The Mark of Athena (The Heroes of Olympus #3)(140)

Arachne’s lips curled over her mandibles. “Why do you care? You’re about to die.”

“Well, yes,” Annabeth said. “But the way you captured the light is amazing. Did you use real golden thread for the sunbeams?”

The weaving truly was stunning. Annabeth didn’t have to pretend to be impressed.

Arachne allowed herself a smug smile. “No, child. Not gold. I blended the colors, contrasting bright yellow with darker hues. That’s what gives it a three-dimensional effect.”

“Beautiful.” Annabeth’s mind split into two different levels: one carrying on the conversation, the other madly grasping for a scheme to survive. Nothing came to her. Arachne had been beaten only once—by Athena herself, and that had taken godly magic and incredible skill in a weaving contest.

“So…” she said. “Did you see this scene yourself?”

Arachne hissed, her mouth foaming in a not-very-attractive way. “You are trying to delay your death. It won’t work.”

“No, no,” Annabeth insisted. “It just seems a shame that these beautiful tapestries can’t be seen by everyone. They belong in a museum, or…”

“Or what?” Arachne asked.

A crazy idea sprang fully formed from Annabeth’s mind, like her mom jumping out of Zeus’s noggin. But could she make it work?

“Nothing.” She sighed wistfully. “It’s a silly thought. Too bad.”

Arachne scuttled down the statue until she was perched atop the goddess’s shield. Even from that distance, Annabeth could smell the spider’s stink, like an entire bakery full of pastries left to go bad for a month.

“What?” the spider pressed. “What silly thought?”

Annabeth had to force herself not to back away. Broken ankle or no, every nerve in her body pulsed with fear, telling her to get away from the huge spider hovering over her.

“Oh…it’s just that I was put in charge of redesigning Mount Olympus,” she said. “You know, after the Titan War. I’ve completed most of the work, but we need a lot of quality public art. The throne room of the gods, for instance…I was thinking your work would be perfect to display there. The Olympians could finally see how talented you are. As I said, it was a silly thought.”

Arachne’s hairy abdomen quivered. Her four eyes glimmered as if she had a separate thought behind each and was trying to weave them into a coherent web.

“You’re redesigning Mount Olympus,” she said. “My work…in the throne room.”

“Well, other places too,” Annabeth said. “The main pavilion could use several of these. That one with the Greek landscape—the Nine Muses would love that. And I’m sure the other gods would be fighting over your work as well. They’d compete to have your tapestries in their palaces. I guess, aside from Athena, none of the gods has ever seen what you can do?”

Arachne snapped her mandibles. “Hardly. In the old days, Athena tore up all my best work. My tapestries depicted the gods in rather unflattering ways, you see. Your mother didn’t appreciate that.”

“Rather hypocritical,” Annabeth said, “since the gods make fun of each other all the time. I think the trick would be to pit one god against another. Ares, for instance, would love a tapestry making fun of my mother. He’s always resented Athena.”

Arachne’s head tilted at an unnatural angle. “You would work against your own mother?”

“I’m just telling you what Ares would like,” Annabeth said. “And Zeus would love something that made fun of Poseidon. Oh, I’m sure if the Olympians saw your work, they’d realize how amazing you are, and I’d have to broker a bidding war. As for working against my mother, why shouldn’t I? She sent me here to die, didn’t she? The last time I saw her in New York, she basically disowned me.”

Annabeth told her the story. She shared her bitterness and sorrow, and it must have sounded genuine. The spider did not pounce.

“This is Athena’s nature,” Arachne hissed. “She casts aside even her own daughter. The goddess would never allow my tapestries to be shown in the palaces of the gods. She was always jealous of me.”

“But imagine if you could get your revenge at long last.”

“By killing you!”

“I suppose.” Annabeth scratched her head. “Or…by letting me be your agent. I could get your work into Mount Olympus. I could arrange an exhibition for the other gods. By the time my mother found out, it would be too late. The Olympians would finally see that your work is better.”

“Then you admit it!” Arachne cried. “A daughter of Athena admits I am better! Oh, this is sweet to my ears.”

“But a lot of good it does you,” Annabeth pointed out. “If I die down here, you go on living in the dark. Gaea destroys the gods, and they never realize you were the better weaver.”

The spider hissed.

Annabeth was afraid her mother might suddenly appear and curse her with some terrible affliction. The first lesson every child of Athena learned: Mom was the best at everything, and you should never, ever suggest otherwise.

But nothing bad happened. Maybe Athena understood that Annabeth was only saying these things to save her life. Or maybe Athena was in such in bad shape, split between her Greek and Roman personalities, that she wasn’t even paying attention.