The forest pressed in on them from every side. Every path looked the same—twisted roots, moss slick with dew, the air damp and heavy with mist. Hours had blurred together, and the three of them were still no closer to finding a way out.

“Are we sure this is even the right direction?” Grover asked for the fifth time, his hooves squelching against the earth.

“It’s a direction,” Annabeth muttered, her eyes darting between trees as if one might suddenly rearrange itself.

Percy opened his mouth to answer—then stopped.

Something moved.

A shift of shadow just beyond the bushes ahead. Not loud, not clumsy. Quiet. Too quiet. Like whatever it was had been there a while, waiting.

Grover’s ears twitched. “Did you hear that?”

“Yeah,” Percy said, voice low.

Annabeth’s hand tightened around her dagger. Her posture was sharp, coiled. “Stay close. Don’t make a sound.”

They pressed in shoulder to shoulder, instinct pulling them tighter, the way you did when you knew you weren’t alone but couldn’t see what else was out there.

The bushes rustled again—slow, deliberate. Not wind. Not small.

Percy raised Riptide.

Grover whimpered.

And then—nothing. Just silence, stretching so long it felt unbearable.

The shadow didn’t leave.

It waited.