The Burning Maze

Apollo wakes up the following day feeling physically healed. He sees Joshua and Meg conferring and joins them. The seven seeds that Meg planted have grown into saplings. They are the Meliai, a special breed of ash trees that were born from the blood of Ouranos (a Greek personification of the heavens) when it fell on Gaea’s soil. The Meliai married Silver Age mortals and gave birth to the next generation, the Bronze Age mortals. Now, the dryad Joshua remarks that Caligula would have seen the Meliai “as a major threat”(327) because they possess the primordial power to preserve nature and destroy anything that threatens it. Apollo is in awe of Meg’s power to restore a life force that has been missing for more than two million years.

Grover, Meg, and Apollo leave with Crest to find the maze’s secret entrance, which is located in an abandoned zoo. Grover is discomfited because he can feel the emotions of the animals who are caged there. When they reach the entrance, it is sealed, but Grover plays a song of opening on his panpipes.