A/N: Yippee, these Author's Notes are FUN stuff! Again, I can't thank you guys enough for the sweet sweet reviews. :) Except Honest101, who wasn't so sweet, but I thank him/her for speaking his/her mind. Don't go away just yet because of the relative lack of fluff for the last chapter or so. It's coming. Oh, and read this whole chapter before you kill me...you might change your mind :D

We sprinted behind Grover, wind whistling past us, through the twisting cliff floor. The gleaming orange-red of the rocks glinted in the sunlight as he screeched to a halt in front of us. "There," he gasped, out of breath from the run. "That's the entrance."

"Uh, Grover?" I said uncertainly. All that lied in front of us was the plain rocks, same as everywhere. "How do you know this is it?"

"Trust me," he trotted over to a large boulder and pointed. "See that?"

I peered at the hunk of rock. Engraved deep into the red stone, two bull's horns arched gracefully. I traced my finger over one and nodded, my heart picking up pace. "The Minoan bull," I said.

Percy sighed loudly. "Do I even have to ask this time?"

"The bull was the symbol of the Minoans," I told him, distracted. "The ancient Labyrinth was under the Palace of Knossos, one of the main Minoan cities."

"Enough with the history lesson!" Grover whined. "Don't you guys want to go in?"

We looked at each other. In one sentence, Grover had pretty much summed up my struggle for the whole month.

Percy was the only one who needed to find Kronos' tomb in the labyrinth. Only Percy. For heaven's sake, I, a normal half-blood, would not be helping matters much by following him inside. Percy alone had the power to destroy the tomb, and, frankly, even I thought that my being there would complicate things.

But I still felt that I needed to go in.

"Yeah," I answered finally. "So how do we open the, um, door?"

"It's not a door," Grover said. "It's an entryway,"

"Whatever. How do you get inside?"

Grover looked sheepishly at Artemis. "I was sort of hoping you could help," he admitted.

Artemis gave the wall of rock in front of us a quick once-over, then shrugged and skipped forward. Dipping her finger in the same powder she used to heal Grover, she traced the bull's silhouette just as I had done. Immediately, a deep grumbling noise echoed from within the rock.

"It's working!" Grover nearly squeaked. "Lady Artemis..!"

Even as he spoke, great chunks of stone shifted this way and that, revealing the mouth to a black entrance. As the entrance got bigger, the light from outside barely lit a dim, dank passageway.

"Wow," Percy gulped, squinting inside. "That's really nice of you."

"That's okay," she said dismissively. "I do this sort of thing often. But, I'm afraid, I have spent enough time here. I must be returning to the rest of the Hunters."

Grover's shoulders slumped. Okay, so did mine and Percy's.

"But..." I poked Thalia. "What about her?"

Artemis looked meaningfully at Thalia. Without tearing her gaze away, she said, "Thalia is my second-in-command. I give her full permission to choose whether or not to participate in the upcoming labyrinths."

Thalia squirmed. "So, that means I have to decide now?"

Artemis squelched a smile. "No, of course not," she glanced at her wrist...as if a goddess had a watch. "You have all of fifteen seconds to choose."

Percy stared her down. I stared her down. Grover was busy swiping a tasty metal barrette out of Thalia's backpack, so he didn't stare, but all the rest of us held our breath.

"Guys," she looked at us with a pained expression. "Don't take this the wrong way. I just, I don't know..." she fidgeted with Aegis. "I sort of need to stick with Artemis for this one."

Percy exhaled loudly. I looked at the Minoan bull boulder with utterly fake fascination, and even Grover quit chomping on the barrette this time to sadly shuffle away from Thalia. "But..." he said softly. "We'll need you in there."

"You'll be fine," Thalia said, a strained tone to her voice. "Like I said, you don't need me to babysit you."

"Thalia!"

"Sorry, but you know what I mean. It's no big deal," she pulled out her bow, ready to turn it back into a grappling hook. "I'll see you when you come out."

With that, she spun on her heel. She and Artemis darted away into the now-setting sun, leaving Percy, Grover, and me to face the maze alone.

--

"Okay," I started, stepping gingerly toward the entrance. "Who's got a plan?"

Percy looked inside decisively. "How about, 'just walk in there, armed'?"

"Per-cy."

"What, you've got a better idea?"

"Well, I was thinking about mapping this out a little," I rolled my eyes. "But, no, I guess that's the best plan we've got. C'mon."

Grover whimpered and Percy nudged him. "Grover, get a grip!"

"B-but...somebody needs to stand guard!"

I gave him a pleading look. "Grover. Please."

He dug his feet into the sandy ground. "I'm serious," he insisted. "I'll guard the entrance and you two can go in."

Percy looked at me for an answer. "Fine, all right," he said after I nodded. "But don't fall asleep or anything, 'kay?"

Grover saluted. "Aye-aye!"

Percy smiled and gave his friend a big man-hug, the kind with claps on the back. "Cross your fingers for me, buddy," he told him.

With a wobbly smile, Grover sent us off, his furry figure growing smaller and smaller as Percy and I crept into the dank, wet tunnel. I wrenched my head away from the window of light where Grover stood, looked at the tunnel wall, and grabbed one of the wooden torches flickering in the sconce holder.

"Go ahead," I tapped Percy and gestured to the other torch. "We'll need the light later."

He lifted the torch from the wall and continued walking briskly. "Thalia's really changed, huh?" he began suddenly as he walked. "Or was she always like that when you knew her?"

"No," I shook my head. Didn't know if he could see me in the dim light. "It's like I've lost a friend."

"Yeah," Percy said hollowly.

"It'll be harder in here without her," I dodged -- eek! -- a spiderweb. "I wish she'd think of someone other than herself."

"I wish she hadn't been spying on us," Percy snorted.

"She was spying?!"

"Duh. How else could she have known what riddle the Sphinx gave us?"

"Well, that's annoying," I brought my torch down so I could see Percy's face. "Do you think she...um...was spying for a while?"

Percy's eyes drifted away from me. "You mean, was she watching back before, in the cave and stuff?"

Whatever thoughts were coursing through that pea-sized brain of his didn't show on his face. It was unreadable. Like a whiteboard someone had just wiped off, or a cloudy crystal ball. And looking at his face like that, the weirdest thoughts began popping upin my mind. Did I look pretty? Was he thinking about me? Did I like Percy, maybe, even a little bit? If I did, what about Luke, who'd been there for me since forever and who obviously loved me already? And, most pressing of all...

"Percy," I walked a little slower but didn't look at him. "Why'd you kiss me?"

Absolute bloody silence.

His voice went all strange when he finally said, "I didn't...well, I mean, you were...I don't know!"

"You said you didn't like me," I bit my lip. "You said you were in a coma when you thought I was pretty, so what gives?"

"Come on, Annabeth!" he said. "I like you as a friend, okay! You know that. You're one of my best friends. Can we keep it that way?"

Then why'd you kiss me?! I wanted to shout at him again. But I didn't. I just nodded quickly and told him, "Yeah, yeah, of course. Let's just forget it ever happened, right?"

"Yeah. Friends?"

"Sure," I should've been happy he hadn't meant it that way, but for some stupid reason my throat grew tight when I said, "We'll always be friends."

We walked in silence for a while, our hands bumping together in the dark every couple of seconds. It was nothing more than annoying at first, but a couple minutes down the tunnel, his hand and mine tangled together accidently.

"Sorry," we both said quickly, yanking our hands to our sides.

The tunnel dipped and raised, like the track of some long-forgotten roller coaster. In fact, my mind was too scrambled from the hand-brushing incident to realize the stony walls were widening until the tunnel suddenly stopped and opened into a huge, football-field sized, super-high-ceilinged cave.

"Woah."

"Woah is right," agreed Percy. "The Labyrinth is freakin' corn?"

It was true. Towering above our heads, yellow kernels gleaming in the flickering torchlight, the giant stalks of corn formed the walls for a twisting, complicated maze. The Labyrinth itself.

"Whoever chose the building materials wasn't very smart," I said, walking toward a particularly tall row of corn. "I mean, you can walk straight through them."

"Annabeth, I wouldn't..."

SPRINGGGGG. As soon as my hands parted the cornstalks, an incredibly springy push of corncob bounced me back onto the cold, wet cave floor. Specifically, it pushed me into a puddle.

"Oh, gross," I whined, standing up and turning to see the soaked seat of my shorts. "It looks like I went swimming!"

"Or worse," Percy snickered, picking my Yankees cap up from the puddle and shaking it dry. "Here," he offered it to me. "You don't want to forget that."

"Thanks," I said, stuffing it in my pocket. "So I guess that means we have to actually go through the maze, huh?"

"Guess so. Look, there's the entrance," he pointed to an open corn archway. "Nothing too fancy here, but that's how I like it." He started down the yellow-lined Labyrinth, pausing to shoot me a look when I giggled. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," I muffled another laugh and ran under the corn archway. "Just, a-corn-ing to Chiron, the Labyrinth was supposed to be a little more epic than this."

Percy smiled slyly. "Yeah, but he's more of a Kernel Sanders than a vegetable expert."

"Percy," I warned. "You're getting pretty corny."

"You're right," he wiped the grin from his face. "This is serious business, and we're going to act serious." We went all of fifteen seconds before he muttered grimly under his breath, "Follow the yellow brick road."

We erupted into snickers and had to stop for breath before going on. Telling corny jokes to pass the time, it wasn't difficult to get through the maze at all. We never once ran into a dead end, but it must have been a half hour before we arrived at the last twisting passage to our trophy. Kronos' tomb.

"The tomb," Percy murmured, a sudden change from his idea about having Thanksgiving here (because of the cornucopia).

"Yes," I looked at him solemnly. The white marble sarcophagus glowed faintly, pulsing with energy. "You ready?" I asked.

"I'll never be ready," he said simply. He took a deep breath and uncapped Anasklumos, its gleaming metal surface like a shining beacon through the dark. "Wish me luck. I'll need it."

I squeezed his hand. Who cared now? "Well, then, good luck."

He smiled half-heartedly and took a step toward the coffin. One more step. Then another. With a heart-stopping breath, he slid the metal edge of his sword under the sarcophagus' lid, pausing for a a moment. He quickly jerked the lid open and leapt back as a girly, blood-curdling shriek echoed from inside the tomb and dissolved into loud, high-pitched laughter. I shrieked too, and pretty much clawed my fingers into Percy's shoulders as I jumped in the air behind him.

"Stupid half-bloods!" the voice sniggered as its owner slithered out of the tomb.

It wasn't Kronos. It was a naiad.

"You obviously haven't figured it out by now," the water nymph snickered, "But this isn't the real Labyrinth. Get in and follow me."