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‘We’re going to have to do this all over, aren’t we?’ said Will. ‘I’m already so tired …’

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ said Nico, descending. ‘I’ve never had anything like this happen before, which makes me think itisn’tHades. He wouldn’t toy with us like this.’

Will gave him a sceptical look. ‘Then what is it?’ he asked. ‘Is there someone or something else that could make this happen in the Underworld?’

Nico sighed. ‘Are you asking me if there are terrible creatures who can do awful things to us down here? Sure. But I don’t know if you really want me to list them all.’

He turned to face Will, but …

Will wasn’t there.

Nico stared at the empty space behind him. No Will, no stairway, no tunnel, just … darkness.

His heart climbed into his throat. ‘Will?’

‘I’m right here,’ said Will.

Nico jumped. Will was, in fact, standing right in front of him – exactly where hehadn’tbeen a moment before. The steps, the tunnel … were where they should be.

What is going on? Nico wondered.

He remembered an old stereoscope his mother had owned back in the 1930s. At the time, it had seemed like magic to Nico. He would put his eyes in the view-mask as his mother changed 3-D photo cards at the other end of a guide stick. One moment Nico was in Paris; then, in the blink of an eye, he was at the Great Wall of China, then the Grand Canyon.

Nico felt like that now: stuck in a stereoscope he couldn’t control. And he wasn’t sure who was changing the cards.

‘Are you okay?’ Will asked. ‘You looked panicky there for a second.’

‘You … You weren’t there.Nothingwas. It was just me in the darkness.’

In the purple glow of Nico’s blade, Will’s face seemed to float in and out of focus. ‘But I’ve been here the whole time. I didn’t see anything change.’

Nico tried to think. It wasn’t easy with the adrenalin buzzing through his system.

‘Something doesn’t want us to make it to the Underworld,’ he decided. ‘Will, I think you were right from the start. Can you … do the glowing thing? Maybe a better light source will help us see what’s actually going on.’

‘Okay,’ said Will, his voice trembling ever so slightly. ‘Whatever you say.’

His skin began to glow like rice paper lit from behind by a candle. Nico found the sight both beautiful and unsettling, as if his boyfriend were about to burst into flames.

They descended once more. For the third attempt, the dim light of the Underworld began to shine at the end of the long passage, but it seemed to happen much more quickly this time. Maybe Will’s glow was helping? Nico could make out the roar of the River Styx below. Finally, the steps gave way to the uneven ground of the cavern, and Nico reached back for Will’s hand.

‘Don’t let go of me,’ he said, holding his Stygian iron sword before him. ‘No matter what happens.’

Will clutched him tightly. ‘I’ve got you.’

Nico managed a few steps towards the river’s edge, and that’swhen a wave of exhaustion rolled over him, and an uncontrollable desire to curl up and sleep.

It was an unusual sensation for him, because he wasn’t much of a sleeper. He’d spent many a night at Camp Half-Blood wandering the grounds instead of lying in bed. Anything to avoid the dreams he’d been having. And if his dreams in the mortal world were so terrible, he thought with a shudder, what would they be like in the Underworld?

‘Will, keep your eyes open,’ he said. ‘Don’t close them.’

‘Why do I feel so sleepy?’ Will’s grip on Nico’s hand was already loosening. ‘Should we rest?’

Nico forced himself to look across the river to the black ramparts of Erebos.Wasthis his father’s doing? Had Hades somehow discovered that Nico was trying to cross his realm and deliberately enter Tartarus? Maybe this was his way of sayingNo way, Jose.

‘We can’t rest yet,’ said Nico. ‘We have to follow the river and make our way down those cliffs. It’s not too far. Then we can find the troglodytes and rest, I promise.’

Thump. Will’s hand slipped out of Nico’s, and when Nico turned he found that his boyfriend – whose illumination was much dimmer – had fallen to the ground again.