A cold pair of hands did the itsy-bitsy spider down Percy’s back.

A black hole. An inescapable part of the Underworld where even Nico di Angelo couldn’t go. Why hadn’t Percy thought of this before? He’d been to the very edge of that place. He still had nightmares about it.

“Tartarus,” he guessed. “The deepest part of the Underworld.”

Nico nodded. “They pulled me into the pit, Percy. The things I saw down there…” His voice broke.

Hazel pursed her lips. “No mortal has ever been to Tartarus,” she explained. “At least, no one has ever gone in and returned alive. It’s the maximum-security prison of Hades, where the old Titans and the other enemies of the gods are bound. It’s where all monsters go when they die on the earth. It’s…well, no one knows exactly what it’s like.”

Her eyes drifted to her brother. The rest of her thought didn’t need to be spoken: No one except Nico.

Hazel handed him his black sword.

Nico leaned on it like it was an old man’s cane. “Now I understand why Hades hasn’t been able to close the doors,” he said. “Even the gods don’t go into Tartarus. Even the god of death, Thanatos himself, wouldn’t go near that place.”

Leo glanced over from the wheel. “So let me guess. We’ll have to go there.”

Nico shook his head. “It’s impossible. I’m the son of Hades, and even I barely survived. Gaea’s forces overwhelmed me instantly. They’re so powerful down there…no demigod would stand a chance. I almost went insane.”

Nico’s eyes looked like shattered glass. Percy wondered sadly if something inside him had broken permanently.

“Then we’ll sail for Epirus,” Percy said. “We’ll just close the gates on this side.”

“I wish it were that easy,” Nico said. “The doors would have to be controlled on both sides to be closed. It’s like a double seal. Maybe, just maybe, all seven of you working together could defeat Gaea’s forces on the mortal side, at the House of Hades. But unless you had a team fighting simultaneously on the Tartarus side, a team powerful enough to defeat a legion of monsters in their home territory—”

“There has to be a way,” Jason said.

Nobody volunteered any brilliant ideas.

Percy thought his stomach was sinking. Then he realized the entire ship was descending toward a big building like a palace.

Annabeth. Nico’s news was so horrible Percy had momentarily forgotten she was still in danger, which made him feel incredibly guilty.

“We’ll figure out the Tartarus problem later,” he said. “Is that the Emmanuel Building?”

Leo nodded. “Bacchus said something about the parking lot in back? Well, there it is. What now?”

Percy remembered his dream of the dark chamber, the evil buzzing voice of the monster called Her Ladyship. He remembered how shaken Annabeth had looked when she’d come back from Fort Sumter after her encounter with the spiders. Percy had begun to suspect what might be down in that shrine…literally, the mother of all spiders. If he was right, and Annabeth had been trapped down there alone with that creature for hours, her leg broken…At this point, he didn’t care if her quest was supposed to be solo or not.

“We have to get her out,” he said.

“Well, yeah,” Leo agreed. “But, uh…”

He looked like he wanted to say, What if we’re too late?

Wisely, he changed tack. “There’s a parking lot in the way.”

Percy looked at Coach Hedge. “Bacchus said something about breaking through. Coach, you still have ammo for those ballistae?”

The satyr grinned like a wild goat. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Chapter 49

Annabeth had reached her terror limit.

She’d been assaulted by chauvinist ghosts. She’d broken her ankle. She’d been chased across a chasm by an army of spiders. Now, in severe pain, with her ankle wrapped in boards and Bubble Wrap, and carrying no weapon except her dagger, she faced Arachne—a monstrous half-spider who wanted to kill her and make a commemorative tapestry about it.

In the last few hours, Annabeth had shivered, sweated, whimpered, and blinked back so many tears that her body simply gave up on being scared. Her mind said something like, Okay, sorry. I can’t be any more terrified than I already am.

So instead, Annabeth started to think.

The monstrous creature picked her way down from the top of the web-covered statue. She moved from strand to strand, hissing with pleasure, her four eyes glittering in the dark. Either she was not in a hurry, or she was slow.

Annabeth hoped she was slow.

Not that it mattered. Annabeth was in no condition to run, and she didn’t like her chances in combat. Arachne probably weighed several hundred pounds. Those barbed legs were perfect for capturing and killing prey. Besides, Arachne probably had other horrible powers—a poisonous bite, or web-slinging abilities like an Ancient Greek Spider-Man.

No. Combat was not the answer.

That left trickery and brains.

In the old legends, Arachne had gotten into trouble because of pride. She’d bragged about her tapestries being better than Athena’s, which had led to Mount Olympus’s first reality TV punishment program: So You Think You Can Weave Better Than a Goddess? Arachne had lost in a big way.

Annabeth knew something about being prideful. It was her fatal flaw as well. She often had to remind herself that she couldn’t do everything alone. She wasn’t always the best person for every job. Sometimes she got tunnel vision and forgot about what other people needed, even Percy. And she could get easily distracted talking about her favorite projects.

But could she use that weakness against the spider? Maybe if she stalled for time…though she wasn’t sure how stalling would help. Her friends wouldn’t be able to reach her, even if they knew where to go. The cavalry would not be coming. Still, stalling was better than dying.

She tried to keep her expression calm, which wasn’t easy with a broken ankle. She limped toward the nearest tapestry—a cityscape of Ancient Rome.

“Marvelous,” she said. “Tell me about this tapestry.”

Arachne’s lips curled over her mandibles. “Why do you care? You’re about to die.”

“Well, yes,” Annabeth said. “But the way you captured the light is amazing. Did you use real golden thread for the sunbeams?”

The weaving truly was stunning. Annabeth didn’t have to pretend to be impressed.

Arachne allowed herself a smug smile. “No, child. Not gold. I blended the colors, contrasting bright yellow with darker hues. That’s what gives it a three-dimensional effect.”

“Beautiful.” Annabeth’s mind split into two different levels: one carrying on the conversation, the other madly grasping for a scheme to survive. Nothing came to her. Arachne had been beaten only once—by Athena herself, and that had taken godly magic and incredible skill in a weaving contest.

“So…” she said. “Did you see this scene yourself?”

Arachne hissed, her mouth foaming in a not-very-attractive way. “You are trying to delay your death. It won’t work.”

“No, no,” Annabeth insisted. “It just seems a shame that these beautiful tapestries can’t be seen by everyone. They belong in a museum, or…”

“Or what?” Arachne asked.

A crazy idea sprang fully formed from Annabeth’s mind, like her mom jumping out of Zeus’s noggin. But could she make it work?

“Nothing.” She sighed wistfully. “It’s a silly thought. Too bad.”

Arachne scuttled down the statue until she was perched atop the goddess’s shield. Even from that distance, Annabeth could smell the spider’s stink, like an entire bakery full of pastries left to go bad for a month.

“What?” the spider pressed. “What silly thought?”

Annabeth had to force herself not to back away. Broken ankle or no, every nerve in her body pulsed with fear, telling her to get away from the huge spider hovering over her.

“Oh…it’s just that I was put in charge of redesigning Mount Olympus,” she said. “You know, after the Titan War. I’ve completed most of the work, but we need a lot of quality public art. The throne room of the gods, for instance…I was thinking your work would be perfect to display there. The Olympians could finally see how talented you are. As I said, it was a silly thought.”

Arachne’s hairy abdomen quivered. Her four eyes glimmered as if she had a separate thought behind each and was trying to weave them into a coherent web.

“You’re redesigning Mount Olympus,” she said. “My work…in the throne room.”

“Well, other places too,” Annabeth said. “The main pavilion could use several of these. That one with the Greek landscape—the Nine Muses would love that. And I’m sure the other gods would be fighting over your work as well. They’d compete to have your tapestries in their palaces. I guess, aside from Athena, none of the gods has ever seen what you can do?”

Arachne snapped her mandibles. “Hardly. In the old days, Athena tore up all my best work. My tapestries depicted the gods in rather unflattering ways, you see. Your mother didn’t appreciate that.”

“Rather hypocritical,” Annabeth said, “since the gods make fun of each other all the time. I think the trick would be to pit one god against another. Ares, for instance, would love a tapestry making fun of my mother. He’s always resented Athena.”

Arachne’s head tilted at an unnatural angle. “You would work against your own mother?”

“I’m just telling you what Ares would like,” Annabeth said. “And Zeus would love something that made fun of Poseidon. Oh, I’m sure if the Olympians saw your work, they’d realize how amazing you are, and I’d have to broker a bidding war. As for working against my mother, why shouldn’t I? She sent me here to die, didn’t she? The last time I saw her in New York, she basically disowned me.”

Annabeth told her the story. She shared her bitterness and sorrow, and it must have sounded genuine. The spider did not pounce.

“This is Athena’s nature,” Arachne hissed. “She casts aside even her own daughter. The goddess would never allow my tapestries to be shown in the palaces of the gods. She was always jealous of me.”

“But imagine if you could get your revenge at long last.”

“By killing you!”

“I suppose.” Annabeth scratched her head. “Or…by letting me be your agent. I could get your work into Mount Olympus. I could arrange an exhibition for the other gods. By the time my mother found out, it would be too late. The Olympians would finally see that your work is better.”

“Then you admit it!” Arachne cried. “A daughter of Athena admits I am better! Oh, this is sweet to my ears.”

“But a lot of good it does you,” Annabeth pointed out. “If I die down here, you go on living in the dark. Gaea destroys the gods, and they never realize you were the better weaver.”