"For my part, I argued that you, who laid out that whole area of the palace, could enter any chamber, no matter how well the doors were guarded." A shrug. "All the talk—it ended in a wager. So, now, I count on you to prove me right, show some secret way by which, if necessary, a determined man could invade even the Minotaur's most secret precinct undetected."
The beads of sweat on the smith's broad forehead began to merge into rills and trickle down into his eye-brows. "Princess, were I to tell this outlander such a secret—believe me, you ask me to gamble with my life!"
"Yet if you do not tell," Ariadne retorted calmly, "what will happen will involve no gamble!"
Seconds ticked by while the heavy-thewed chief of craftsmen stared at her. Then, bleakly, he said, "Very well, princess."
Another long pause, with Daedalus frowning and tugging at his lower lip.
At last: "The only unguarded way to the Minotaur leads through the drainage system, the great sewer-pipes that lie beneath the palace."
Burke frowned. "You mean, you'd drop through a manhole here—anywhere on the grounds—and then come up again inside the Labyrinth?"
"Exactly," the smith nodded.
"But how would you know when you reached the right exit?"