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Will rolled his eyes. ‘I knew it!’

‘I’m fine, I promise.’

‘Nico,’ he said, ‘I can always tell when you’re upset, and we’re in a place wherebeingupset is actually a very bad thing.’

Small Bob mewed softly at Will’s feet.

‘See? Even the cat agrees with me.’

Nico looked like he was going to give Will a sarcastic reply, but he pressed his lips together, then sighed. ‘I just feel like sometimes you haven’t been willing to see the Underworld through my eyes,’ he finally said.

‘Through your eyes?’

‘I don’t know. It’s complicated. I get why this place scares you, and it’s not like IloveTartarus or anything. But the Underworld is … well, it’s like a second home for me. And it hurts to hear you talk about it like it’s evil. Death isn’t evil. It’s just … death.’

Will thought about that for a moment. Nico did have a point, and Will’s mind immediately offered up a memory: the sight of Persephone, glowing with beauty, amid a garden that was the most picturesque thing Will had ever seen. Her words came back to him,too.A god or demigod so surrounded by death … they seem to appreciate life more than anyone else.

The Underworld was populated by death. That didn’t make it evil.

The troglodytes had helped them. So had Menoetes. And Amphithemis … He was more victim than assailant.

There was so muchlifein this place dedicated to the end of it.

Maybe that’s what Nico meant. Somehow, the Underworld was like … like a spark of hope in the darkness.

‘I know it’s not all evil,’ Will said finally, and he took Nico’s hand. ‘It’s just … I guess it’s hard for me to adjust to it all. But … I’m trying. Do you believe that?’

Nico examined Will’s face. ‘Yeah,’ he said, and it warmed Will’s heart. ‘I think you are.’

‘I still think Tartarus sucks,’ Will said.

Nico chuckled. ‘Oh, I agree. It’s –’

‘MEOW!’

They both looked down to Small Bob, who stood facing the Acheron. He was hissing, his back arched, tail up in the air.

Will’s heart flipped in his chest when he followed Small Bob’s gaze and saw, on the other side of the river, a pack of cynocephali.

The dog-headed monsters approached slowly, their lips curled up in growls and snarls. The leader – was it the same one Will had narrowly escaped earlier? – paced back and forth, eyeing the river, clearly trying to determine if it should wade in.

‘Oh, great,’ said Will. ‘They followed us!’

Nico let go of Will’s hand and grabbed his sword. ‘I think I spotted them a few times along the way,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t entirely sure what was tracking us, but it had to have been them.’

Nico’s voice didn’t sound entirely certain to Will, but it didn’tmatter. He quietly counted the pack. ‘Seven,’ he said. ‘Seven of them, three of us.’

Small Bob hissed again.

Will glanced at Nico, but he didn’t seem fazed at all. He had a mischievous grin on his face.

‘What is it?’ asked Will.

‘Our odds aren’t seven to three,’ he said. ‘Ours aremuchhigher.’

Nico lifted his sword, blade down, then called out a summoning as he plunged the tip of it into the mossy terrain.

Immediately, the ground rumbled, and Will stepped back as a crevice formed in front of him. A bony hand poked out stiffly from beneath the dirt, and soon more bones appeared as skeletons rose from their resting place, and …