Page 7

Nico grumbled. Then his stomach followed with some grumbling of its own.

Some days, Nico couldn’t share his dreams with Mr D. They were too painful, too vicious, dredging up old memories he didn’t want to examine. But other times Nico had to admit that talking helped. He found that he didn’t have to sugarcoatanythingwith Dionysus. The same crudeness he’d found annoying in the camp director was actually really helpful when Nico was recounting his flashbacks.

‘My goodness,’ Mr D once said after Nico described a spate of dreams that had less to do with singing in his underwear and more to do with simultaneously being burned, drowned and crushed inside a giant bronze vase filled with ants. ‘That’s marvellous! I must remember to give my worst enemies that nightmare.’

But none of the talks got to the heart of the matter: why were these visions happening to Nico?

Did hedeservethem?

On the night after Kayla and Austin left, Nico stayed awake long after Will had retired to Apollo’s cabin. His mind was still buzzing, and he was dreading sleep. Demigods always had vivid – and occasionally prophetic – dreams, but when he slept, the voice became almost unbearable.

Help me, please!it called out.I need you, Nico di Angelo. I need you.

Well, so dideveryghost who visited him. The dead just wanted to be heard, especially if they hadn’t been listened to during their time on earth. The Underworld was full of souls wandering the Fields of Asphodel, crying out for attention.

But this voice wasn’t dead. It felt further away than even Asphodel, and more tortured than any ghost’s. This voice was calling out from Tartarus, the darkest and deepest area of the Underworld. Andnobodycalled out from Tartarus.

It had to be Bob the Titan.

Nico remembered their first meeting: Christmas Day nearly three years ago, when Nico, Percy Jackson and Thalia Grace were tasked by Persephone to retrieve Hades’s missing sword. To do so, they’d had to battle Iapetus, a Titan unleashed from the depths ofTartarus. The Titan might have killed all three of them, but, with the last of his strength, Percy had pulled Iapetus into the River Lethe, wiping him of all his memories. Then Percy renamed him Bob and convinced the Titan they were good friends. Strangely, the new identitystuck.

Nico had visited Bob several times since then down in the Underworld. The newly gentle Titan had taken a janitorial job in Hades’s palace and seemed quite happy to spend his time sweeping up bones and dusting sarcophagi. He and Nico struck up a strange friendship. Both felt disconnected from their pasts, uncomfortable around others, and melancholy about their mutual ‘friend’ Percy Jackson, who never seemed to remember they existed.

Then, a year and a half ago, Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus. Bob had sensed their peril and plunged into the abyss to help them. He had held off an army of monsters to give Percy and Annabeth a chance to return to the mortal world. No one was sure what happened to Bob after that – whether he had died or somehow survived.

But almost every day for the last three years, Nico had thought about Bob. He feltguilty. They should have saved him. Someone should have rescued him from Tartarus. How could they have justlefthim there after he’d saved Percy and Annabeth and … well, pretty much the entire world?

Maybe Will and Mr D were right. Maybe Bob’s voice was a false echo, a manifestation of Nico’s own PTSD.

But that didn’t explain the prophecy.

That’s what Nico was thinking about when sleep finally came for him.

Nico was in darkness. What else was new?

He’d had this dream so many times he thought he knew where it was leading.

Except … not this night.

In the void, Nico heard his name.

Nico.

A different voice than before, but so familiar …

Caro Niccolo.

He stirred as shadows wrapped around him. No oneevercalled him Niccolo. No one except …

Niccolo, vita mia …

The shadows pressed tighter against his face. He couldn’t breathe.

He hadn’t heard that voice in years. Decades.

Mamma.

I’m here!he tried to call out.Please, don’t go!