Yaaay! New chapter! :D And as a response to some reviews, Horus was just sent back into Carter's body to wake him up. I thought it would be entertaining. ;)
Disclaimer: Everything they read in the chapter is not by me (duh). Everything is Rick Riordan's.

Annabeth took a deep breath as she stared at the page. Her dyslexia confused her. How could she begin to read the book if she couldn't understand it?

"Anytime soon would be lovely!" Natalie barked. Annabeth glared at her.

"Well I would read it if I c-" she stopped and stared at the pages of the book. Amazingly, the printed ink on the paper pages was shifting into Ancient Greek. Annabeth looked at it in disbelief. How many more surprises will there be today?

"If you what?" Natalie retorted.

"No-nothing," Annabeth said. She looked at the first paragraph and opened her mouth to read.

"Wait!" Dan yelped. Everyone stared at him. He looked pale. "Where's Saladin?"

Amy and Nellie also looked worried.

"Mrrp?"

Annabeth was surprised by the sudden noise. She, Percy, Thalia, and Rachel turned to look at the wall behind them. A silver spotted cat snuck out of the dark. Everyone just stared at the cat as it walked towards the circle of logs. Only Anubis looked ultimately disgusted. Ian and Natalie Kabra looked irritated. Close to Anubis's expression, but they did not look entirely digusted.

The cat, instead of walking to Dan and Amy, walked towards Bast.

"Saladin?" Dan called. The cat didn't respond, but it seemed to bow in front of Bast. Everyone stared at the scene wide-eyed. She reached down, gently stroked the cat, and seemed to be speaking in some wierd language. Annabeth tried to think of what it could be.

After that, it was completely silent until Ian Kabra spoke.

"Hmph, looks like the cat is bored of you," he said towards Amy and Dan. Dan glared and Amy sat with her head down. Annabeth held the book to attention.

"Uh, I guess I'll read now."

No one interfered this time. The cat- Saladin- jumped onto the log and next to Bast.

Chapter One

Five minutes before she died, Grace Cahill changed her will.

"What?" Amy asked. She and Dan shared a glance. Grace? Were they going to have to read about when she died? Five minutes before she died... Amy suddenly felt sick. Dan ducked his head and kept his face out of view.

"Go on, Annabeth," Rachel said with a glance at the two kids.

Her lawyer brought out the alternate version, which had been her most guarded secret for seven years. Whether or not she would actually be crazy enough to use it, William McIntyre had never been certain.

"She wasn't crazy for that!" Nellie exclaimed. All the Cahills looked at her as if they weren't so sure.

"Madam," he asked, "are you sure?"

Grace gazed out the window, across the sunlit meadows of her estate. Her cat, Saladin, snuggled beside her as he had throughout her illness, but his presence was not enough to comfort her today. She was about to set in motion events that might cause the end of civilization.

Annabeth looked at the group of Cahills in surprise.

"That didn't seem dramatic at all!" said Sadie sarcastically.

"You have no idea," Natalie glared at her.

"Like you would know."

"You don't know what we've been through!"

"We will soon," Sadie said smugly, turning her attention back to Annabeth and the book.

"Yes, William." Her every breath was painful. "I'm sure."

William broke the seal of the brown leather folder. He was a tall craggy man. His nose was pointed like a sundial so it always cast a shadow over one side of his face.

Annabeth held back a small giggle, but the some of the boys sure didn't. Percy, Nico, and Carter all laughed, but were soon shut up by Annabeth, Thalia, and Sadie. All the Cahills still had grim looks on their faces, and some of them, mainly the Kabras, looked plain deadly after the three boys' moment of laughter.

He had been Grace's adviser, her closest confidant, for half her life. They'd shared many secrets over the years, but none as perilous as this.

"So it makes sense that McIntyre helped you more than others," Natalie grumbled.

"Not true!" Hamilton defended. "He gave us and the other teams tons of information that they didn't have!"

"Way to cheer us up, Hammer," Dan said bitterly.

"What information?" Grover asked.

"Just keep reading," Anubis told Annabeth, slowly inching farther away from Bast and Saladin. Annabeth would guess that he wasn't a cat-person, or a people-person, but she knew that it would be an understatement.

He held the document for her to review. A fit of coughing wracked her body.

Amy and Dan had their heads down, trying not to listen to Annabeth reading the book.

Saladin meowed with concern. Once the coughing passed, William helped her take the pen. She scrawled her weak signature across the paper.

"They're so young," William lamented. "If only their parents-"

"But their parents didn't," Grace said bitterly. "And now the children must be old enough. They are our only chance."

"If they don't succeed-"

"Then five hundred years of work have been for nothing," Grace said. "Everything collapses. The family, the world- all of it."

"Hm," Jonah commented. "The family's already messed up."

William nodded grimly. He took the folder from her hands.

Grace sat back, stroking Saladin's silver fur.

Annabeth took a quick glance at Saladin, who was being stroked by Bast. Wierd...

The scene outside the window made her sad. It was too gorgeous a day to die. She wanted to have one last picnic with the children. She wanted to be young and travel the world again.

Amy wished Annabeth would stop. She wanted to walk right up to her and smack the book out of her hands. She wanted the chapter to end. All of it to end. Amy did not want to be reminded of the clues. Being a Madrigal was enough. Being a Cahill was enough...

But her eyesight was failing. Her lungs labored. She clutched her jade necklace- a good-luck talisman she'd found in China years ago. It had seen her through many close calls with death, many lucky misses. But the talisman couldn't help her anymore.

Amy gasped silently and reached up to grab the same jade necklace. The actual main stone was still there, but Amy had to put it on a different chain. No one but Dan saw her.

She'd worked so hard to prepare for this day. Still, there was so much she'd left undone... so much she had never told the children.

"It will have to be enough," she whispered.

And with that, Grace Cahill closed her eyes for the last time.

Annabeth looked up to see mostly everyone with minor tears in their eyes.

"That's a mental way to start a book," Sadie muttered. "A death so soon."

"You have no idea," Dan grunted.

"Is it really that short?" Jonah asked.

"Um...," Annabeth hummed. "There's still a few more paragraphs, but yeah, that's the end of it."

"Read on," Thalia said.

Annabeth nodded to her.

When he was sure Grace had passed away, William McIntyre went to the window and closed the curtains. William preferred darkness. It seemed more proper for the buisness at hand.

The door opened behind him. Grace's cat hissed and disappeared under the bed.

Dan thought about if Saladin disliked Uncle Fiske. Or was it Mr. McIntyre...

William didn't look back. He was staring at Grace Cahill's signature on her new will, which had just become the most important document in the Cahill family's history.

"Well?" a brusque voice said.

William turned. A man stood in the doorway, his face obscured by shadows, his suit as black as oil.

The Kabras, Starlings, Hamilton, and Jonah seemed to be holding their breaths, not so used to knowing that the Madrigals were good.

"It's time," William said. "Make sure they suspect nothing."

"Who's 'they'?" Carter asked.

"I think you can take a pretty good guess," Sadie said irritably.

William couldn't tell for sure, but he thought the man in black smiled.

"Don't worry," the man promised. "They'll never have a clue."

Annabeth closed the book, "That's the end of the chapter."

Sadie snickered.

"That's ironic," Percy grinned.

"Who would smile at something so... unsettling?" Grover asked, thinking about the man in black.

"Someone totally crazy," Nico muttered.

Dan took an angry breath. He took off his watch and threw it straight at Nico's head. Nico's eyes widened and he dodged to the side.

"Dude!" he yelled at Dan.

NO VIOLENCE!

"AHH!" Dan screamed. He leaped off the log and fell to the ground.

"The voice," Percy whispered. Everyone stared at the cieling except for Amy and Nellie, who were on the ground helping Dan up from the floor.

"The log burned me!" he grumbled.

"I thought the voice had left!" Natalie growled. "The blasted thing came back!"

I pop in every once in a while to keep you all in order. Any of you could set off at any second and cause plenty of damage, especially Bast and Anubis.

Bast closed her eyes and grinned peacefully, sending a chill towards the people who didn't know her well. Anubis just sat and looked nonchalantly at the cieling. Everyone else looked at them as if they had grown two heads. Sadie and Carter thought about Bast. She wasn't so bad, but even they thought about how violent she could be after seeing her in action.

"What happened to Dan?" Rachel asked.

"He said that the log burned him, but I didn't feel anything..."Amy responded.

"The voice is a freaking hypocrite!" Hamilton yelled. "It said for there not to be violence, but it burned Dan!"

I have my reasons.

"So did I!" Dan yelled.

"That could have killed me!" Nico growled.

"Said the King of Ghosts," Thalia muttered.

"Haha. Funny," Nico said sarcastically.

"Dan, you can't just do something like that," Amy whispered as Nico and Thalia began to argue.

"He called Uncle Fiske crazy!" Dan whispered back.

"Just don't do it again, Dan! I got angry too, but at least I didn't try to knock him unconscious!" she glared at him.

"Fine!" he turned away.

Amy frowned. Her brother was so stubborn.

Annabeth stood up, getting more irritated from Nico and Thalia's arguing.

"Cut it out, you guys!" she yelled, fire in her gray eyes. Nico and Thalia fell silent.

"Okay," she hummed, sitting back on the log. "Who wants to read next?"

Amy wanted to yell out that she wanted to read next, but knew she wouldn't even be able to touch the blue book.

"I'll read it," Sadie told Annabeth. She nodded and walked towards Sadie to give her the book. As it passed into Sadie's hands, Annabeth saw the words return to the English language.

Annabeth returned to her seat and Sadie opened the book.

"Okay! Chapter Two!"

Sorry it took so long and it's so short (compared to the last chapters)! If you didn't see my problem on my profile, I lost my Maze of Bones book. I found it earlier today! :D Yaaay! I hope you liked the chapter!
P.S. Sorry if the italics were confusing. :/