Page 44 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

Quinoa grunted. “That explains why the last thing I remember is a sack going over my head. Oh man…I just hope the kindergartners aren’t too disappointed. I promised I’d come back and teach them how to raise earthworms! And you never break a promise to a kid.”

Hazel couldn’t bear seeing him so dispirited, his tiny shoulders and diaper sagging. “We’re going to get out of here,” she told him. “And I never break a promise to a friend.”

Quinoa hugged her leg and began to sniffle. “I’m not crying,” he insisted. “It’s just all the dust.”

Arielle sat on the nearest bench and began to massage her donkey knee. Hazel suspected it must be hard on the joints to have mismatched legs.

“At least you got more information at your trials,” the empousa said. “I didn’t think to demand the judges introduce themselves.”

“Those masks were terrifying,” Quinoa agreed, wiping away a green streak (that totally wasn’t a tear) from his face. “Not that I was personally scared, mind you, but I can see how others could have been.”

Hazel smiled. “Well, Asterion had more presence of mind than I did.”

“And this Pirithous person…” said Arielle. “You recognized him from the Underworld?”

“Yeah,” Hazel said. “He, um, used to hang out in the Fields of Asphodel.”

She explained that by hang out , she actually meant Pirithous had been stuck in an outcropping of granite like he’d fallen asleep and melted into the rock. But how he’d managed to escape, Hazel had no idea.

Arielle grimaced. “So Pirithous was not one of the judges of the dead?”

“Far from it,” Hazel said.

Thinking about Asphodel, she looked around at the stunted trees in the barren fields of crushed rock—so much like the Civic Center Plaza next to the courthouse.

It couldn’t be a coincidence that Pirithous had chosen two locations reminiscent of Asphodel in which to judge and detain his convicted mythics.

It gave Hazel the same uneasy feeling as Pirithous’s grotesque Hades/Pluto mask, like the court was meant to be an elaborate mockery—a criticism of her father and his entire system of judgment.

“Pirithous must have done something truly heinous,” Asterion said, “to warrant such punishment.”

“And now he thinks he’s worthy of judging others,” Quinoa said. “Typical human—no offense.”

Hazel shrugged. There were plenty of humans she admired, and others she was embarrassed to share a species with. They were not so different from mythics in that respect.

“Speaking of humans…” Asterion pointed to the top of the steps.

An older mortal couple had stopped to look into the park. The woman wore tie-dye-patterned Lycra exercise clothes and a bright pink visor that cinched her gray hair into an hourglass shape. The man wore a similar outfit and was walking with ski poles.

“When do you think they’ll be done with the construction?” the woman asked, squinting at something Hazel couldn’t see. Apparently, the Mist had created a DO NOT ENTER: UNDER CONSTRUCTION sign.

The man harrumphed. “This may come as a shock to you, Stephanie, but I’m not the Recreation and Parks Department.”

She rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say you were, Mark.”

“Then how am I supposed to know when the place will reopen? Waste of our tax dollars, if you ask me!”

The two walked off, still bickering.

“We could hear them,” Hazel noted. “But they can’t hear us?”

“I don’t know why,” said Arielle.

“I just want to leave ,” Quinoa said. “I miss my hydroponic lights! I miss Camp Jupiter!”

“We all do, young one,” said Asterion. “Perhaps if we could figure out why the judges dumped us here…”

Arielle extended her arms. “Welcome to our confusion. It’s lovely here. There’s pie!”

“There is?” asked Quinoa. “Where? I’m hungry!”

“It was sarcasm,” Arielle muttered.

“I don’t care what flavor it is!”

Hazel’s own stomach growled. “What have you all been eating?”

Arielle snorted. “Whatever we can find. The vegetarians among us have been eating trees, shrubs, flowers…For the rest of us, it’s been a challenge.”

Hazel wondered how long an empousa could go without blood. She decided not to ask. And that drakon they’d seen on the lamppost…that had to require a fairly substantial meat diet.

“There were a couple of food stashes inside the barrier,” Quinoa added. “An old hot dog stand. A closed-down café. But they’ve been pretty well picked over. We heard the first mythics started arriving here last month.”

“That’s a long time to be imprisoned,” Hazel said. “I guess that’s when the court started operating.”

“Mmm,” Asterion said. “And I notice most of the mythics have split into groups to stay with their own kind. I imagine that is because, eventually, the stronger prisoners will have to start eating the weaker ones.”

Hazel shuddered. Now that she thought about it, she was kind of surprised that violence hadn’t already broken out.

A couple of Laistrygonian giants—each eight feet tall and covered in tattoos—were camped outside a makeshift tarp tent.

In the park’s central fountain, the largest of three, an enormous blue-green crab had made itself at home.

And at the far end of the park, Hazel spotted what looked like a herd of katoblepones, the monstrous cattle that Frank once destroyed in Venice.

At the thought of Frank, Hazel’s heart ached. He must be out of his mind with worry.

“Has anyone done a head count?” Hazel asked. “How many creatures are here?”

“One hundred and eight,” said Quinoa, “including you now, Hazel.” He shrugged self-consciously. “I enjoy counting. It’s one reason I want to teach children.”

“Hey, no judgment,” Hazel said. “I think that’s great!”

“I can do another count if you want!” The karpos flapped his wings, achieved wobbly liftoff, and then fluttered off toward the nearest fountain. “One, two, three…Stand still, you centaurs!”

“Just be careful!” Arielle called after him. Then she faced Hazel. “It gives him something to do, to take his mind off”—she gestured around them—“you know, being trapped in an invisible cage.”

Arielle’s words triggered something in Hazel’s mind. “A cage…You said you’ve walked the entire perimeter?”

“Many times,” said Arielle. “There’s no way out.”

“But did you look for anything unusual? Anything that might be causing the barrier?”

The empousa’s hair burned more brightly, as if she were expending more energy to process Hazel’s question. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

Rather than try to explain, Hazel marched up to the barrier. She pressed her palm against the invisible wall. Then she began walking west, keeping her hand in contact with the cool surface. Asterion and Arielle followed.

“What is she doing ?” Arielle asked.

Asterion grunted. “I often do not understand demigods.”

The boundary ran straight, but it was not always easy to follow.

At one point, Hazel had to climb through some hedges and then clamber over the pedestal of a large statue—a helmeted man holding a sword to the sky.

Finally, as she approached the far end of the plaza, she found a corner—a forty-five-degree turn in the wall.

She crouched, tracing her fingers to ground level, and saw what she was looking for.

Where the two sections of the invisible wall met, a small metal object had been tucked under a sage bush.

Its twelve sides were hollow Celestial bronze, with a hole in each face and a protruding knob wherever three corners met.

Unfortunately, it was on the other side of the boundary, out of reach.

“That’s it,” she said. “This is how they’re holding us!”

Asterion knelt next to her. “What is it?”

“A dodecahedron,” she said. “Did Johan tell you how he was tricked into releasing one from the treasury?”

“He did. He said the object froze a demigod in place.”

“One dodecahedron can do that,” she said. “I bet we’ll find three more of these, one at each corner of this park.”

“But how do they work?” asked Arielle.

“I…don’t know, exactly,” Hazel admitted. “They’re ancient creations. But once they’re set up and activated, they capture and hold anything within their perimeter. Indefinitely.”

The empousa scowled. “Powerful magic for something so small. Couldn’t we simply break the connection somehow? Perhaps one of the harpies could fly out there and retrieve it.”

Hazel considered this. She had an uneasy feeling that Pirithous wouldn’t make it so easy to escape his prison. And if a flying prisoner could not get out…that raised a disturbing possibility about the nature of this cage.

“Ah,” said a familiar voice, somewhere to her left. “There you are, Hazel Levesque!”

Hazel rose and then stumbled backward into Asterion.

Standing just outside the invisible barrier was Pirithous himself.

He was still wearing his judge robes, his Hades mask hanging from a rope around his neck. His cruel smile sent a chill down Hazel’s spine.

“How are you settling in?” he asked. “Are the facilities to your liking?”

“Let us out, Pirithous,” she growled.

“Oh, but we’re just getting started!” he said, his eyes alight with joy.

Asterion touched her arm. “Come away, Hazel. We do not need to talk to this monster.”

“Funny that you should use that word, Asterion,” said the judge. “Rather ironic.”

“Shut up,” snapped Hazel.

He chuckled. “Manners, young lady. I know you think I’m a villain. And I did make a mistake, long ago. But I paid for my crime a hundred times over. At least your punishment will be fair and just.”

“Fair and…” Hazel was so angry she choked on the words. She wanted to punch Pirithous in the face, but she guessed the barrier would break her hand.

“What exactly was your crime?” asked Arielle. “It must have been pretty bad if you ended up grafted to a rock.”

Pirithous’s expression soured. His small, dark eyes bored into Hazel’s. “I see you’ve shared the story of how we met.”

“But all those years in Asphodel,” Hazel recalled, “you never once explained how you got in trouble. You were too busy whining about your rigged trial and unfair punishment.”