Mari woke up even earlier than usual, which was saying something. A dove was tweeting in her ear. "Gah! What the fuck?" she muttered to herself.

Beside the dove was a gift bag, bright pink and glittery, and made of heavy paper and scented with roses. A matching label said For Mari. She recognised Drew's loopy handwriting.

Mari had IM'd Drew right after IMing Will. She wasn't actually allowed to tell either of them what the quest entailed, which was probably good because the Labyrinth was scary, and it would freak both of them out. She was only allowed to say that it was a secret mission on behalf of Chiron. Will had been disappointed and looked slightly worried, but mainly he just told her to get as much sleep as possible, and said that if she didn't raid the infirmary for medical supplies to take with her then he'd be mad. Drew, on the other hand, had a sneaky look on her face which Mari really should have been more suspicious of. The pink bag was probably the bi-product of that look.

Mari re-read Drew's note, which thankfully was in ancient Greek. I did promise to give you an Aphrodite-cabin-approved quest kit if you ever went on another fun death trip. This is me being true to my word. I'll pray to my Mom to look out for you!

Mari set down the note and opened the gift bag, wondering if Drew had somehow enchanted the dove to carry it, despite the weight and bulk. Inside was a white pleather backpack. As soon as she fished it out the dove gave her a very annoyed look (she didn't know if doves could even give annoyed looks, but apparently they really could) and flew back out of her open window. Mari pulled the backpack's zip and emptied its contents onto the bed beside her.

First, there was a brilliantly compact sleeping bag, made of some special material Mari had never seen before and appeared to be lined with silk. There was a hairbrush that Mari suspected was made of real gold, a make-up bag containing a clamshell mirror with a sun on it, and a Tupperware box filled with small bottles of golden liquid. Mari was touched that Drew had remembered she liked nectar better than Ambrosia. There was a Ted Baker purse, stuffed with drachmas. There were even packets of dried fruit and a couple of water bottles. Not plastic, obviously, though Mari didn't recognise the material.

There was one other thing, which Mari was pretty sure wasn't in other Aphrodite-approved quest kits. It was a bracelet, woven out of golden threads that Mari thought were familiar but she couldn't quite place. Attached to the bracelet was another note.

You absolutely do not have to wear this, and I get it if you don't. It's made of the hair accessories from Circe's Island. Before you burn it, I thought it might be a nice way to know she can't hurt you anymore. You obviously can't ever go back there to give her a piece of your mind, but I thought that wearing a symbol of her controlling you as a cute accessory might be the next best thing. I'm sorry if I was wrong. You can absolutely chuck it into the brazier if you want. I won't be offended.

That first time back at camp, after she'd showered, she couldn't untangle the strands from her hair because she couldn't see what she was doing and unlike Annabeth, who had untangled them as soon as they got off Aeaea, she'd stupidly left them in and slept on them. Drew had spent two hours combing through her hair and getting them out, without ripping out a single strand. Mari had assumed she'd thrown the threads away.

Drew had embellished the bracelet with her own additional decoration: a little bead, made of wood and clearly meant to acknowledge Mari's Britishness because it was engraved with the words God bless the NHS. But again Drew had made her own little tweak, and carved a second S after God.

Mari didn't know exactly what to think. She considered putting it onto her wrist, but the thought of wearing something from Circe... it made her feel sick. Viscerally sick. Then again, it was from Drew. Drew was her friend, and probably the best friend she'd ever had. Look at how much trouble she'd gone to, just how kind she was. Drew would never give Mari anything that she thought would hurt her.

In the end, she settled for shoving the bracelet into the back of her bedside table drawer. It would wait for her there during the quest. She would decide what to do with it after she returned - if she returned. The thought brought home to her that she would be leaving camp in one day...

She didn't want to go. She was frightened, but she'd promised Ariadne and breaking promises to Gods was never a good idea. Ariadne had even sent her and Clarisse some nice grape juice (which Mari was pretty sure she'd stolen from Dionysus) as a thankyou.

Mari and Clarisse left early the next day, careful not to wake up the rest of camp. Mari didn't even have to set an alarm. She was up an hour before they had to go.

She showered and ate as big a breakfast as she could (she didn't know when she was next going to be able to eat, after all), but her heart was pounding in her chest. She didn't know if that was because of nerves or her instincts, but she didn't have much of an appetite. She ended up forcing down some vegan yogurt with strawberries and peach slices.

Clarisse wandered into the dining pavilion a little while later, glared at Mari, and scarfed down some toast and coffee.

Mari had actually taken Will up on his offer and raided the infirmary for supplies, so she was stocked with ointments and bandages in case anything went wrong. It still probably wouldn't be enough.

It was six-thirty in the morning when the two of them trudged up half-blood hill to meet Chiron, Argus and Mr D.

"Right on time." Chiron smiled. Mr D scoffed and Argus didn't say anything.

"Argus will take you brats to wherever you want to go, but after that, you're on your own. Try not to die." Dionysus told them.

Chiron gave Mr D a pointed look, and the God huffed. "Alright, fine! My wife told me to pass on the message that there's probably an entrance somewhere around the statue of Liberty. She gave me two tickets to give to you. You better be grateful." He spat the last part, handing them the two tickets before trudging back over to the big house and out of sight.

"The statue of Liberty? Isn't that place full of security?" Mari asked.

Clarisse nodded.

"It's in the torch, to be exact," Chiron said. "That is all Ariadne was able to determine. Though the goddess has understanding above anyone else, the very nature of the Labyrinth is that is it impossible to understand. She asked me to pass along a message of good luck."

"The torch isn't accessible to tourists anymore. There's no way we can get through," Clarisse pointed out.

Chiron frowned. "I'm afraid I can't help you there."

Mari looked back over the valley, at camp. The sun had risen, and her cabin was casting a glow around the others. In some of them, mainly the Athena cabin, lights were starting to come on. For some reason, another kid was up at this time of day, an unfamiliar little girl who was stoking the fire.

She'd miss it. A lot.

Chiron grasped each of them by a shoulder. "You two should get going, before the other campers wake up. Good luck."

Clarisse climbed into Argus's van, and Mari clambered after her. Last time she'd been in this van, she'd been going back to camp for the first time in five years. Now, she was leaving it? It didn't feel right.

Mari glanced out of the back window as the van began to drive away. Chiron gave her a nod and a wave, before he too galloped down the other side of the hill and out of sight.

Clarisse tapped her shoulder. "Remember what I said? Stay out of my way?" she asked.

Mari nodded and was about to speak when the older girl interrupted her. "Good. We are going to the statue of Liberty, right?" She directed the question to Argus, who nodded.

True to his word (Or rather, true to Mr D's word), Argus dropped them off at Battery Park. He drove away almost immediately since there was no available parking space, giving them a friendly wave and a thumbs up out of the window.

The place was crowded with buses dropping off tourists and people rushing around, but that wasn't abnormal for New York. It was 8 a.m. and they also had to go through security before boarding, which meant they had to hurry.

Apparently, to the security guards items like nectar and drachmas looked like a snack box and US money. Mari wasn't complaining if it meant that both of them were able to get onto the boat quickly.

"The plan is to split off from the tour group and find the entrance as fast as possible. Remember what I said. Stay out of my way and do what I tell you to do," Clarisse hissed in her ear.

Mari nodded.

Being on a boat wasn't a great experience for her. It reminded her too much of Aeaea. Maybe it also had something to do with the fact that she'd been pushed off a boat once and nearly drowned beneath it less than a day later. She spent a lot of the trip with her eyes closed so she didn't have to see the water.

When the ferry docked onto Liberty Island (Mari thought that name was a little on the nose), there was more security but it was less thorough than the one on the mainland.

Mari could see Manhattan from where she was standing. It was only early morning, so the city wasn't lit up, but the sun on the buildings made them all glow a whole different way. It was a little dampened by the fact that Mari couldn't make out the Empire state building, but she knew that it was there. And above it were the gods. Probably watching them both. To see if they'd fail.

"What are you doing, just standing there? The tour is about to leave." Clarisse pulled Mari along with her, following the guide who was leading a group from the ferry to the main entrance.

They didn't stay with the tour past the gift shop. Instead, they split off and Clarisse led Mari to the entrance of the actual statue instead. "Have you been here before?" Mari asked, since Clarisse did seem to know where she was going.

Clarisse looked like she'd rather swallow the actual statue of liberty than answer, but she did. "Yes. For my thirteenth birthday."

"Do you think they have cool gifts?" Mari asked.

Clarisse elbowed her, hard. "Focus! We're just here to find this string thing and then get the Hades back out. We don't need a memento." Clarisse did have a point.

They were able to sneak to the entrance to the actual statue (apparently it was called Fort Wood, Mari hadn't really been listening even before she and Clarisse left the group) pretty easily, but then they were faced with a problem.

There was one way into the actual torch, up a ladder and through a trapdoor under the flame. Clarisse knew that because apparently her mother was in the military.

Thing was, the ladder was completely off limits to tourists.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, since sneaking into a guarded, off-limits area wasn't exactly her first experience with breaking the law. If she had to guess, she'd wager that Clarisse probably wasn't new to the concept, either. But neither of them knew how to use the mist. Well, Mari technically knew how to use the mist, just not in any kind of way that could actually help them.

"We have to wait until there's nobody around, then sneak up to the ladder," Clarisse told her.

"Like at night?" Mari asked.

Clarisse shook her head. "No. The ferry to leave departs at five, and then they do a whole clearance of the tower. We'll be caught. It would probably be better to do it whilst it's still morning, too. More people are around after 2 O'clock."

"There's more people here after this?" Mari asked. That seemed impossible. There were already a crap ton of people all around them. One kid had tried to steal her bag because the pleather was shiny.

"Of course there are more. It's the statue of Liberty, Marion." Clarisse rolled her eyes.

Mari was getting kind of sick of this. It wasn't like she was all that read up on what the statue of Liberty was! All she knew was that it was a big and green. She hadn't even known it was on a separate island until two days prior. When she thought of a tourist trap, she thought of the London Eye or maybe Madame Tussauds. Not this.

"We should do it when the staff are on their lunch break. They'll be less people around then," Clarisse said, eyeing the door to the ladder.

"What, so do we just sit here for hours?" Mari asked.

"Yeah."

"So, can I please go to the gift shop?"

"No."

Clarisse did, in fact, make her stay in the same place four hours. It sucked. She had to deal with both crushing boredom and the nerves of knowing that she was about try and go on a quest in a deadly maze, via sneaking into a highly guarded monument. And sitting there, doing nothing? Even worse. The gods were probably laughing at both of them right about now.

She hadn't even realised that she'd started bopping her ankle against the floor in an even rhythm until a passing tourist gave her a dirty look. Clarisse grabbed her arm before she could make a rude gesture.

By the time it was midday and the security guards left to go eat, Mari had been contemplating using her silk sleeping bag as a makeshift parachute and amateur bungee-jumping off the side of the statue just to make things a little more interesting. Finally Clarisse said that it was time to go.

The door was locked.

Really, what else did they expect?

"If anyone comes, lead them away," Clarisse instructed.

"Can you try and pick it?" Mari asked Clarisse.

The older girl gave her a dirty look. "Do I look like one of the Stoll brothers to you? We have to be quick, before anyone hears. You go first."

"Wait, what do you mean before anyone hears-"

CRASH! Clarisse roundhouse kicked the door open and shoved Mari through, to the ladder. "Climb!"

"What the fuck...?" Mari muttered to herself, gripping the first rung of the ladder and heaving herself up. What was the point of torturing Mari by making her wait hours if Clarisse was just going to make enough noise to immediately alert the guards to their presence?

Mari heard a shout in the distance.

"Hurry up, before they see us!" Clarisse hit her ankle.

"Ow! Fuck you, Clarisse!"

"Don't say my name where the security guards can hear you, idiot!"

It probably would have been exhausting for a normal mortal to climb as fast as Mari and Clarisse did. In fact, Mari wasn't sure if it was her demigod strength or practicing climbing the lava wall (maybe she should actually turn up to that more often) that helped her out. They managed to get up to the actual torch before the guards were even a quarter of the way there.

The view was bloody exquisite. She could see all of Manhattan from up here. The little red and yellow blobs were cars driving along the streets, and she could make out another ferry in the distance, waiting to take the next batch of tourists to Liberty island.

Now wasn't the time for stopping and staring, though.

She held out a hand to help Clarisse, who kicked the trapdoor shut behind them and stuffed a fire extinguisher on top of it.

"We have to find the entrance!" she hissed.

They split up, each covering half of the torch (it was only made to hold twelve people, so it was small enough that they could do so) in search of the entrance. Mari remembered Chiron saying that every entrance was marked with a Delta, but she couldn't see one, not anywhere!

She looked between the patterns on the limestone for some kind of carving, but couldn't make out any Delta symbol. She even searched the floor! Meanwhile, the voices of the security guards and a banging sound was getting closer and closer...

"Kids! You're in enough trouble already, come down now and we'll consider letting you off with community service and a heavy fine! This isn't funny!" one guard called, but then there was a bang and a few curses, probably form him bashing his head on something.

"Hey, Smartass! Over here, I found it!" Clarisse yelled.

"Ma'am, if you think you can get away with stealing something here, you're very, very mistaken. Come down, now!" a different voice called.

Mari darted over to Clarisse, who was kneeling down in front of the base which supported the flame. There, at eye-level with Mari, was a small Delta symbol.

Obviously, it couldn't just be that simple, because to get to it, they'd have to step over the trapdoor.

"You go first, but don't move until I'm there too," Clarisse instructed.

Nervously, Mari placed her hand over the symbol. It glowed blue, then opened as if it were the easiest thing in the world. In front of them was a wide passageway, made of the same stone as the statue of Liberty itself.

Clarisse shoved Mari inside the passageway just as the trap-door began to open only for Clarisse to stomp hard on it, and by extension the guard's head, before following Mari. The door to the Labyrinth closed behind them, and they were all alone.