XXXIII

Annabeth begins her solo quest after lunch with Percy, riding through Rome with Tiberinus and Rhea Silvia, who reminisce about the city’s ancient past. They stop at a grimy but grand marble building and direct Annabeth not inside but beneath it, urging her to find the altar of a foreign god. They hint that the prize below could bring peace between Greek and Roman demigods, but warn of a deadly guardian that felled Annabeth’s predecessors.

Left alone, Annabeth grapples with fear and memories of childhood survival, reaffirming her resolve to aid Athena and the war effort. A door opens at her touch with Athena’s burning owl sigil. She enters a modern-ancient hybrid basement, discovers a deeper stairwell to a small Roman room, and finds only a vertical shaft dropping to a subterranean canal where the Mark of Athena glows, revealing the path forward but no safe route down.

Frustrated by her lack of flashy powers, Annabeth recalls Athena’s emphasis on intelligence and decides to rely on ingenuity. Scavenging crates of kite string and plastic gladiator swords, she braids a rope ladder with sword-spaced knots for grip, secures it to scaffolding, and loads extra string in her pack as contingency.

Testing the makeshift ladder, Annabeth commits to the descent, following the blazing owl toward the canal and the buried city. She embraces the quest’s solitude and stakes—freeing the Athena Parthenos to alter the war’s course—as she lowers herself into Rome’s depths.