Page 58

‘Leave it to Nico di Angelo to tell a goddess that they’re “cool”.’

He examined her sharp, angular face. The dark eyes. The dark hair. The obsession with balance.

‘You’re Ethan Nakamura’s mother,’ he decided. ‘Nemesis.’

She opened her arms wide. ‘In the flesh. Or not, depending on how you view godhood.’

Nico got to his feet. He wasn’t usually one to feel starstruck – or godstruck – but an unfamiliar sensation was creeping through him: awe.

‘Why are you here?’ he asked. ‘Why did you save me?’

‘Can’t a goddess do something nice for a demigod?’

Nico barked a laugh. ‘Yeah, but it always comes with a catch. I’m not a fool, Nemesis.’

She stepped towards him, and the field of darkness came with her, drifting behind her body like the train of a dress. The housechanged. No longer was Nico in an empty room. He stood on the parapets of Erebos, the walls of impenetrable darkness marching off in either direction. He gazed across the Fields of Asphodel, towards the spires of his father’s palace.

‘Why have you brought me here?’ he murmured.

But when he turned for the answer, Nemesis was gone. Instead, his father stood before him.

Hades’s robes swirled with ghostly afterimages of the damned. His dark beard was longer, which startled Nico, since he had seen his father only a day or so ago. But of course gods could look like whatever they wanted, andthisgod wasn’t his father at all.

‘What is this, Nemesis?’ Nico demanded. ‘Why do you look like that?’

The false Hades spoke with Nemesis’s voice. ‘I know what you really want,’ she said. ‘I know the imbalance that exists in your heart.’

As if to prove her point, Nico’s heartbeat stumbled. He wondered how deeply Nemesis could see into his feelings, and why she’d chosen to stand in judgement in the guise of his father.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said.

Nemesis/Hades chuckled. ‘I have taken a greater interest in demigods since Percy Jackson advocated on behalf of us so-calledminorgods to those snobs on Mount Olympus. I have come to believe that you heroes may be more … interesting than I thought. And you in particular wish to right what was made wrong.’

Nico’s mouth tasted of ashes. ‘But why show me this? Why my father?’

Nemesis swept her hand across the landscape of Erebos. ‘To demonstrate what you already know. Your father tries, but even here, in the place of final judgement, true fairness is so rarely achieved. The good suffer. The bad are rewarded. The gods’ great system is a creaky machine, a lopsided wheel. At times, we must act individually –youmust act – to achieve a proper justice. Just as you are doing now.’

‘Enough,’ Nico said, heat flushing his cheeks. ‘If you want to help me, get me to the Doors of Death.’

Nemesis’s smile faded. Darkness swept around them, and suddenly she was back in her original form, staring at Nico across the bare room of her suburban Tartarus sanctuary.

‘There are limits to how much I can help you,’ she said, ‘especially in Tartarus.’

She moved closer to Nico, her stare burning into him. ‘I am the goddess of retribution,’ she said. ‘This is the realm in which monsters regenerate after they’ve been disposed of by gods or demigods. All of them desirenothingbut retribution, Nico.’

‘So wouldn’t that make you more powerful here?’

She frowned. ‘It’s the opposite. Each moment I spend here, I am torn in every direction. I can feel my body ripping apart right now.’

‘I can relate,’ Nico grumbled. His lungs hurt with every breath. He found himself leaning on his sword just to stay up.

There was a brief flash of pity in the goddess’s eyes. ‘You have a terrible journey ahead of you and, in the short term, I sense it will cause even more injustice and misery.’

‘Great,’ groaned Nico.

‘But listen to me, demigod.’ Her voice turned sharp and chiding. ‘Youmustendure.’ She grabbed Nico’s hand, and he was shocked by how warm it was. She pressed something into his palm. ‘Keep these with you all the time. You will need them.’

He looked at what she had given him: three glistening red seeds –pomegranateseeds.