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‘Hurry, Nico,’ he grunted. ‘Get in!’

Nico kept pushing the boat while bracing his legs on the bank, and soon it started moving, floating on the Acheron, while tormented voices called out to Nico, assuring him that he, too, would have his own place among them. He vaulted over the hull and rolled over onto his back, breathing hard.

You are the ghost king, a voice said.

I am, Nico thought.

This is where you belong.

But then Nico raised his head. Looked at the other two passengers. Will, whose face was strained as he reached down with ashaking hand to grab at him. Nico took it, gripped his boyfriend’s hand tight, and thought,No.Thisis where I belong.

Then Nico lay there, staring up at the blood-red sky, while the three of them drifted down the River of Pain.

Eventually, the voices of the punished souls became a sort of background noise for Nico. Though they were certainly more insistent, they reminded him of his own internal voice, the one that always told him negative things about himself. What difference did a few thousand more make?

He sat up and gestured for Will to join him. Will, still shaking, quickly crawled over and twisted around so his back was against Nico’s chest.

‘I’m going to close my eyes,’ Will said. ‘This place … I don’t like looking at it. It’s getting more and more intense.’

‘I got you,’ said Nico. ‘Just rest. Recuperate. I’ll wake you once Small Bob does anything.’

The calico meowed, then hopped into Will’s lap.

Will went silent then, only moving as he breathed. Nico suspected that the protective layer over Will’s vision – kind of like the Mist, but for demigods in Tartarus – was fading. That wasn’t good. It was actually very bad. An unfiltered view of Tartarus felt like beetles invading your mind, and Will was already so weak.

But Nico … well, he’d done this before. So he was better ableto withstand the signs of a slumbering protogenos as they drifted down a river full of agonized souls.

He finally saw the source of the lava fields far in the distance to their left. There was an erupting volcano spewing magma and black ash up into the blood clouds and, from there, flows of lava spread in every direction, much like …

Oh.

He gulped.

The lava flows spread over Tartarus likeveins.

This was the protogenos’s circulatory system, carrying fire and hatred throughout his body.

Nico was thankful that Will was asleep and not observing any of this.

Not yet, said a voice from the river.But he will. And then you two will give yourselves over to us.

Nico shook his head. No, they wouldn’t. They were here to free Bob from Nyx, and Nico would do anything it took to fulfil this quest and rescue his friend.

But, as the Acheron led them away from the lava fields, Nico still wasn’t sure if that was true. The final lines of the prophecy jabbed at him. He still hadn’t figured out what that part meant. How would he be required to leave something behind of equal value?

It couldn’t be Will.

It couldn’t be himself.

It justcouldn’t.

The river began to bend towards Nico’s right, and that was when the sky started changing. The blood-red sky took on an orange hue, then a yellow one. Mountains rose on either side of the Acheron further downstream, and they looked horrific, as if they were made of bones and knives, jagged and sharp. As the river approached them, Nico could also see the clusters of regeneration pods spreadall over the base and lower half of the mountains. He wondered what kinds of monsters were going to break free from them, but then he was immediately glad he wouldn’t be around to find out. On either side of the banks of the river were bone-white Joshua trees, thorny bushes and the skeletons of cacti.

This was a wasteland within Tartarus. Nico wasn’t sure which part of the body this represented, but he wanted to suggest that Tartarus use some moisturizer.

And Will and Small Bob slept on.

The mountains rose ever higher. Nico realized that the Acheron was set to pass between them, and his senses tingled. Something was wrong.Terriblywrong. He twisted around as best as he could without waking Will and saw …