Page 36 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

He took his sister’s hand. In Hazel’s lap, Anger snarled and bared its teeth like it wanted to bite everyone in the courtroom.

On Nico’s other side, Will looked shaken.

He held Guilt in the crook of his arm like a teddy bear of darkness.

His lawyerly disguise was starting to unravel—blond curls were popping up on his clean-shaven scalp and patches of cargo pockets were erupting on his blue slacks.

If their covers failed, Nico wasn’t sure if that would make them blend in less or more with the monstrous crowd.

The middle judge leaned forward, his Hades mask grinning at the telkhine. “What is your response, Morpho? If you do not answer, we will take your silence for acceptance.”

The telkhine whimpered. “I—I don’t know what to say! Some of those things…yeah, I did them.”

The crowd cheered. The judges banged their gavels, filling the room with a sound like the Fifth Cohort tap-dancing.

“But that was long ago!” Morpho wailed. “I have changed since then!”

Spectators gasped. Uneasy muttering rippled through the bleachers.

The judges sat forward with keen interest.

The one of the left, who wore the bearded satyr’s mask, asked in a dangerously calm tone, “In what ways have you changed?”

Will stifled a yelp. His eyes widened with terror. When Nico gave him a concerned look, Will mouthed I know that voice .

The crowd had fallen silent, waiting intently for the telkhine to answer.

Morpho’s wild eyes searched the onlookers’ faces. “Someone help me,” they said. “This is ridiculous!”

Nico was tempted to try. This whole scene enraged him. But there were too many enemies between him and the accused telkhine. The three demigods wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides, they didn’t yet understand what was happening, or where their friends had been taken.

“No one here will come to your aid,” said the judge on the left. His voice was reedy and nasal, as if designed to whine. Nico was pretty sure he’d never heard it before. “Answer my question. How have you… changed ?”

He spoke the last word with distaste. The question was some kind of trap, Nico realized. He wanted to yell to Morpho Don’t answer!

Morpho let out a desperate sob. “You don’t understand!

I have been alive for nearly a thousand years.

I’ve passed through so many cycles of regeneration—Tartarus to Earth and back again, over and over, killed, reborn, killed, reborn.

Yes, I did all those things you mentioned!

I thought that was my purpose…until one day I decided to choose something else.

I’ve been in the mortal world for over a decade now, causing no harm to anyone.

Why are you judging me after all this time? ”

The judge on the right picked up her quill, speaking as she wrote. “ Decided to choose something else. Can you elaborate?”

Don’t , Nico thought.

There was a desperate gleam of hope in Morpho’s eyes.

“I am a creator now, not a killer,” they said. “I make toys . I have a very successful Etsy account. Just ask Fufluns, who lets me use his winery for my workshop!”

The audience erupted in a din of jeers, shouts, and boos. Under cover of the noise, Nico turned to Hazel. “Who the heck is Fufluns?”

She shook her head, too rattled to answer.

“Old Etruscan god of health and growth,” Will murmured.

Nico stared at him.

“What?” Will protested. “I glow, I heal people, and I know things. That’s what I do. And that judge on the left is—”

“Order!” The middle judge banged his gavel. “Order in the court! We have heard the accused freely confess his crime.”

“No!” Morpho cried. “I just told you—I’ve changed! I’m not a monster anymore!”

A collective ooooh ran through the crowd. It was the same kind of sound spectators made when a professional athlete face-planted in front of a live television audience.

The three judges huddled briefly, conferring.

Fake Hades stood. “This tribunal has decided. We find Morpho the telkhine guilty.”

“Guilty?” Morpho barked. “Of what, cannibalism? Body odor? I bathe every day ! I’m a water mammal!”

“Guilty of change!” bellowed Fake Hades.

“By your own admission, you forsook your natural purpose! Cannibalism, arson, murder, body odor, even interrupting an authority figure—these are commendable! They are in your nature as a monster. Until ten years ago, your official record was spotless. But now…making toys? Not bothering anyone? Running an Etsy account?”

The crowd booed and catcalled at the mention of such vile crimes.

“The Court of the Dead has been established to punish such deviant behavior,” said Fake Hades.

“To return the world to its natural order! And you, Morpho, are irredeemable. It is our judgment that you shall be executed for your crimes in such a way that you will never regenerate in Tartarus, for this is a court of the true and permanent death!”

Wild cheering from the spectators. Two skeletal guards in red robes approached Morpho, lowering two-pronged spears at the accused.

Nico bolted to his feet. He couldn’t help it.

This was wrong . But as he did so, Defiance tumbled from his lap.

Without direct contact to his Puff, Nico’s head spun.

The room seemed to tilt like a gyroscope—changing from a torchlit cavern to a mortal courtroom and then back again.

Nico nearly fell over, but Hazel grabbed his hand and pulled him back down into his seat.

“You have to control yourself!” Hazel hissed. “We can’t fight this many.”

He knew she was right, but it was hard for him to restrain himself. He watched helplessly as the two skeletal guards thrust their double-pronged spears into Morpho’s chest.

Morpho let loose a terrible howl. Their body disintegrated from their sternum outward, flames reducing them to ash like they were made of flash paper.

Nico swallowed back a sob.

Morpho was gone.

As if that image hadn’t been horrible enough, the entire gallery broke out in thunderous applause, some hooting and pumping their fists as Morpho’s smoldering ashes floated down to the floor.

“We have to stop this,” Will said. “If they did this to our friends…”

Nico trembled with rage. He imagined Arielle, or poor little Quinoa, standing in this cavern, being jeered at, persecuted, and finally executed for daring to be different.

And the demigods who promised to protect them had been nowhere in sight.

Nico had failed the mythics. He had never felt so useless.

The gorgon-masked judge banged her gavel, trying to restore order.

“We should go,” said Nico through gritted teeth. “We can’t do this by ourselves. We’ll come back with the entire legion and—”

“Wipe this place off the map,” Hazel agreed, in a tone that made Nico glad she was on his side. “This is wrong .”

They started to rise, but the rest of the crowd was just finding their seats again, falling into silence. The demigods sat back down. They didn’t dare attract attention.

“Bring forth the next defendant!” ordered the middle judge.

“Wait until the crowd goes nuts again,” Will whispered. “Then I’ll stand up, and you two follow me….” Will’s voice faltered, his eyes fixed on the front of the courtroom. “Oh, no… ”

Nico followed his gaze. The red-robed guards were prodding the next defendant forward, herded in shackles and chains before the judges’ bench. But this defendant Nico knew.

It was Asterion.