Death and Madness|| Nico di Angelo

Daedalus can fuck off right about now

Percy and I walked to the window. The view outside was amazing. I recognized the Rocky Mountains in the distance. We were high up in the foothills, at least five hundred feet, and down below a valley spread out, filled with a tumbled collection of red mesas and boulders and spires of stone. It looked like some huge kid had been building a toy city with skyscraper-size blocks, and then decided to knock it over.

"Where are we?" I wondered.

"Colorado Springs," A voice said behind us. "The Garden of the Gods."

Standing on the spiral staircase above us, with his weapon drawn, was our missing sword master Quintus.

"You," Annabeth said. "What have you done with Daedalus?"

Quintus smiled faintly. "Trust me, my dear. You don't want to meet him."

"Look, Mr. Traitor," she growled, "I didn't fight a dragon woman and a three-bodied man and a psychotic Sphinx to see you. Now where is DAEDALUS?"

Quintus came down the stairs, holding his sword at his side. He was dressed in jeans and boots and his counselor's T-shirt from Camp Half-Blood, which seemed like an insult now that we knew he was a spy.

"You think I'm an agent of Kronos," he said. "That I work for Luke."

"Well, duh," Annabeth said.

"You're an intelligent girl," he said. "But you're wrong. I work only for myself."

"Luke mentioned you," Percy spoke up. "Geryon knew about you, too. You've been to his ranch."

"Of course," he said. "I've been almost everywhere. Even here."

He walked past us like we were no threat at all and stood by the window. "The view changes from day to day," he mused. "It's always some place high up. Yesterday it was from a skyscraper overlooking Manhattan. The day before that, there was a beautiful view of Lake Michigan. But it keeps coming back to the Garden of the Gods. I think the Labyrinth likes it here. A fitting name, I suppose."

"You've been here before," I said.

"Oh, yes."

"That's an illusion out there?" Percy asked. "A projection or something?"

"No," Rachel murmured. "It's real. We're really in Colorado."

Quintus regarded her. "You have clear vision, don't you? you remind me of another mortal girl I once knew. Another princess who came to grief."

"Ariadne," I wondered out loud. Quintus nodded slightly, but then I remembered something else. "Wait, didn't she like marry my dad or something-"

Apparently no one cared about my contribution to the conversation.

"Enough games," Percy said. "What have you done with Daedalus?"

Quintus stared at me. "My boy, you need lessons from your friend on seeing clearly. I am Daedalus."

"But you're not an inventor! You're a swordsman!" 

"I am both," Quintus said. "And an architect. And a scholar. I also play basketball pretty well for a guy who didn't start until he was two thousand years old. A real artist must be good at many things."

"That's true," Rachel said. "Like I can paint with my feet as well as my hands."

"You see?" Quintus said. "A girl of many talents."

"But you don't even look like Daedalus," Percy protested. "I saw him in a dream, and..." He looked like a horrible thought dawned on him.

"Yes," Quintus said. "You've finally guessed the truth."