The air burned cold, the kind of cold that didn’t belong in firelit places.

Percy’s sword cut through the dark — gold sparks trailing like dying stars — but the shadows didn’t bleed. They screamed. The sound tore through the tunnels, echoing until it didn’t sound like one monster, but a thousand.

“Left!” Annabeth shouted, voice raw.

He pivoted without thinking, slicing through a creature made of bone and smoke. It shattered, re-forming in the same breath.

“This isn’t working!” Grover’s voice cracked somewhere behind him. His hooves scraped stone. “They keep coming back!”

Percy’s chest heaved. Sweat mixed with ash on his neck, his lungs filling with air that wasn’t air at all — too heavy, too dead. Every heartbeat sounded too loud. Every shadow looked like it moved.

“Then we move faster!” Annabeth barked, grabbing his wrist and dragging him forward. The light from her dagger barely reached the walls; it just glanced off the surface, revealing carvings that looked like faces. Some were crying. Some were smiling.

Grover stumbled as another shriek cut through the dark. The ground pulsed underfoot. Something was awake beneath it.

Percy turned once — just once — to see if they were being followed.

He wished he hadn’t.

Shapes — wrong, flickering — moved in the distance, crawling through the black. Eyes that weren’t eyes blinked open.

He quickly grabbed Annabeth and Grover’s hand and ran.