Page 25 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

“I am familiar,” Frank grumbled.

Hazel dipped a chip in her guacamole. “I didn’t think any of this would happen when I took in Asterion and his friends. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but…gods.”

“And we started it,” Nico said, putting his hand on Will’s. “Unknowingly, when we went to Tartarus. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around that.”

“We’re going to figure it out,” Will promised.

His optimism was such a superpower that Nico felt reassured. He remembered sheltering with Will in Tartarus, holding on to him in that dark, poisonous landscape, and being certain that they would survive, because Will was certain. Their relationship had only gotten stronger since then.

Even if there was no end to this race, like Mr. D had said, Nico had the best partner at his side. That had to be enough.

“You’re right,” he decided. “So we just keep searching?”

“Leave that to me,” said Frank. “I’ll do a sweep with the Second Cohort.

I think it’s important to keep a normal schedule going for the rest of the legion as much as possible.

Let them see we’re working on the problem, but we’re also not freaking out.

” He smiled at Will and Nico. “That means you , my friends, need to get back to training with the Fifth Cohort.”

“Aw, Dad,” Will complained.

Hazel laughed, which made Nico feel a little better.

He was glad to have a plan, even if that plan was wait and see . Maybe by tomorrow, things would work themselves out. That had to happen occasionally, right?

Nico threw himself into the wait and see plan a little too strenuously.

He and Will worked with the Fifth Cohort for the rest of the day. They marched six miles with full armor and weapons. They did an hour of line dancing. They cleaned the elephant poop from Hannibal’s enclosure.

During archery practice, Will even hit the target multiple times, which, for the bow-challenged son of Apollo, was a pretty big deal.

Nico raised his palm in the air. “Proud of you, sunshine.”

His boyfriend gave him a high five. “Thank you. Now if I can learn to hit a moving target someday, I’ll feel accomplished.”

By dinner there was still no word about Arielle. Hazel suggested they try to get some sleep. Since they’d had very little the night before, and since they were exhausted from a full day on Lavinia Time, Nico didn’t argue.

“We are going to figure this out, aren’t we?” he asked Will as they left the mess hall.

“Absolutely,” said Will. “Do I currently know how? Absolutely not.”

Nico went to sleep hoping for the best.

So, of course, he got the worst.

His dream was the same: the dark room, the insistent knocking on the door, the inability to move as he sat in the cold metal chair. But this time, the voice was back.

You were warned , it said. Now the trials begin. WE FIND YOU IN CONTEMPT.

A sharp pain radiated from his chest, like knives digging into his heart. He started awake and found a pair of yellow eyes peering down at him. The thing’s claws pierced his shirt.

Before he could come to his senses enough to defend himself, the intruder squawked in a familiar voice, “Nico! Get up!”

The miniature griffin Orcus was sitting on his chest.

“Orcus,” Nico said groggily. “What’s going on? What time is it?”

“Nearly dawn.” The griffin’s voice trembled with barely controlled rage. “Quinoa is missing. You’re needed in the principia.”

Hazel and Frank were waiting for them.

Orcus was the only mythic in attendance, but Johan the blemmyae must have been hard at work since Nico’s last visit.

The shelves along the south wall were now impeccably organized.

Rows of leather-bound books were sorted by subject and title—records of camp activities, camper profiles and attendance, the journals of past praetors over the centuries.

It clearly impressed Will, who drifted over to the shelves and ran his fingers along the gold-embossed spines. Nico gently pulled him back toward the praetors’ desk.

“What?” Will said. “Don’t you want to read them all?”

“Focus,” Nico whispered.

Hazel and Frank spread a large map of Camp Jupiter across the desk as Orcus paced along the edge, farting in agitation.

“Okay,” Hazel said. “Here’s what we know.”

She picked up a gold figurine of a Roman soldier. “Let’s say this is Arielle.”

“It doesn’t look like Arielle,” Orcus muttered.

“She was last seen in the mythics’ quarters here.” Hazel placed the figurine at the north end of the Field of Mars.

Frank picked up a second gold soldier. “This is Quinoa. He refused to stay in his quarters yesterday. Apparently had a big fight with Asterion.”

Orcus ruffled his feathers. “Quinoa wanted to work with the kinder-gardeners. Is that so terrible?”

“We know he got into New Rome safely.” Frank moved the figurine across the map from the Field of Mars to the city. “The kindergarten teacher told me he did an incredible job. The kids loved him. They wanted the, uh, ‘angry green baby’ to teach them every day.”

Nico felt a sense of dread building in the pit of his stomach. “And then?”

“Quinoa stayed at the school until nightfall, when the last of the kids was picked up from after-school care. He helped clean the classrooms. He was basically a perfect assistant. Magistra Camilla said she would welcome him anytime. Quinoa left and started walking back to his quarters.”

Frank moved the figurine toward the edge of the city but stopped after only a few inches. He set down the figurine and knocked it sideways. “Terminus never sensed him cross the Pomerian line.”

“Wait,” Will interrupted. “You have a line of Pomeranian dogs?”

“No, it’s…” Frank pinched the bridge of his nose, probably forcing back a headache.

“It’s the city limits. The Pomerian line is like an interior magic defensive border.

Only protects the city, so it’s a lot smaller than the barrier around the whole valley—more secure and easier to monitor.

Anyway, Terminus was on the lookout for Quinoa to leave town, because he, uh, didn’t trust the karpos. ”

He glanced apologetically at Orcus.

Orcus’s only protest was another fart. Apparently, he’d been eating citrus.

“Quinoa disappeared,” Hazel concluded. “Terminus alerted us around ten last night when he realized the karpos hadn’t left. He scanned the city himself. Nothing. We spent the night searching door to door. Nothing. Quinoa was just…gone.”

The praetors had obviously gotten no sleep.

Frank’s eyes looked red and puffy. Hazel’s hair was once again tucked into a sleep bonnet, like she’d just been about to turn in when she got Terminus’s message.

The cap was hand-knit silk-lined purple wool, no doubt a gift from Asterion.

Nico found that both sweet and heartbreaking, given everything that had happened.

He turned to Orcus. “Where are the other mythics?”

“At our quarters.” The griffin’s tone was mildly disgusted. “Asterion insisted we hunker down and wait for you all to come up with a plan. As if we’re safe anywhere . If Quinoa was taken, too…”

Orcus made a sound somewhere between a cat’s mew and a bird’s chirp. Nico suspected it was the griffin version of a sob.

“I know,” he sympathized. “We’re going to find them.”

“How?” Orcus demanded.

Nico scanned the other demigods’ faces. They looked just as lost as he felt.

“We can’t be sure they were taken,” Frank said tentatively. “I know Arielle and Quinoa were close. Is it possible Quinoa went to look for her?”

Hazel shook her head. “He couldn’t have gotten past the Pomerian line, not with Terminus keeping tabs on him.”

“But if something took him,” Frank countered, “that means it got inside the line to do it, without Terminus sensing it or being able to stop it.”

Hazel shivered. “In which case, even our strongest defenses are useless. What could do that?”

Nico remembered the feeling he’d had the night before—like something large and powerful was watching him, something none of them could see.

He studied the map, the two gold figurines. The setup reminded him of the Mythomagic games he used to play with Henry when he was younger. He wished he could simply turn over a card or roll a die to solve this problem….

Then he recalled one of Henry’s favorite trap cards: the Trojan Horse.

He picked up four more figurines and placed them next to Arielle in the mythics’ quarters. “Let’s say these are the other mythics: Asterion, Semele, Johan, Orcus.”

“We all look like legionnaires now,” Orcus muttered. “This is clear discrimination.”

“Bear with me,” Nico pleaded. “I think you’re right, Orcus. No place is safe….”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Oh!” Will said, a glimmer of understanding in his eyes. He picked up a few more figurines, placing them in a defensive ring around the mythics. “Like this?”

Nico loved it when he and his boyfriend got on the same wavelength, which seemed to happen more and more frequently these days.

“But hidden,” Nico agreed. “And we wait for tonight. So far, the disappearances have only happened at night.”

Will nodded. “Which means we’ll need to get some sleep today, while we can.”

Frank frowned at the map. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d welcome an excuse to take a day and catch up on my sleep. But I don’t understand—”

“I get it,” Hazel said suddenly. “But how?”

“We’ll need Savannah’s help,” Nico said. “And anyone you’ve got who can operate well at night.”

“Hold on!” Orcus demanded. “Does somebody want to explain this plan to me?”

The griffin looked at Nico with desperate hope. Nico remembered how he had felt yesterday, holding the trembling little guy in his arms after rescuing him from the highway. He had to make this work.

“I can only promise you one thing,” he told Orcus. “You’re going to hate it.”