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‘Nico,’ he said. ‘Nico, listen!’

Nico wanted to scream. ‘I have literally been doing nothing else!’ His voice came out tinny and high-pitched, like he’d sucked down the helium from a million balloons. It only sounded worse as it echoed throughout the jar.

‘You have to go,’ Percy said.

Nico’s heart seemed to be shrinking at a slower rate than his ribcage. It pressed against his sternum, hammering with each beat.

‘Gowhere?’ he asked, though he dreaded the answer.

‘We made a mistake,’ said Percy. ‘You have to fix it.’

The jar shattered.

Again, Nico fell.

Nico slammed hard into a stone column. Then he tumbled to the ground, breathless, and grasped for his blade. But it wasn’t there.

He groaned, and the sound reverberated in a long, haunting echo. His skin felt sticky and damp. Was that sweat?Blood?He decided he didn’t want to know.

As his eyes adjusted to the low light, he saw a smoke-stained ceiling overhead, barrel arches stretching between rows of limestone columns.

He rolled to his side. Bright bands of sunlight filtered through a row of high-set barred windows, making stripes of shadow across the floor. It was that image that triggered Nico’s memory and revealed where he was.

Nico had never dreamed about this before. In fact, he’d done everything in his power to avoid thinking about that dayeveragain.

He slowly pushed himself to his feet. ‘Brain, if you’re doing this, this is theworstmental vacation of all time,’ he said bitterly.

Nothing.

‘If this is a god or a demigod or something else,’ Nico added, ‘you’re really starting to annoy me.’

Still no response.

So here he was, back in the basement of that cathedral whose name he did not remember, looking for …

Right. The sceptre of Diocletian.

Except … someone else had been here with him.

Oh.

Jason Grace.

A new pit opened in Nico’s stomach. Most of the time, emptiness was his best friend, but there was a vacancy in his heart that had never been filled since Jason … Ever since he …

Nico gulped. Even in this ridiculous dream, Jason was gone.

Nico wiped a tear from his cheek. ‘Okay, this has to stop,’ he said. ‘Please. Just let me wake up.’

‘You still think this is a dream?’

Nico spun towards the voice. ‘Who’s there?’

‘Come now, Nico di Angelo. Don’t you remember?’

He inched forward until the voice’s source came into view.

A marble bust of Diocletian, sitting atop its pedestal, staring right at Nico.