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She cast a baleful glare at her Chimera companion. ‘Every time! Why do they say thatevery time?’

‘Well,’ Nico said, ‘youdidname yourself after the animal.’

This seemed like a reasonable point to Nico, but, judging from the way Echidna bared her fangs, she did not agree.

‘First of all, it’s not a hedgehog,’ she said. ‘It’s related to the anteater. Secondly,Australianameditafterme. Do you honestly think I would allow myself to be linked to such a lowly creature?’

‘Hedgehogs are pretty cute,’ he said, his mind running calculations on how he could get out of this mess without being slaughtered. ‘I’d be flattered.’

‘This is why I hate demigods,’ she said. ‘You think you can joke and distract your way out of everything. That Percy Jackson also thought he could escape me.’

At the mention of Percy’s name, Nico’s heart skipped a beat. ‘From what I heard … he didn’t “escape”, because you never actually captured him.’

She sneered. ‘A mere technicality.’

‘I don’t know. If you look up the definition of the wordescape–’

‘Enough!’ Echidna roared. ‘If I wanted you dead, Nico di Angelo, I would have already killed you. We are only here to bear witness, and to make sure you don’t lose your nerve.’

The Chimera stepped forward, forcing Nico back towards the cave’s entrance. The warm breeze from the chasm seemed to wrap around him, pulling him closer.

‘Do you sense it now?’ asked Echidna, her forked tongue darting between her fangs. ‘That is your destiny …’

Nico’s feet slid against the dirt as if he were already on an incline. He tried to take a step forward, but it was pointless. His feet slipped out from under him and he nearly cracked his jaw on the ground.

Echidna laughed. ‘You’re right where Gaia wants you!’

Nico dug his fingers into the dirt, but he was moving too quickly.

‘Say hello to all my monster friends!’ she called.

The terrible gravity of Tartarus grasped Nico, and he plunged into the pit.

He fell.

Not for long.

For an eternity.

At last, he crash-landed against a hard surface, and for the second time that day he got the wind knocked out of him. Every bone in his body should have been broken, but somehow he forced himself to move.

He got to his hands and knees. His muscles screamed in protest. Something slithered past him in the darkness, grazing his shoulder. He swung his sword in that direction, hoping to strike something. A piercing shriek was his answer.

He hoisted himself up, scrambling for purchase on the rough ground. In the purple glow of his blade, all he could see were shadows dancing around him.

‘Who’s there?’ Nico yelled.

He was met with laughter – a sick, phlegmy sound. As he moved forward, his sword held aloft, something brushed his neck. He screamed and swatted at it. Then a voice giggled in his other ear. It sounded like a demonic toddler.

Knowing his luck, it probablywas.

Nico pressed on until he perceived a dim light in the distance. Still, he could see nothing of his surroundings. He’d thought heunderstood darkness, but now he realized he’d been thinking of the shadows here all wrong. They didn’t recede in the glow of his blade. Instead, they thickened stubbornly, clinging to him like some sort of mist or fog.

It was as if Tartarus were alive, sending antibodies to attack him as a foreign invader. He trudged forward towards the distant red glow. The scent on the breeze turned sharp and bitter.

Finally, he staggered out of the shadow fog.

Nico nearly collapsed at what he saw.