Annabeth, Grover, Tyson and Kia stood by, fiddling with their various nick-knacks, waiting for Percy to come back. He had been pulled aside by Chiron, and with the solemn expression on his face, they all picked up the hint to not interrupt them.

Kia was nervous, of course; they'd be entering one of the most dangerous places in the entire mythical world. From what Kia had read in the old stories, prisoners of Minos, the king of Crete during the time the Labyrinth was built, were shoved into. It was relatively simple: if they were able to escape, well goody, but the maze was specially designed to weaken the victim to the thinnest their blood could be. At the centre, a beast called the Minotaur resided, one which Percy had already dealt with once and presumably escaped, but Kia doubted that the Minotaur would be the only horror that prevailed when they delved deeper.

Despite this, Kia could not say that she was the most nervous. Beside her, Annabeth kept asking the others for their flashlights to check if the batteries were fully stocked, bouncing on the heels of her feet, readjusting the straps of her backpack repeatedly. Even for an ADHD demigod, Annabeth was exceptionally jittery. She kept gnawing on her lips and picking at her index fingers' cuticles with her thumbs.

"Hey, Ann," Kia said. Annabeth was just as jumpy as Kia expected her to be. "On a scale of one to ten, how much do you think the vein on Katie's forehead is going to be bulging by the time we get back?"

Annabeth smiled weakly. "Eleven."

Kia shook her head fondly. "Travis and Connor are going to drive your cabin insane. Especially without you there."

"They'll have to deal with me when I'm back," Annabeth joked. She was still, understandably, very anxious, but she had stopped picking at her cuticles now. Kia found that distracting someone was the best way to bring down anxiety.

"Hey, Kiki!"

Speak of the devil. Well, devils, in this case.

Travis and Connor treaded down the hill, their regular pep in their steps with mirroring impish grins on their faces. Both of them held something behind their backs individually, which Kia did not trust at all. She had never been on the direct receiving end of one of their pranks or pickpocketing expeditions, but it was only because she had remained vigilant all this time. She could feel it though, her time was running out. No one was safe.

Connor came around and wrapped an arm around Kia's shoulder, pulling her closer. "Don't tell me you were going to leave without us, Kiki. That'd be so messed up!"

Travis came up on her other side, wrapping his own arm around her shoulder. This was just great. She was sandwiched between two of the most notoriously mischievous kids at camp. "Wouldn't wanna hurt us like that, would you, Kiki?"

"I've heard myself being referred to as Kiki thrice in the past thirty seconds. I think I want to hurt you both only slightly worse than that."

Travis laughed boisterously. "So much edge. You're, like, straight out of a Deftones song."

"That's a compliment."

"That it is!" Connor brought something out from behind him. "And because you're just so special to us, we got you this." It was a little box, that, when opened, revealed two simple bands made of some sort of iridescent stone.

Kia raised an eyebrow. "What are these?"

"Hecatolite," said Travis, picking up one of the bands in his hand and manoeuvring it underneath the sunlight. The stone the ring was made of glinted beautifully, all the colours known to man being expressed vividly with the light hitting and bouncing off it. "Otherwise known as moonstone, its a kind of crystal that has a bunch of cool meanings. We wanted to give you something before you left, so we, uh, decided on something that was considered a good omen for travellers."

Kia's heart felt warm. Normally, she'd be suspicious of anything the Stoll brothers gave her, but they were both utterly sincere, which was quite rare. But there was still one question she had. "Why are there two?"

Connor rolled his eyes. "There was enough to make two, duh. We just had the stone on hand—" Kia didn't trust the way they just happened to have it, but she let it slide, "—and gave it to the Hephaestus kids to make a ring. They said there'd be enough for two, and et voilá!"

"Here." Travis took one of them, holding out his hand for Kia's. "Which finger d'ya wanna wear it on?"

"Index, maybe?"

"As the lady wishes." Travis slipped it on her left index finger, and Kia was surprised that they had gotten her finger size just perfect.

Connor seemed to able to tell what she was thinking. "Oh, we had no idea what your size was, but the Hephaestus kids are pretty cool if you bribe them with no pranks for a week. They magicked it so that it would adjust no matter who the wearer was."

Kia couldn't help it, she smiled widely at both of them. With that, she sprung on them both, engulfing them in a huge hug. They stumbled back a bit, but laughed anyway and hugged her back. "Thank you, you guys."

"Well, we couldn't let our baby sister just walk out into the world all alone like that, could we?"

"Shut up and enjoy the moment, Travis."

Kia pulled back, looking at the ring on her index finger in admiration. Connor tossed the box to her. "Keep this one, too. You can give it to whoever you want."

Kia's pocketed the little trinket, absently wondering who she could give it to. Maybe another one of her quest mates? Scratch that, it'd ben rude to give only one of them a protection charm while the others got a pat on the back. She decided she'd brood on it later. "Aww, look at that. You guys actually can not be total assholes sometimes."

"Shut it, Kia, or you'll get a bed full of worms when you get back."

Annabeth, who had presumably gone off to fetch Percy, came back with him in tow. Kia elbowed Percy gently. "You done with Senõr Horseman?"

Percy hummed, staring at the pile of rocks and then at Quintus. It was at the same time Kia looked at him and Quintus looked at both of them. He gave them a wave that was slow and ominous, like the foreshadowing of something terrible about to happen, like a shadow seen in the top most window of an abandoned building.

It made them both really uncomfortable, so they both looked away. Percy looked at Annabeth and Kia looked at the Stoll brothers. She waved at them one more time; Connor winked and shot her finger guns and Travis gave her a two-finger salute with a tongue click.

Breathing in and savouring the fresh air Kia had a feeling would not be tasting for a long while after this, she braced herself for everything that laid ahead. She opened her eyes and stared at the rocks that were about to consume them all whole.

"Well," Grover said nervously, "good-bye sunshine."

"Hello rocks," Tyson said in affirmation. With that, they all entered what was possibly the centre of one of the most deadly and dangerous places they'd ever be in.

A hundred feet in, and they were lost. The Labyrinth wasn't at all like Percy and Kia remembered; it was shaped kind of like a sewer, and it reminded Kia of the underground network of caves in Crystal Cove from Scooby-Doo. Red-brick iron portholes popped up on the walls ever ten feet; Percy shined his flashlight into it just out of curiosity, but the light bled into infinite darkness, the way it would when one shined light into the inky night sky. It creeped Kia out, so she told Percy to knock it off.

As she did, Percy and her froze, hearing something like voices behind the darkness, right from the direction of the porthole. If it was only one of them, they might have been able to convince themselves that it was just the wind, but as they looked at each other, they could tell that they had both heard the same thing. Silently agreeing to not mention it, they forged forward behind Annabeth.

Annabeth had this brilliant idea of keeping their hands on the left wall and follow it. This was a guaranteed way to stay safe (as safe as one could be in the Labyrinth, anyway); if they needed to turn back, all they had to do was reverse course. Kia was still sceptical, because this was the Labyrinth they were talking about. Not labyrinth, but the Labyrinth. This place had magic fused into it's walls designed to mess with their minds. Still, Kia had no better idea, so she kept her mouth shut.

As soon as Annabeth suggested it, however, the left wall disappeared. It reminded Kia of a soldier falling because he revealed his strategies to their opponent. She kept it in mind just to test the theory later. They were now in a chamber with eight tunnels, all identical, and none of them knew with which way they had come in.

"Um, which way did we come in?" Grover said nervously.

"Just turn around," Annabeth said.

They all turned around, new tunnels before each of them individually. Barely two minutes in and they were already dead. Fantastic.

"Wait, wait, wait, hold on." Kia held her hands up in a time-our gesture. "Wasn't Ariadne's string, like, normal string in the old stories?"

"Yes," said Annabeth, seeming to get the gist of what she was saying. "But the Labyrinth changes and adapts to everything. It's impossible that it wouldn't have adapted to any normal by now. Daedalus is the only man who could have further engineered the string to keep it on par with the Labyrinth. Besides, it's too late. We're already in the Labyrinth."

Of course Annabeth had thought of it already. Kia didn't even think about this. Times like this was when Kia was really grateful for have a super smart friend like Annabeth.

"Left walls and string are mean," Tyson said, which pretty much summed up everything. "Which way now?"

Annabeth traced her flashlight beam over the archways of the eight tunnels. She picked a random tunnel, from what Kia could guess. "That way."

"How do you know?" Percy asked.

"Deductive reasoning."

"So... you're guessing."

"Please," Kia said, bowing sarcastically, "Sir Percy, serenade us with your marvellous ideas."

Everyone stared at him expectantly. Grover, Kia and Annabeth wore matching cheeky expressions and Tyson looked like he was genuinely waiting for an answer. He was so cute.

Percy turned red and looked away. "Let's just go."

One dead milkman and a future anecdote about how Percy thought his mother was apparently from the eighteen hundreds later, Annabeth led them through a corridor of stainless steel like a sort of air-shaft and they had arrived back in the Roman tile room they had previously visited.

This time, the glittering mosaics on the walls of the gods weren't what caught their attention. It was the dude with two entire faces.

His head, well, heads, were connected right behind two overlapping ears, two faces mirroring each other on each head looking over the sides of his shoulders. He looked kind of like the hammerhead shark from Finding Nemo. The man was wearing a long black overcoat, like a doorman from an expensive hotel, shiny shoes and a black top hat that was balanced unsteadily between his two heads.

"Well, Annabeth?" said his left face. "Hurry up!"

"Don't mind him," said the right face. "He's terribly rude. Right this way, miss."

Annabeth's jaw dropped. She seemed to have trouble properly forming her words, which was under stable. Some dude with two literal faces was trying to get her to choose some doorway. "Uh...I don't..."

"Hey!" the left face said, seemingly addressing Kia. "Calling us 'some dude' isn't very nice!"

Could they tell what she was thinking? Kia didn't like that.

Tyson frowned. "That funny man has two faces."

"The funny man has ears, you know!" the left face scolded. "Now come along, miss."

"No, no," the right face said. "This way, miss. Talk to me, please."

The two-faced man regarded Annabeth as best he could out of the corners of his eyes, the other part of his eyes going red in strain. It was impossible to look at him straight on without focusing on one side or the other, like holding eye contact willingly; it was difficult to focus on both.

Behind the two-faced man were two exits, blocked by wooden doors streaked with darker shades of brown and grey with comically huge iron locks. They hadn't been there their first time in this room.

The path behind them had disappeared and been replaced with more mosaics of the gods. There was no way out other than to choose.

"The exits are closed," Annabeth said.

"Duh!" the man's left face said crudely.

"Where do they lead?" she asked.

"One probably leads the way you wish to go," the right face said encouragingly. To Kia, it felt like the right face was a deceptive 'helper' in a traveller's journey. "The other leads to certain death."

"I—I know who you are," Annabeth said, her eyebrows knitting in thought.

"Oh, you're a smart one!" The left face sneered nastily. "But do you know which way to choose? I don't have all day."

"Lay off of her," Kia said defensively. She knew Annabeth was the leader but this guy was messing with her mind, not giving her authority.

The left face's sneer intensified at the sight of Kia. Well, she thought he was looking at her. It was kind of hard to tell with the two faces and the angle and stuff. "You should fear us even more than your little friend over there, Kia Mitsuho."

Kia stepped back, forced confidence leaving her immediately. "What do you mean?"

The left face laughed. "You're a weak one, aren't you?"

"Oh, you'll be a fun one!" the right face said cheerfully. "But you'll come in later." He shifted his attention back to Annabeth. "Have you picked yet?"

"Why are you trying to confuse me?" Annabeth asked. Kia had never seen her friend look so lost.

The right face smiled. "You're in charge now, my dear. All the decisions are on your shoulders. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

"I—"

"We know you, Annabeth," the left face said. "We know what you wrestle with every day. We know your indecision. You will have to make your choice sooner or later. And the choice may kill you."

It was settled. They definitely meant more than just doors. Kia didn't know what they were referring to in Annabeth's aspect, but she had a guess about her own. She didn't like it one bit.

The color dissipated out from Annabeth's face. "No...I don't—"

"Leave her alone," said Percy. "Who are you, anyway?"

"I'm your best friend," the right face said.

"I'm your worst enemy," the left face said.

"I'm Janus," both faces said in unison. "God of Doorways. Beginnings. Endings. Choices."