LATER, THEY TOLD HIM WHAT HAPPENED. All he remembered was the screaming.
According to Reyna, the air around him dropped to freezing. The ground blackened. In one horrible cry, he unleashed a flood of pain and anger on everyone in the clearing. Reyna and the coach experienced his journey through Tartarus, his capture by the giants, his days wasting away inside that bronze jar. They felt Nico’s anguish from his days on the Argo II and his encounter with Cupid in the ruins of Salona.
They heard his unspoken challenge to Bryce Lawrence, loud and clear: You want secrets? Here.
The spartoi disintegrated into ashes. The rocks of the cairn turned white with frost. Bryce Lawrence stumbled, clutching his head, both nostrils bleeding.
Nico marched towards him. He grabbed Bryce’s probatio tablet and ripped it off his neck.
‘You aren’t worthy of this,’ Nico growled.
The earth split under Bryce’s feet. He sank up to his waist. ‘Stop!’ Bryce clawed at the ground and the plastic bouquets, but his body kept sinking.
‘You took an oath to the legion.’ Nico’s breath steamed in the cold. ‘You broke its rules. You inflicted pain. You killed your own centurion.’
‘I – I didn’t! I –’
‘You should’ve died for your crimes,’ Nico continued. ‘That was the punishment. Instead you got exile. You should have stayed away. Your father Orcus may not approve of broken oaths. But my father Hades really doesn’t approve of those who escape punishment.’
‘Please!’
That word didn’t make sense to Nico. The Underworld had no mercy. It only had justice.
‘You’re already dead,’ Nico said. ‘You’re a ghost with no tongue, no memory. You won’t be sharing any secrets.’
‘No!’ Bryce’s body turned dark and smoky. He slipped into the earth, up to his chest. ‘No, I am Bryce Lawrence! I’m alive!’
‘Who are you?’ Nico asked.
The next sound from Bryce’s mouth was a chattering whisper. His face became indistinct. He could have been anyone – just another nameless spirit among millions.
‘Begone,’ Nico said.
The spirit dissipated. The earth closed.
Nico looked back and saw that his friends were safe. Reyna and the coach stared at him in horror. Reyna’s face was bleeding. Aurum and Argentum turned in circles, as if their mechanical brains had short-circuited.
Nico collapsed.
His dreams made no sense, which was almost a relief.
A flock of ravens circled in a dark sky. Then the ravens turned into horses galloping through the surf.
He saw his sister Bianca sitting in the dining pavilion at Camp Half-Blood with the Hunters of Artemis. She smiled and laughed with her new group of friends. Then Bianca changed into Hazel, who kissed Nico on the cheek and said, ‘I want you to be an exception.’
He saw the harpy Ella with her shaggy red hair and red feathers, her eyes like dark coffee. She perched on the couch of the Big House’s living room. Propped next to her was the magical stuffed leopard head Seymour. Ella rocked back and forth, feeding the leopard Cheetos.
‘Cheese is not good for harpies,’ she muttered. Then she scrunched up her face and chanted one of her memorized lines of prophecy: ‘The fall of the sun, the final verse.’ She fed Seymour more Cheetos. ‘Cheese is good for leopard heads.’
Seymour roared in agreement.
Ella changed into a dark-haired, extremely pregnant cloud nymph, writhing in pain on a camp bunk bed. Clarisse La Rue sat next to her, wiping the nymph’s head with a cool cloth. ‘Mellie, you’ll be fine,’ Clarisse said, though she sounded worried.
‘No, nothing is fine!’ Mellie wailed. ‘Gaia is rising!’
The scene shifted. Nico stood with Hades in the Berkeley Hills on the day Hades first led him to Camp Jupiter. ‘Go to them,’ said the god. ‘Introduce yourself as a child of Pluto. It is important you make this connection.’
‘Why?’ Nico asked.
Hades dissolved. Nico found himself back in Tartarus, standing before Akhlys, the goddess of misery. Blood streaked her cheeks. Tears streamed from her eyes, dripped on the shield of Hercules in her lap. ‘Child of Hades, what more could I do to you? You are perfect! So much sorrow and pain!’
Nico gasped.
His eyes flew open.
He was flat on his back, staring at the sunlight in the tree branches.
‘Thank the gods.’ Reyna leaned over him, her hand cool on his forehead. The bleeding cut on her face was completely gone.
Next to her, Coach Hedge scowled. Sadly, Nico had a great view right up his nostrils.
‘Good,’ said the coach. ‘Just a few more applications.’
He held up a large square bandage coated with sticky brown gunk and plastered it over Nico’s nose.
‘What is … ? Ugh.’
The gunk smelled like potting soil, cedar chips, grape juice and just a hint of fertilizer. Nico didn’t have the strength to remove it.
His senses started to work again. He realized he was lying on a sleeping bag outside the tent. He was wearing nothing but his boxer shorts and a thousand gross, brown-plastered bandages all over his body. His arms, legs and chest were itchy from the drying mud.
‘Are – are you trying to plant me?’ he murmured.
‘It’s sports medicine with a little nature magic,’ said the coach. ‘Kind of a hobby of mine.’
Nico tried to focus on Reyna’s face. ‘You approved this?’
She looked like she was about to pass out from exhaustion, but she managed a smile. ‘Coach Hedge brought you back from the brink. The unicorn draught, ambrosia, nectar … we couldn’t use any of it. You were fading so badly.’
‘Fading … ?’
‘Don’t worry about that now, kid.’ Hedge put a drinking straw next to Nico’s mouth. ‘Have some Gatorade.’
‘I – I don’t want –’
‘You’ll have some Gatorade,’ the coach insisted.
Nico had some Gatorade. He was surprised at how thirsty he was.
‘What happened to me?’ he asked. ‘To Bryce … to those skeletons … ?’
Reyna and the coach exchanged an uneasy look.
‘There’s good news and bad news,’ Reyna said. ‘But first eat something. You’ll need your strength back before you hear the bad news.’
