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She touched the wall, and her hand came back covered in cobwebs

She yelped, then cursed herself fora sound

It’s only a web, she told herself But that didn’t stop the roaring in her ears

She’d expected spiders She kneas ahead: The weaver Her Ladyship The voice in the dark But the webs made her realize how close she was

Her hand trembled as she wiped it on the stones What had she been thinking? She couldn’t do this quest alone

Too late, she told herself Just keep going

She made her way down the corridor one painful step at a tiot louder behind her until they sounded likein the wind The cobwebs beca theauzy curtains that covered her like Silly String

Her heart wanted to break out of her chest and run She stunore the pain in her ankle

Finally the corridor ended in a doorway filled waist-high with old lumber It looked as if so That didn’t bode well, but Annabeth used her crutch to push away the boards as best she could She crawled over the re a few dozen splinters in her free hand

On the other side of the barricade was a chamber the size of a basketball court The floor was done in Ro from the walls Two unlit torches sat in wall sconces on either side of the doorway, both covered in cobwebs

At the far end of the room, the Mark of Athena burned over another doorway Unfortunately, between Annabeth and that exit, the floor was bisected by a chas the pit were two parallel wooden beams, too far apart for both feet, but each too narroalk on unless Annabeth was an acrobat, which she wasn’t, and didn’t have a broken ankle, which she did

The corridor she’d co noises Cobwebs treer than gu over the walls and the floor

What kind of spiders? Annabeth had no idea She only knew they were coure out a plan

Annabeth wanted to sob She wanted someone, anyone, to be here for her She wanted Leo with his fire skills, or Jason with his lightning, or Hazel to collapse the tunnel Most of all she wanted Percy She always felt braver when Percy ith her

I a to see Percy again

The first spiders were almost to the door Behind them came the bulk of the army--a black sea of creepy-crawlies

Annabeth hobbled to one of the wall sconces and snatched up the torch The end was coated in pitch for easy lighting Her fingers felt like lead, but she ruh her backpack and found the matches She struck one and set the torch ablaze

She thrust it into the barricade The old dry wood caught immediately Flames leaped to the cobwebs and roared down the corridor in a flash fire, roasting spiders by the thousands

Annabeth stepped back froht herself some time, but she doubted that she’d killed all the spiders They would regroup and swarain as soon as the fire died

She stepped to the edge of the chasht into the pit, but she couldn’t see the botto in would be suicide She could try to cross one of the bars hand over hand, but she didn’t trust her arth, and she didn’t see how she would be able to haul herself up with a full backpack and a broken ankle once she reached the other side

She crouched and studied the bea the inside, set at one-foot intervals Maybe the rails had been the sides of a bridge and the middle planks had been removed or destroyed But eye hooks? Those weren’t for supporting planks More like…

She glanced at the walls The sa the shredded tapestries

She realized the beae They were so torch to the other side of the chasm She had no faith her plan would work, but she pulled all the string out of her backpack and began weaving between the bea a cat’s cradle pattern back and forth fro the line

Her handsabout the task and just did it, looping and tying off lines, slowly extending her woven net over the pit

She forgot the pain in her leg and the fiery barricade guttering out behind her She inched over the chasht Before she knew it, she was halfway across

How had she learned to do this?

It’s Athena, she told herself Myhad never seemed particularly useful to Annabeth--until now

She glanced behind her The barricade fire was dying A few spiders crawled in around the edges of the doorway

Desperately she continued weaving, and finally she made it across She snatched up the torch and thrust it into her woven bridge Flaht fire as if they’d been pre-soaked in oil

For a e burned in a clear pattern--a fiery row of identical owls Had Annabeth really woven theic? She didn’t know, but as the spiders began to cross, the beams crumbled and collapsed into the pit

Annabeth held her breath She didn’t see any reason why the spiders couldn’t reach her by cli If they started to do that, she’d have to run for it, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t h

For soe of the pit--a seething black carpet of creepiness Then they dispersed, flooding back into the burned corridor, al