Page 38

Nico turned towards Will with a crooked smile, waved, and then –

‘Nico, no!’

Nicojumped in.

By the time Will made it to the boulder top, Nico’s head was bobbing along in the middle of the river. He was doggy-paddling along in the inky water, grinning as if he wasenjoyinghis dip, which … gods, wasn’t that impossible? Will remembered Percy talking about his brief plunge into the Styx: how it was like acid to the human soul, eating away your very identity. It had almost destroyed him in a matter of seconds. Was Nico somehow immune to the river’s effects?

‘Nico!’ he screamed, running along the rocky bank as fast as he could. Why hadn’t Nico talked to Will about this? Why did he always have so manysecrets? Didn’t he know by now that he could trust his own boyfriend?

The muscles in Will’s legs screamed at him to stop, and despair ripped through him. He couldn’t keep up with the raging and turbulent current; Nico was getting further and further away, heading towards the next set of cataracts. Didn’t Nico see the danger?

His chest burning, he managed to scream Nico’s name one more time.

Before Nico plunged over the edge of the falls.

Will’s cry was lost in the terrible sound of the Styx. He forced himself to keep going until he stood at the top of the cataract, a lower tier of the Underworld stretching out impossibly far beneath him. He scanned the water, terrified that he might see Nico’s lifeless form, but in the pool below, illuminated by a purple glow, Nico was bobbing along just fine.

Will was furious. What was Nicothinking?

Nico glanced up, saw him and waved his sword like a racing flag. ‘Just jump in!’ he yelled, his voice strangely close, as if he were standing right next to Will. ‘The water’s fine!’

These words made evenlesssense to Will than what he had just witnessed.

The water’s fine?

Which got Will thinking … Had he everseenNico swimming? Did Nico even know how? In Will’s exhaustion and terror, an absurd image popped into his head: Nico wearing one of those old-timey one-piece men’s swimsuits while floating in an inner tube. In Will’s frazzled state of mind, that seemed hysterically funny. Too bad no one else was around for Will to share it with.

‘Don’t hold me back!’ Nico shouted up at him. ‘We have to keep moving.’

‘What’s got into your head, Nico?’ he asked softly, not expecting Nico to hear him.

‘Don’t you want to save Bob?’ Nico yelled. ‘Or are you giving up on our quest already? Iknewyou would.’

‘What?’ Will felt punched in the gut. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him. ‘No, of course not! But what am I supposed to do? Is this part of the plan?’

‘Jump in,’ said Nico. ‘You’ll be fine. I promise.’

Will had done any number of ridiculous things since learning he was a son of Apollo. Sure, demigods possessed abilities that pushed the limits of what human bodies were capable of. He’d seen incredible leaps, tumbles, tackles and other feats over the years. At the same time, demigods were all still heartbreakingly mortal, and they could definitely get seriously hurt. As one of the main field medics in camp, Will had seen it firsthand.

And in no way was he prepared to jump into a soul-destroying, toxic river of damnation.

‘Stop giving up on me,’ said Nico, and this time Will swore he could feel his boyfriend’s breath on his neck. ‘Come on! Don’t be a coward.’

Thatcomment sent a burst of anger through Will. How could Nico be so cruel? Why would heeverthink of Will as a coward?

A new theory started to coil around the base of Will’s brain: what if the Underworld was already changing Nico?

All that talk from Percy and Annabeth …

What was it Percy had said?I practically lost myself in that place.He’d meant Tartarus, but what if that process had started happening even before? What if Nico didn’t even realize how much he was changing? Will had to get him out of that water before it was too late, whatever the cost.

He flipped his knapsack around so that it was over his chest, clasped it tightly and jumped.

Will had braced himself for a jolt of cold water.

Instead, the River Styxburned. Even that was an understatement. As pain ripped through his body, his mind drifted to the memory of sitting under a tattoo gun, the needle pressing into his skin on his pectoral as his mom held his hand. She had taken him to the shop and helped him choose a design to honour his father. But once the process had begun, he’d been surprised that the sensation had felt like burning, like he was skinning his knee from a fall over and over again.

Except the River Styx was a billion tattoo guns running over every inch of his body, and the ink was made of acid, and also everything was on fire, including the fire.