Rachel Elizabeth Dare was the weirdest person Kia had ever met.

It was also unfortunate that she was the coolest, too.

When Kia had first met Rachel, she had helped them escape skeleton warriors who were trying to kill her and her best friend, so that immediately put her in Kia's good books.

The second time she met her, Rachel Dare was covered in some sort of full-body gold paint—her arms, legs, clothes, face—even her hair. She was standing beside five other kids, all painted in various metallic colours the same as her (Kia was glad to have met the gold of the group), frozen in different poses while people trickled by, the occasional dollar or two dropping into the bucket hat in front of them.

A sign at the bottom of Rachel's feet read, URBAN ART FOR KIDS. DONATIONS APPRECIATED.

Annabeth, Percy and Kia stood in front of them, staring at them for about five minutes, but none of them moved. Kia took time to appreciate the art, to be honest. It was pretty cool, in an urban, mix between modern and old-fashioned kind of way. She really liked how everything other than their eyes were painted entirely of one colour—it seemed to make their eyes pop in their various colours: Rachel's green, and then blue and brown and grey.

"Maybe if we push her over," Annabeth suggested.

Kia promptly stomped on her foot.

Much to Kia's bewilderment, another kid in complete silver came up from the hotel taxi stand nearby and stood next to Rachel, striking a pose as if he were lecturing Copper and Bronze. Rachel unfroze, and stepped of the tarp, greeting the three of them with a bright, contagious grin.

"Hey, Percy—Kia-Gotta-Go! Been a while since I last saw you. Good timing! Let's get some coffee."

The cafe they went to was... rowdy, to say the least. People were bumbling around, coffees and milkshakes being doled out with no respect to the amount of caffeine in some of the drinks, the cafe buzzing with life. With the chaotic atmosphere, nobody blinked an eye at the girl covered in gold paint.

Rachel had her order at the ready. She got an Espresso Extreme, which sounded like it had way too much caffeine for a fourteen year-old, while Annabeth and Percy got fruit smoothies like the boring, sporty losers they were. Kia got a hot chocolate.

"This is the best hot chocolate I've ever had!" Kia exclaimed, a soon as she took a sip. She asked Rachel, "Do you come here often?"

"Not really, but a lot of friends have told me about this place, so I figured why not try it out today." She smiled at Kia. "I see your kidnapper's still holding you hostage."

Kia returned the smile. "Here against my will."

Both of them ignored Percy's undignified strangled sound of offence.

Rachel turned to Annabeth, and that was the first thing that went wrong. "So, it's Annabelle, right?"

"Annabeth," Annabeth corrected irritably, ignoring Rachel's sheepish expression. "Do you always dress in gold?"

"Not usually," Rachel said. "We're raising money for our group. We do volunteer art projects for elementary kids 'cause they're cutting art from the schools, you know? We do this once a month, take in about five hundred dollars on a good weekend. But I'm guessing you don't want to talk about that. You're a half-blood, too?"

"Shhh!" Annabeth hushed, looking around anxiously. "Just announce it to the world, how about?"

"Okay." Rachel stood up on her chair and said out very loudly, "Hey, everybody! These two aren't human! They're half Greek god!"

Nobody even looked over. Rachel shrugged and sat back down, while Kia looked at her in awe. "They don't seem to care."

Kia thought it had been kind of funny, but it seemed Annabeth did not share those sentiments. "That's not funny. This isn't a joke, mortal girl."

She said 'mortal' like it was some kind of disease. Kia thought it was rude, but if Rachel thought so too, she didn't let on. Honestly, Kia thought Annabeth was being way too childish about this, and she was making it harder than it had to be.

"Hold it, you two," Percy said, not helping the situation. "Just calm down."

"I'm calm," Rachel insisted, sipping her espresso. "Every time I'm around you, some monster attacks us. What's to be nervous about?"

"Look, I'm really sorry about the band room. I hope they didn't kick you out or anything."

"Nah. They asked me a lot of questions about you. I played dumb."

"Was it hard?" Annabeth asked.

"Alright, shut up!" Kia finally intervened. "Annabeth, would you calm down? The smoothie's right in front of you. Drink it. Percy: I don't know. Shut up in general, I guess. Rachel, thank you for not walking away. The thing is, we kind of need your help."

Rachel nodded, but narrowed her eyes at Annabeth. "You need my help?"

Annabeth stirred her straw in her smoothie, determined not to look up. "Yeah," she said suddenly. "Maybe."

Satisfied, Rachel waved for Kia to continue. She explained to her about the Labyrinth, and how they needed her help to find Daedalus—along with tidbits of what had happened the last time they'd been in there.

"What we were thinking is... maybe Ariadne's string wasn't what got Theseus through the Labyrinth. We think it was Ariadne herself—a mortal with the Sight."

Percy leaned in to whisper to Kia. "We were?"

Kia smiled at Rachel and ignored Percy.

"So you want me to guide you. Through a place I've never been."

"Yes. Like I said, you've got the Sight—you can see through the Mist. Something as powerful as the Labyrinth should have a really thick layer of the Mist, if I'm correct. It's honestly kind of genius that Percy thought of this—someone who can see through the Mist completely."

Kia immediately regretted complimenting him when he grinned cheekily to himself, stirring his smoothie with the straw. "Hehe. She called me a genius."

"And now you're to being demoted to Idiot again."

"No, wait—"

"And if you're wrong?" Rachel interrupted, though she looked like she was enjoying their banter thoroughly.

"Then we'll get lost," Percy said. "Either way, it'll be very, very dangerous."

"I could die?"

"Yeah."

"Great source of confidence, Perce," Kia said sarcastically. Straightening her shoulders, she said confidently, "We won't get lost. I'm sure of it. This feels right."

Rachel bit her lip, seeming to weigh all of her options. Kia could see the similarity in those who could see through the Mist—the only other person she had ever met that could see through the Mist was Sally Jackson, but still, the similarities were eerie. They both had that same countenance—like they could see more than what others could, and not just because of the Mist.

Finally, she said, "Okay. I'm in." Kia blinked.

Percy seemed to be similarly astounded. "Are you sure?"

"Hey, my summer was going to be boring. This is the best offer I've gotten yet. So what do I look for?"

Kia whistled. "So you're gonna go on a super dangerous and possibly life-threatening quest with us and help us just because your summer was boring?"

"Pretty much, yep."

"I like this girl."

"We have to find an entrance to the Labyrinth," Annabeth said annoyedly, interrupting. "There's an entrance at Camp Half-Blood, but you can't go there. It's off-limits to mortals."

There was still a sour tone when she said the word 'mortal', but Rachel didn't seem to care. "Okay. What does an entrance to the Labyrinth look like?"

"It could be anything. A section of wall. A boulder. A doorway. A sewer entrance. But it would have the mark of Daedalus on it. A Greek Δ, glowing in blue."

"Like this?" Rachel whipped out a marker out of nowhere—did this girl just carry markers on her person or something?—and drew the symbol Delta on a napkin.

"That's it," Annabeth appraised begrudgingly, surprised. "You know Greek?"

"No," Rachel said, like that explained everything. She pulled a big blue plastic hairbrush from her pocket—again with the carrying random objects on her person; if Kia was ever lost, the first person she'd come to was Rachel—and started brushing the gold out of her hair. "Let me get changed. You'd better come with me to the Marriott."

"Why?"

"Because there's an entrance like that in the hotel basement, where we store our costumes. It's got the mark of Daedalus."

When Rachel first met Percy, she thought she immediately had a crush. It was easy to have a crush on a guy like him—windswept dark hair, jaggedly and rugged good looks, charismatic and sarcastic. Obviously enough, everybody around her agreed as well, even if Percy himself didn't notice. She had thought that it was just the kind of guy he was—he was just the kind of person other people were attracted to subconsciously, like a moth drawn to a flame. She hadn't thought that she'd meet anyone quite like him—with that same alluring quality.

Until Kia came along, and she was proven wrong.

Rachel had met them both at about the same time—back at the Grand Canyon last winter during vacation, but as soon as she had seen Kia, she knew it wasn't a coincidence.

Percy and Kia were the most beautiful people she had ever seen—and that was really saying something. There was always a faint glow that hung around them—a pulsating energy that was impossible to resist. She had only recently known that it was because of her Sight that she could see it, but there was no mistake that others noticed too, even if they couldn't see it. Even though Annabeth talked about mortals like they were some kind of mud on the bottom of her shoe, Rachel was versed enough to make the observation that they were definitely effected the same way as her, even if they didn't always entirely notice.

For someone like Rachel, it was impossible to miss their godly essence—which was solidified after she met Annabeth. Just the something in them that screamed power and otherworldly. She had thought at first it was just her who stole unnecessary glances at them, but when she looked close enough, she realised everyone did. They were just that beautiful—something so magnetic and enticing, easy to look at.

While Percy's allure was more violent and sporadic, like a sea crashing on sharp rocks, Kia's was like a repetitive lull of waves, slowly but surely building a tsunami. They were different, but there was a similar kind of aura to them, and once she met Annabeth, she was sure it was the half-god in them.

Meeting her had been like a realisation. The epiphany settled in that these were actual parts of gods, scattered and straying on Earth—beings made of other planets and even stars assembling to create something that she could brush with her very own fingertips.

As much as Rachel returned the dislike for Annabeth, she still understood, in a weird way, where she was coming from, so it was easier to accept that Annabeth was the one who had solidified the belief that it was, in fact, because of their godliness that Rachel was attracted to them.

The interesting thing about it was that the attention they garnered from their aura and looks were actually a positive variable in their quests. Rachel noticed that, along with the Mist, the attention was enough to distract mortals from realising the odd stuff they did—like rummaging through a laundry bin of dirty towels in a hotel for a glowing blue Delta symbol.

Once they got in, they walked for a while, the occasional squeak protruding the atmosphere, courtesy of scary dead skeleton people. Kia graciously offered to help brush the remaining gold out of Rachel's hair, and she accepted happily.

As she brushed, they stood a little behind Annabeth and Percy, who were silent, tension between them still palpable. Leaning in to whisper so the others wouldn't overhead, Kia said, "Sorry about Annie, she's just a little..."

"Tempestuous?" Rachel suggested.

Kia caught on, her tone becoming a a dramatic pompous one. "'Heinous bitch' is the term most often used."

They had a laugh. "A woman of culture, I see."

"Obsessive crushes, more like," Kia corrected. "Heath Ledger was my middle school crush, you know."

"My point stands."

Chuckles dying down, Kia handed Rachel back the hairbrush and Rachel ran her fingers through her hair, seeing that the rest of the gold was now gone. "No, but seriously. Annabeth isn't usually like this, I swear. It's just..."

"Complicated?"

"Yeah. Honest, you guys would get along super great if dumb boys weren't a part of the conversation."

"I guess so, but I think there's more than one reason why she isn't my biggest fan."

Kia sighed. "I'd be lying if I said no."

Rachel appreciated Kia's honesty.

About fifty feet further in from the friendly skeleton man who almost gave her a heart attack, Rachel and the others were faced by a crossroads. Ahead, the brick tunnel continued, following the faint trail of misty light Rachel had detected when she first entered the maze. To the left, there was dirt and tree roots that followed on like the stuff from Pan's Labyrinth. On the right, the tunnel broke into ancient slabs of marble with sophisticated designs.

Despite the trail, Percy pointed left. "That looks like the tunnel Tyson and Grover took."

Annabeth frowned. "Yeah, but the architecture to the right—those old stones—that's more likely to lead to an ancient part of the maze, toward Daedalus's workshop."

"We need to go straight," Rachel said.

Everyone looked at her questioningly.

"That's the least likely choice," Annabeth said.

"You don't see it?" Rachel asked in surprise. "Look at the floor."

They all looked, but Annabeth and Percy didn't seem to find anything. Kia was squinting like she could almost find it.

"There's a brightness there," Rachel insisted, feeling awful around strangers who probably didn't trust her and couldn't even see what she could. "Very faint. But forward is the correct way. To the left, farther down the tunnel, those tree roots are moving like feelers. I don't like that. To the right, there's a trap about twenty feet down. Holes in the walls, maybe for spikes. I don't think we should risk it."

Percy noticed Kia still staring at the ground. "Kia? You see anything?"

"I hadn't noticed it before since it was so faint, but Rachel's right. It's like a cloudy, misty sparkling trail. There's just enough of it to follow. I bet I can't see it as well as Rachel, though."

Relief shot through Rachel. At least there was one other person who could see it—even if just a little.

"Right. Seeing through the Mist and stuff. Okay, forward."

Annabeth didn't look happy, but she seemed inclined to listen to Kia if not Rachel. They all followed Rachel, and the tunnel twisted and turned, but it didn't break into smaller tunnels anymore. There was a slight slope Rachel was fairly sure everyone noticed—they were angling downwards, heading deeper underground if regular logic was applied. But this was the Labyrinth. Even Rachel couldn't be completely sure they were actually going further underground.

"No traps?" Percy asked anxiously.

"Way to be optimistic," Kia muttered, tripping over some kind of weird effervescent rock. She got up, and Percy burst out laughing while Kia glared at him.

"No words from you Mr. I-Tripped-Over-My-Shoelaces-While-Entering-Cabin-Eleven."

That immediately ceased his laughter. "I don't like that you and Annabeth are friends now."

"No traps." Rachel knit her eyebrows, ignoring the interaction between Percy and Kia. "Should it be this easy?"

"I don't know," Percy said, serious again. "It never was before."

"So, Rachel," Annabeth said, quite out of place, "where are you from, exactly?"

She said it like, What planet are you from? But Rachel didn't let it show on her face that she had noticed. She wasn't keen on playing mind games with this girl in a super dangerous place that could get her killed; in the end, Annabeth had the knife that might save her life.

"Brooklyn," Rachel replied shortly.

"Aren't your parents going to be worried if you're out late?"

Rachel exhaled. "Not likely. I could be gone a week and they'd never notice."

"Why not?" There was no biting sarcasm this time. It seemed like she understood that aspect of Rachel at least.

Rachel was about to answer, but there was a croaking noise in front of them, like huge rusty doors opening.

"What was that?" Annabeth asked, suddenly on guard.

"I don't know," Rachel said. "Metal hinges."

"Oh, that's very helpful. I mean, what is it?"

The question went unanswered—mostly because Rachel didn't know, how the hell did they expect her to know—but also because heavy footsteps shook the entire corridor, and they were coming right for them.

"Run?" Percy asked, which seemed a bit unnecessary.

"Run."

The group barely made it more than twenty feet the other way before they ran into some hindrance—Rachel and Percy's old friends from Goode. Two dracaenae—snake women in Greek armor—leveled their javelins at Percy and Kia's chests. Standing between them was Kelli, the evil vampire–donkey cheerleader.

"Well, well," Kelli said, approaching them.

All three demigods reached for their respective weapons, but the weapons barely fully took form before Kelli pounced on Rachel. Rachel felt claws—scarily sharp ones—grazing the skin of her neck. Kelli had turned her around to face the demigods so quickly she hadn't even been able to react.

"Taking your little mortal pet for a walk?" Kelli asked, directing the question at Percy. "They're such fragile things. So easy to break!"

Rachel swallowed harshly as she saw what had been coming towards them earlier emerging from the shadows. The demigods turned, and they saw what she did: an eight-foot tall giant with blaring red eyes and fangs as sharp and big as talons.

The giant licked his lips, as if he had been anticipating a hearty meal. "Can I eat them?"

"No," Kelli said. "Your master will want these. They will provide a great deal of entertainment. Now march, half-bloods. Or you all die here, starting with the mortal girl."

Begrudgingly, they all started forward, including Kia, but one of the snake ladies threw the javelin in front of her, stopping only her. The rest looked back, stopping in place. Kelli smiled. "Not you, daughter of Morpheus. There's a special guest who would like to meet you."

Percy nearly growled. "There's no way we're leaving without her."

Kelli drew her eyes to him. "Aw, is that so? Too bad, because you're needed for a different purpose. Perhaps you'd be able to choose a different friend to go with her."

"I'll go," Rachel said, trying to be brave, but it came out more as a meek squeak.

Kelli threw her head back as she laughed, and her claws seemed to almost draw blood from her neck. "You can't go either. You're the bait—ensurance that little Percy over here follows our orders."

Annabeth squared her shoulders. "Then it's me and Kia again. Don't be stupid, and stay safe—"

Again, Kelli laughed, and Rachel thought she was insane. "You can't go either. You have someone waiting to meet you as well. Looks like you could've done with a few more buddies. Little Kia is gonna be all alone. Tragic."