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shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand.
    Annabeth wanted to curl up next to Percy and go to sleep. She wanted to shut her eyes, hope all of this was just a bad dream and wake up to find herself back on the
Argo II
, safe with her friends (well … as safe as a demigod can ever be).
    But, no. They were really in Tartarus. At their feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The sulphurous air stung Annabeth’s lungs and prickled her skin. When she looked at her arms, she saw they were already covered with an angry rash. She tried to sit up and gasped in pain.
    The beach wasn’t sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in Annabeth’s palms.
    So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill. Annabeth took a rattling breath and wondered if the voices in the Cocytus were right. Maybe fighting for survival was pointless. They would be dead within the hour.
    Next to her, Percy coughed. ‘This place smells like my ex-stepfather.’
    Annabeth managed a weak smile. She’d never met Smelly Gabe, but she’d heard enough stories. She loved Percy for trying to lift her spirits.
    If she’d fallen into Tartarus by herself, Annabeth thought, she would have been doomed. After all she’d been through beneath Rome, finding the Athena Parthenos, this was simply too much. She would’ve curled up and cried until she became another ghost, melting into the Cocytus.
    But she wasn’t alone. She had Percy. And that meant she couldn’t give up.
    She forced herself to take stock. Her foot was still wrapped in its makeshift cast of board and bubble wrap, still tangled in cobwebs. But when she moved it, it didn’t hurt. The ambrosia she’d eaten in the tunnels under Rome must have finally mended her bones.
    Her backpack was gone – lost during the fall, or maybe washed away in the river. She hated losing Daedalus ’s laptop, with all its fantastic programs and data, but she had worse problems. Her Celestial bronze dagger was missing – the weapon she’d carried since she was seven years old.
    The realization almost broke her, but she couldn’t let herself dwell on it. Time to grieve later. What else did they have?
    No food, no water … basically no supplies at all.
    Yep. Off to a promising start.
    Annabeth glanced at Percy. He looked pretty bad. His dark hair was plastered across his forehead, his T-shirt ripped to shreds. His fingers were scraped raw from holding on to that ledge before they fell. Most worrisome of all, he was shivering and his lips were blue.
    ‘We should keep moving or we’ll get hypothermia,’ Annabeth said. ‘Can you stand?’
    He nodded. They both struggled to their feet.
    Annabeth put her arm around his waist, though she wasn’t sure who was supporting whom. She scanned their surroundings. Above, she saw no sign of the tunnel they’d fallen down. She couldn’t even see the cavern roof – justblood-coloured clouds floating in the hazy grey air. It was like staring through a thin mix of tomato soup and cement.
    The black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where she stood, Annabeth couldn’t see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires.
    A distant memory tugged at her – something about Tartarus and fire. Before she could think too much about it, Percy inhaled sharply.
    ‘Look.’ He pointed downstream.
    A hundred feet away, a familiar-looking baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sand. It looked just like the Fiat that had smashed into Arachne and sent her plummeting into the pit.
    Annabeth hoped she was wrong, but how many Italian sports cars could there be in Tartarus? Part of her didn’t want to go anywhere near it, but she had to find out. She gripped Percy’s hand, and they stumbled towards the wreckage. One of the