful Greek architect that made his own living, deadly maze. If a nature god got sucked into that, it would explain why nobody ever found him."

"How did the Minotaur get out though?" Jason frowned.

"Monsters don't respawn where they're most popular," Nico shook his head. "He was killed by Theseus in the Labyrinth. When he came back out of Tartarus, he could have wound up anywhere."

Percy was getting a bull sized headache trying to follow along with them like his mind was trapped in its own maze of where one thought ended and another began that wouldn't make any sense.

...No searcher would ever go in that place. No flowers. No sunshine. No coffee shops!"

"That just sounds like a regular Tuesday at a dentists office." Magnus shrugged. Everything there was plastic and fake. Even if he was right, the others still gave him a strange look for it.

"Proving my point," Alex said in exasperation. "Obviously nobody's found him in the place they haven't looked yet!"

...Just thinking about it makes me want to throw up my silverware."

"I can't even blame him after his time as a betrothed," Percy said, but his mind was a blank on any other way for him.

"Whatever happened about Cloudcroft?" Jason wheedled. "Maybe there's an entrance there and Grover's just got to get a shovel to help Pan get out?"

"Or he was just passing under there lost and could be in Connecticut by the time that pig showed up," Percy said with only the vaguest of confidence that's how that place worked.

..."The council is serious. One week or you learn to tap dance!"

"At least he wouldn't have to buy those expensive shoes," Magnus grinned weakly. "His hooves probably pass as those in the Mist more often than not."

"I really hope the Mist works on me just so I can experience that life," Alex chuckled.

...Quintus cleared his throat. Annabeth was really pushing it sitting at my table so long.

Thalia shook her head affectionately at her little sister. She'd always been doing her own thing no matter what anybody wanted of her, and if she hadn't said her peace, Quintus would have had to use Mrs. O'Leary to drag her away.

... returned to the Athena table, ignoring everyone staring at her.

"The girls a bit of an icon for that," Alex grinned.

Magnus had a troubling moment realizing how well Alex and Annabeth might get along and what chaos that would bring.

... I'm going to lose it all. I'll have to start a puppet theater."

"A tap dancing puppet theater," Will looked pretty interested. "Think he'd still consider that nowadays?"

"I feel like that falls into plan L no matter how this worked out for him," Percy shrugged.

..."Juniper's waiting for me. It's a good thing she finds cowards attractive."

"See, now was that so hard," Percy at least finally felt a sense of relief even as miserable as he'd been watching Grover abjectly go off. "Finally, an explanation!"

"All it took was Annabeth breaking the rules and Grover nearly throwing up silverware," Will shrugged, "it's no wonder they were putting it off.

...I looked over at Quintus, who nodded gravely like we were sharing some dark secret. Then he went back to cutting his sausage with a dagger.

"I seriously need this guy's backstory," Jason muttered. That really wasn't even in the top one hundred weirdest things they'd yet heard someone doing in these books, but the guy still struck him as odd the more he was mentioned around camp.

...I smiled and fed Blackjack a handful.

"Percy, the other pegasus are going to think you have a favorite," Thalia tried and failed at a scold.

"I love all of them equally," Percy said at once, before he blushed and even glanced at his hand like he was hoping their names were written down there before he gave it up and loudly kept reading.

...sort of helped rescue him from Luke's demon cruise ship a few years ago,

"Your memory sure likes to exaggerate just how little you were involved in that," Nico smirked. "Last time you swore you had practically nothing to do with it, now you're saying you sort of helped."

"I don't know what you're talking about, you said the same thing twice," Percy insisted with a straight face.

Will fought hard to hide a laugh behind his hand and he failed miserably as he said, "he's probably going to go back to camp and tell everybody how he only mildly tried to kill us accidentally a few times."

"You say that like it's a lie," Percy insisted around a guilty wince.

You'll end up in the glue factory! ..."You may be right, Blackjack. We'll see."

"Such concern for your own life and that of glue factories," Jason shook his head. "Tell me again how you've lived this long?"

"If you want to go back and reread them, more power to you," Percy said in exasperation, only sort of proving Jason's point Percy's own mortality seemed like a blip to him.

...Ole Blackjack and his buddies, we'll stampede anybody for ya!

Alex sighed with envy like he was over there imagining what he'd do with a group of pegasi who would stampede anybody on a whistle.

...Actually, they all knew that's exactly what he was doing. The real question was who the first victim would be.

...I had a bad feeling I wasn't going to see Blackjack for a long time.

"I hate your bad feelings," Jason decided. "They're usually right."

"And they don't even come in handy since they can't be more specific," Percy agreed.

... whatever was in those crates had been emptied into the woods.

"And we missed the glorious details of how that happened," Alex sighed. "Did somebody get a forklift? Did somebody get Mrs. O'Leary into a harness and drag them off? What's a scorpion's natural predator?"

"Um, owls," Magnus said, barely missing a beat.

"Did somebody dress up as a giant owl and chase the scorpions into the forest?" Alex concluded with the ASL gesture for thank you at him.

"I guess we were all distracted in arts and crafts to ask," Percy chuckled.

"The chapter title kind of ruined the big surprise they were scorpions," Will looked a little pouty about spoilers.

"Better than dreading they were something worse, like dragons," Magnus shook his head.

"That's because you haven't seen the scorpions yet," Thalia muttered.

...dressed in black leather and bronze, his gray hair made him look like a ghost.

Nico couldn't help a small laugh of surprise at Percy casually mentioning that, and he didn't even make it sound like a bad thing.

Percy gave him a hesitant grin that still screamed of awkwardness.

Mrs. O'Leary bounded happily around foraging for dinner scraps.

"How all ghosts should be depicted, with their loving, lifelong companions," Will grinned.

... Teams which have already been chosen!"

"And here I thought he was fun," Alex huffed.

"Please tell me he isn't going to be one of those guys to pair up people who hate each other just to work on teamwork," Magnus agreed with distaste.

Jason was bouncing up and down in his seat like he'd partner with a scorpion to kill other scorpions to get the game going.

...you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive."

"You know what would be a better way to stay alive," Magnus said pragmatically. "Not going into a forest with giant scorpions!"

"But then you'd have even less chance of survival if you faced one outside of camp," Will reminded patiently.

Magnus looked stumped, and then very displeased about it.

... No switching. No complaining." "Aroof!" Mrs. O'Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza.

"I wish I was attacked by her when I complained," Alex snickered.

"With pizza breath," Nico nodded.

...Beckendorf with Silena, which Beckendorf looked pretty happy about.

"I'm now wondering if this whole Quintus choosing the partner's thing was done just to stop a war from breaking out over that," Thalia rolled her eyes.

"I think he just did it for that weirdly fascinating, brain-melting team up," Percy offered, the oddity that children of Hephaestus and Aphrodite were working together after all the awkwardness of their parent's mere existence easily trumped the ants crawling around in his brain for anything else he should have been thinking of this moment.

The Stoll brothers would be together. No surprise. They did everything together.

"So they should be split up," Magnus raised a brow like Will had done this himself. "Better real-world practice in case they're not joined at the hip."

"You are not wrong," Will nodded, deciding against mentioning he would have volunteered in a heartbeat. He'd been with Katie though, and that had been a very fun, romantic, deadly trip while it lasted. He'd only been able to delude himself it was intentional on her part until she started regaling him with questions of what Connor might think of this or that and he'd wanted to feed her to a scorpion himself by the end of the night. He'd healed her broken ankle without to much of a fuss though.

Clarisse with Lee -melee and ranged combat- they'd be a tough combo.

"If they work together and don't kill each other," Nico pointed out with only mild concern.

"Don't underestimate Clarisse's willingness to win partnered with anyone," Will chuckled, he'd had seven teams in the infirmary that night from this pair alone.

..."Your armor is crooked" was her only comment, and she redid my straps for me.

The burst of laughter around the room turned Percy's sigh into a reluctant chuckle of his own. She'd practically sat on his lap at breakfast and was right back to this by nightfall. He touched his face again where her hair had been whipping around and wondered if she'd given him whiplash.

"Grover Underwood," Quintus said, "with Tyson."

"Why are they playing at all?" Magnus asked in surprise. "The satyrs haven't been mentioned doing so before, and Tyson is kind of a guest, right?"

"Camp spirit?" Thalia shrugged, "same reason the Hunters play when we visit."

"Shhh," Jason shushed them and leaned forward eagerly in his seat, his mind full of every detail he'd collected on who had the best chances of winning this.

... "Must be a mistake."  "Goat boy—" "No complaining!" Quintus ordered.

Alex mimicked a hellhound bark to emphasize the point. He did a weirdly good impression of one too. All he was missing was the pizza face.

...Let's worry about how we're going to stay alive."

"Are you sure she didn't say win?" Alex mock-cleaned out his ears.

"She could have said how to stay astrive, it was pretty windy," Percy shrugged.

... We began to follow the trail.

Magnus sighed and repressed the urge to wonder if he was the only sane one who thought that was still a bad idea.

...Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about as stealthy as buffaloes.

"We all have our strengths," Will said cheerfully. "They have the best sleight of hand and can pick any lock you give them, plus the best traps you can think of."

"They'll just break anything coming in and out of the store they're stealing from," Percy rolled her eyes, "I always thought that was on purpose."

...I hadn't even come close to finding Nico. It left a bitter taste in my mouth.

Nico started tapping his foot uneasily on the ground, like he still expected it to give way beneath him anywhere he stayed to long. The fact that he'd ever crossed Percy's mind had been more than he'd ever thought to ask for at this point.

... "He's summoning the dead? That's not good."

"What did you expect him to do with his sudden abundance of free time, go to Vegas?" Alex snorted. "He's coming into his own powers just like Percy now rescues sea life."

"He shouldn't have been doing it alone," Percy insisted. "He should have been at camp figuring it all out."

"You kept his secret for a reason Percy, he wouldn't be able to practice all of his strengths there like you can freely do," Alex challenged.

Nico was pressed fully back into his seat and wishing the conversation about him would stop now! He gave Will a pleading look and even a nudge, waving his hand for him to do his thing this time, and he happily obliged. "You guys are trying to distract from who won and I won't let you!"

They broke off while still giving each other grumpy side eyes. Nico gave him a relieved smile and mouthed thanks, while personally thinking it was kind of cool he could activate Will's ability to do that without a word.

...spirits are never good advisers, they've got their own agendas. They resent the living."

"And she's an expert on this?" Jason asked more for clarification than trying to disagree.

"She's done her research," but there wasn't a lot of confidence in Thalia's answer. The Hunters interacted with spirits sparsely, the dead had a concerning tendency to pop up on ancient ground where the oldest monsters liked to roam. As far as she knew Annabeth had even less hands-on experience outside of some books.

... "That settles it. We have to figure out the Labyrinth."

"Oh, so that's what settled it?" Will asked with his arm casually over the back of the couch again. "Not the thought of finding Grover's lifelong ambition, the Great God Pan, not the threat of how Luke might use the Labyrinth to get into camp. No, it was figuring out what Nico was doing with spirits in the Labyrinth. I always wondered what the tipping point was."

"We have got to work on your sarcasm Will, it needs more," Nico waved his fingers around for emphasis while trying his hardest not to blush.

Will was just smiling casually as he said, "who said I was being sarcastic?"

Nico seemed struck dumb, and Percy once again felt like a miserable failure as he looked at this guy who always seemed in awe anybody even bothered to talk to him.

...who sent the IM? If Nico didn't know I was there—" A branch snapped in the woods.

"Stupid, convenient, branches," Jason huffed. He'd have liked a chance to theorize on that!

...Scuttling noises seemed to be coming from several different directions.

"A pack of wolves can change the tones of their howls to give the impression that there are more around than there really are," Jason grinned. "I don't suppose scorpions can do something similar," he finished with a snicker.

"You sound way to excited over there about random facts more than us almost dying," but Percy was shaking his head with a smile all the same for him and his not really useful 'advice.'

We were circling the boulders, swords drawn, when someone right behind us said, "Hi."

Alex mock startled in his seat, hand waves and all, and then rubbed his chest. "Geez, might as well have shouted boo at us."

"I wouldn't discount a monster being there just because it starts with hello," Percy said, but he was studying the book with slightly less trepidation than before.

We whirled around, and Juniper yelped.

"That's such a pretty name," Magnus grinned. "What's a juniper?"

"A tree," Percy shrugged.

Thalia smacked him and said, "a coniferous tree, the female plants produce berry-like cones-"

"Okay Lieutenant of Greenpeace," Percy groaned.

... "Dryads don't like sharp blades, okay?"

"Then she should stay away from her own needle leaves," Will shook his head, he'd had one to many instances of kids trying to pluck the berries and realizing to late why that was a bad idea even before the nymph popped out.

... "What are you doing here?" "I live here." I lowered my sword. "In the boulders?"

Percy could feel the strange looks he was getting, and looked around to ask, "what? Wouldn't it be weirder if I knew where her tree was?"

"Fair," Thalia snorted, "but you're still an idiot."

..."in the middle of this game and trying not to die-" "We're not busy," Annabeth said.

"Sums it all up, yeah," Magnus rolled his eyes. He felt like it would take an act of setting Grover on fire for any of these guys to admit what an emergency was.

... Every time he comes back, it's worse. I thought he was seeing another tree."

"Took this boy how long to get with a lovely girl?" Alex shook his head. "Nah, I'm sure his grandaddy goat had plenty of good advice on how to treat um right."

..."He had a crush on a blueberry bush once," Juniper said miserably.

"We've all had that crush," Will said saintly. "It fades when we meet the real apple of our eye."

Nico mock-gagged over the sofa. "Please tell me you came up with that on the spot, because I might really throw up if you've been saving that line for Katie."

"I did just come up with that, yes," he smoothly lied.

...Another rustle in the woods, and Juniper yelled, "Hide!"

Jason was tapping his temple like he hoped it was glitching. "Really? Now we're being teased by a tree? Is it really so impossible for anybody to actually say what they showed up to say?"

"I'm kind of on Juniper's side, she clearly had some stress to get out about Grover first, it was just bad timing," Magnus sympathized.

... and a stinger as long as my sword. A scorpion.

"Remember Percy, the scorpions are It, and you do not want to get tagged," Alex grinned.

"I'll keep that in mind man," he promised.

Tied to its back was a red silk package.

"Don't you just love it when the monsters come to you," Percy rolled his eyes.

"Speak for yourself," Will shivered, that stupid scorpion had given him a heart attack and Katie had broken her ankle pushing him out of the way. They would have been toast if Beckendorf and Silena hadn't shown up.

...We'd fought together so many times we knew each other's moves. We could do this, easy.

"Jinxed."

Percy sighed and didn't bother to glare at any of them, but man did he wish his gut would, for once, stop telling him they were right.

It all went wrong when the other two scorpions appeared from the woods.

"I think we should start splashing holy water at you or something," Magnus was looking him up and down in concern. "How can anyone's luck be this bad?"

"Not until the Pope can turn the whole ocean," Percy rolled his eyes, but he was considering wearing a horseshoe on his head or something for the time being. This really was a new low, even for him.

"Three?" Annabeth said. "That's not possible!

"Not probable," Jason shook his head. "You guys define what's possible."

"Look Jason, it's your favorite number," Percy huffed, resisting the urge to smack him over the head with the book. Why did everybody need to keep reminding him he was lucky to be alive and Annabeth might not be?!

... whipping their barbed tails like they'd come here just to kill us.

"That, or this was their secret meeting place to swap the winning laurels and you rudely interrupted," Alex offered.

"Either way doesn't help," Percy groaned.

... I could see their hideous mouths foaming, anticipating a nice juicy meal of demigods.

Nico scratched at his nose, feigning disinterest on Percy and Annabeth saving the day again with another amazing plan to kill the monsters, as he instead wondered if he could find a monster to ask what they'd taste like. Maybe one would know without having to eat them.

... All we could do was defend, and we wouldn't be able to keep that up for very long.

"Tactical retreat time," Thalia was tapping an arrow on her knee. She knew everything worked out fine, and yet she'd still never like the idea of these two being pinned down against the odds.

"Tactical retreat time," Jason repeated, flipping his coin between his fingers and highly frustrated the win was right in their grasp if they could just have a moment to breathe and plan.

...She squeezed between the two boulders, then yelped and grabbed my armor straps.

"It's a good thing she straightened those out for me," Percy muttered, adjusting his shoulder like some part of him still expected to feel her weight taking her with him.

... the hole shut like the lens of a camera, and we were in complete darkness.

Nico studied Percy like he was looking for the lie, even knowing he'd never done such a thing through his memories, or probably ever. He'd never realized this is how Percy found the Labyrinth, the same way he had. Just falling in like an idiot.

He'd been running back to this stupid moment where Zoe had come in and taken the flag away, the one landmark he'd probably subconsciously known Percy would come looking for him at. Trying to scale up, he'd instead fallen in.

He'd just never thought Percy had bothered with the whole searching part until now.

 He'd sat on cold stone for who knew how long, thinking the rock was hollow somehow and screaming for help with no answer until the whispers had started in his ear.

Percy had gotten out though, of course he had, with the help of Annabeth most likely, and they'd come right back to camp as conquering heroes. While he'd fallen right into the ploy of others.

"Nico, you okay?" Will sadly now recognized that look on Nico's face of unfavorable memories cropping up.

He just grunted in answer, because the truth was no, not really. He was already sick of hearing about this place, and Percy had only been in there for a sentence.

... I was sitting on a bumpy floor that seemed to be made of bricks.

"Bricks, underground?" Magnus repeated. "I don't know what's worse, somebody went and made a fort down there, or this maze is even freakier than I first thought it was."

"I'm sorry if you were just imagining dirt tunnels," Thalia shook her head, and yet wished he could keep that ignorance.

... I would've known if there was a cave here; I was sure of it.

"Why are you so confident of that?" Will chuckled nervously. "I've lived at camp for years and I don't claim to know every secret there."

"You just need more confidence Will, it'll come to you," Percy shrugged.

"Hopefully it doesn't come with scorpions," Nico muttered, his usual fascination with all things Percy wasn't ramping up as high as usual. No geeky fanboying they'd once sat in the same spot or anything. He liked to think he was maturing past that point. He hoped he was anyways.

... like those skeletons last winter. Had the same thing happened to us?

"No, no, then you would have fallen much, much farther," Nico politely informed. He wasn't sure where he sent them, considering he'd had no control over what he was doing, but he was confident it was Tartarus or oblivion in general.

"Well that's one relief out of the way," Percy grinned, and actually seemed to mean it to Nico's surprise.

...There was a warm breeze, like in subway tunnels, only it felt more dangerous.

"You can tell warm, nice breezes apart from deadly warm breezes?" Magnus asked, one part dubious, one part in trepidation.

Alex breathed in deeply like he was trying to get just a hint of that now. "Cool."

"Speak for yourself," Percy was squirming in his seat again and made the warding off evil gesture even if he knew it would do no good here or down there.

I started forward, but Annabeth stopped me.

"As she should!" Thalia groaned into her hands. "Why would your first response to be go exploring when nobody has any idea where you are!"

She knew the answer to her own question though, she was just as impulsive as him and would have been right beside him. Annabeth would have had to dig her heels in and tell them both to stop. She just didn't want to admit that while Percy grinned sheepishly and without surprise for his own idiocy.

... The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly in both directions.

Magnus's mouth was open in a silent scream now.

"It seals you in? It's a tomb?" Alex confirmed.

"It certainly doesn't seem keen on letting you back out unless you know what you're doing," Jason frowned at this turn of events. "I don't suppose it'll accept shoestrings in the meantime for the unprepared?"

Percy fidgeted with the pages and resisted the urge to tie everybody's shoes together instead of continuing. Annabeth was at the end of this, he had to keep reminding himself. She was trapped in there now, and he sure wanted to find out how at least she got out of this even if his stupid help attracted something worse!

Annabeth's hand slipped into mine.

Percy exhaled in relief, his hand drifted to his side, only to still close over nothing. He glanced over like he still expected her to be there, just like always, it was a reflex he didn't think he'd ever drop as he clasped his hand stubbornly back around the book to finish.

... I was glad to know where she was. It was the only thing I was sure of.

"Is this a specific thing with you two?" Jason asked with nothing but affection in his tone. "First Charon's boat, now this, do you two mutually decide to be underground to hold hands?"

"I mean, I wouldn't be that picky, but I can't blame her if that's when she needs it," Percy grinned with only a faint hint of a blush.

...We stepped backward together like we were in a minefield.

"Close enough," Thalia muttered. For all they knew, they could be.

Nico swallowed a bitter taint of jealousy at those descriptions. He'd been thrust in there alone, he'd spent gods knew how long wishing Percy was there with him. Of course Percy got to spend his first few moments in this place holding hands with Annabeth like he always not so secretly wanted to do. It was a pretty good way to highlight the obvious differences in their fortunes.

... began to glow blue. A Greek symbol appeared:

"Um," Percy paused to tell the others, "it looks like a triangle."

Magnus finally figured out how to close his mouth, and he sounded really short of breath like he had been screaming that whole time. "Great, something else I probably need to learn, the Greek alphabet."

"Hopefully it comes with a catchy song too," Alex grinned.

Jason still insisted he wanted to see the symbol in person before Percy could continue like he didn't know what a triangle looked like.

..."Percy! Annabeth!" Tyson's voice bellowed the loudest, but others were calling too.

"Why would they be looking for you guys already, it hasn't been a whole five minutes," Magnus cocked his head to the side.

"Labyrinth logic, better get used to it now," Thalia reminded.

... ran into Clarisse and a bunch of other campers carrying torches.

"Did they start an angry mob without you?" Alex asked with the usual twitching lips. "Are they on their way to get revenge on some neighbor camp because they TP'd you?"

"I've always been great at inviting myself along on the important things if so," Percy easily grinned at that, though the haunting memory of that place still lingered. He'd been grateful to be out after a whole breath, and he was asking Grover to go in there for untold time? This was going to be one hell of a quest.

... "We fell in a hole." The others looked at me skeptically, then at Annabeth.

"Hey!" Percy yelped.

"I mean, I'd need some context too, and she's the obvious choice," Will chuckled. Those two had no idea how freaked out everybody had been when the conch shell blew for the winner, and Annabeth and Percy didn't show up.

The laughter had died, the camp went deadly silent like they were all waiting for a blood-curdling scream to signal that imminent attack. Clarisse hadn't even taken her laurels off her head before she snatched a tiki-torch out of a brazier and stomped back in. Quintus had gone off promising to find Mrs. O'Leary to help.

Chiron had immediately launched up search parties, and the deja vu of it all when Percy had gone missing a week ago left him feeling ill. Poor Annabeth, still with no clue they'd found him again.

..."Was an accident!" Tyson protested, and then he sneezed.

"I need details of that," Alex launched an accusing finger at Will like he was intentionally holding out on them.

"Wasn't around for it," he said regretfully, "from what I understand though, Grover could smell the laurels and knew which scorpion to attack, but then he got caught in one of the Stoll's traps, hoisted into a net. So all his fur started raining down on Tyson, and bless him he still tried to cut him down while sneezing his eye out, and even though he did, the scorpion came scampering over with a javelin where its leg used to be and instead of going for the package Tyson fell on Grover and Lee and Clarisse swooped in for the win. It made for a great story." He finished with wistful old regret a story he'd never want to stop telling. It had been Lee's last game at camp, a victory he and Clarisse had only gotten a week to brag about.

There was a communal laugh for a moment at that array of badass misfortune at least.

Jason's eyes were gleaming with interest like he really did want to get a pen and write all of this down. "Hope they team up again, sounds like they'd make a great pair if we can get Tyson some allergy medicine, and maybe a funny hat. Hopefully, it'll lower Grover's fear of him just a bit."

"One of those rainbow hats with the fan on the top, yeah," Percy chuckled in agreement.

Clarisse wasn't even bragging about winning. "A hole?" she said suspiciously.

"Looking for something new to shove your head into?" But Nico was purely joking, he knew she took the safety of their camp seriously.

"I will use my title to prevent it as many times as I have to, I will explode the plumbing of the world," but Percy's joke was lackluster at best. He really didn't want to go back down into that place, he really didn't think even Clarisse would pretend to shove someone into this place, it all just felt stagnant.

..."Chiron, maybe we should talk about this at the Big House."

"There were some kids around," Will needlessly answered the unasked, like he wasn't a kid himself. Most of them had been kept up for the search, but he knew at least the youngest shouldn't be around to hear whatever horrors these two had found.

...A bunch of campers started asking questions, looking about as confused as I was,

Percy felt the eye rolls in the room and he grumbled he'd still been distracted about Clarisse not doing a victory dance.

...An invasion route straight into the heart of the camp."

"Did you really need her to spell that out for you?" Jason asked. At least he sounded like a concerned teacher asking why he hadn't studied the material rather than Gabe asking why he was a moron.

Thalia reached for the book to cut off whatever snide remark Percy had for that. "He was still getting used to the Labyrinth existing, cut him some slack."

"Thanks," Percy muttered to her.

She gave him a wink as she flipped to the next chapter. It was nice, even if he didn't have his girlfriend in here to call him an idiot in person, to at least have a friend around to make sure he never felt too much like an idiot no matter how many times she filled in the roll.