Page 46 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

W ill put his hands on his hips and sighed. “I’m never going to complain about another training session at Camp Half-Blood again.”

Nico wanted to say You’re cute when you’re annoyed , but he recognized that their situation was deeply, deeply frustrating. Turned out you could say you wanted to train the demigods to work with the Cocoa Puffs, but that didn’t mean the Cocoa Puffs would actually cooperate.

Nico, Frank, and Will stood on the Field of Mars alongside the griffin Orcus. They were watching legionnaires attempt to chase down and catch the Puffs in butterfly nets. Nico had tried to get the cacodemons to stay in one spot, but they seemed to think that being pursued was a game.

“They were better behaved in the principia,” Frank said. “What happened?”

Nico shrugged. “They have minds of their own. The longer they stay with me, the more independent they seem to act. They don’t do anything they don’t want to.”

“Clearly they take after you,” Will deadpanned.

Orcus grunted. “Well, I respect any creature who makes demigods work harder.”

“Are you on our side or not?” asked Frank.

“I’m on the side of getting my friends back,” said the griffin. “But I also enjoy a good game of keep-away.”

A few yards away, Lavinia Asimov face-planted as she tried to capture Defiance in her net. “I’m fine!” she called. “I meant to do that!”

Orcus squawked. “Enough of this. I’m going to help.” The griffin flew off and began dive-bombing cacodemons.

Nico turned to Frank. “Did you get the harnesses?”

The praetor knelt and opened a large duffel bag at his feet. Then he pulled out a few tangles of leather. “Tyson made them. Different sizes, too.”

Frank handed one to Nico. It was almost like a baby carrier—a set of straps and buckles on the back, and an adjustable pouch on the front to secure a Puff against the wearer’s chest.

“And he made a custom one for you, Will,” he said.

Will took the offered harness, and Nico quickly saw how it was a custom job: it had a leather quiver on the back, as well as a couple of leather straps to hold a bow.

“No way,” said Will. He practically glowed with excitement as he put it on. “Man, that’s so cool.”

“Smart design,” Nico said. “Not that I expected any less of Tyson.”

Guilt weighed on him—the internal kind, not the Puff—when he thought about the Cyclops. He hadn’t even visited New Rome since his arrival, much less taken time to see his friends there. It had been that kind of week.

“Well, it would be nice if we could actually use the harnesses,” said Frank, fixing Nico with a determined glare.

“All right, all right. I’ll do something.” He held out his hand to Will. “Snack me.”

Will grinned, then dug into his cargo pockets and produced a small bounty of extra-dark chocolate bars—the preferred choice of cacodemons everywhere.

Nico walked out onto the field just as Deion ran by yelling some sort of war cry, pursuing Loneliness with his net raised high. Nico held back a laugh. He put two fingers in his mouth and let loose a loud, sharp whistle. “Cocoa Puffs!” he cried. “Treat-treats!” He had no idea if this would work.

The cacodemons immediately turned to look his way. Then they came rolling and stumbling over, as any sensible creature would when offered treat-treats.

“I can’t believe it was that easy,” said Will.

The legionnaires glared at Nico, maybe wondering why he hadn’t done that sooner, or at least offered them treat-treats.

“All right, everyone!” Frank called out. “Lose the butterfly nets and gather round.”

He said this in English, probably because Lose the butterfly nets was not a typical command you’d bark in Latin at your Roman legion.

A handful of demigods had gathered for the rescue mission: Savannah, Deion, and Yazan from the Second Cohort, since they’d worked with Puffs before; Lavinia from the Fifth; and Lucius Silver, the prankster from the First Cohort who was now Johan’s self-appointed bodyguard.

Johan and Semele would be joining the mission too, but they were presently in the principia, searching for more information about Pirithous.

Many more demigods had volunteered. After all, their beloved praetor Hazel was missing.

But Frank had insisted that a small group was better.

Plus, a larger party wouldn’t fit in the legion’s Chevy Express van, and he didn’t like the idea of taking the entire herd of Puffs on the BART. Frank was nothing if not practical.

As the Puffs ate their chocolate, Nico watched Frank explain how the harnesses worked.

The group seemed a bit nervous, shifting from one foot to the other, but that was no surprise.

Nico remembered how strange and frightening it had been when he was preparing to head to Manhattan to fight Kronos and his army.

He was especially glad Savannah had turned up. After Laverna had short-circuited her tesserae, Nico had been afraid that Savannah would take the failure hard and retreat back into herself. Instead, she looked more determined than ever.

She still stood apart, though. Nico imagined her tragic history wrapped around her like a dampening field—a swirl of anger, grief, and frustration that dulled the entire world. He could relate. You could still feel alone in a crowd because your life was so unlike that of those around you.

He hoped she’d be up for the possible fight to come. Then he chided himself. Don’t underestimate her. She’s making the choice to be here.

“Nico?”

He glanced over at Frank. “Huh?”

“We’re ready for you,” he said.

The legionnaires were now all wearing their harnesses, looking like a squad of babysitter commandos. Even Orcus had a tiny harness across his back.

“Right.” Nico sucked in a deep breath. “I think you all know me—”

“You’re my boyfriend,” said Will, winking at him.

Nico blushed. Why was he blushing? Why did Will always make him blush?

“Anyway…” Nico said. “A little review on cacodemons and why we need to use them.”

He launched into a brief summary of how Nyx had created the demon personifications of his core emotions and experiences. He explained how contact with a Cocoa Puff allowed it to bring forth a similar emotion in someone else.

“It’s disorienting at first,” he warned.

“Many of you already know that. But Hazel discovered something before she—” He faltered and then moved on as quickly as possible.

“Um, she found out that a Cocoa Puff can heighten your awareness, give you a better chance of seeing through the Mist, even when someone is actively trying to manipulate it against you. It’s not perfect—”

“Can confirm,” Yazan muttered, getting some nervous laughter from the others.

“But we’ll need every advantage,” Nico continued. “And after our experience with that terrible court, I’m pretty sure that the more you use the Puffs, the more help they can offer.”

Lavinia raised her hand. “Have you figured out how they do it?”

“Maybe they’re not of this world,” said Deion. He made some beeping UFO sounds. Lavinia kicked his shin.

“They’re not aliens ,” said Nico. “Best explanation I can give you? They show you the truth.”

“The truth?” Lucius inched closer to the pack of Puffs. “What does that mean?”

“This,” said Savannah. She reached down and scooped up Grief. It snuggled against her, and tears began streaming down her face.

Lavinia frowned. “Are you okay?”

“I am,” Savannah said, her lower lip quivering.

“I’m also sad. I miss my parents so much.

Ever since I’ve come to camp, I’ve been doing everything I could to ignore that feeling.

But when I’m holding this Puff…I can’t run from the truth.

I see my feelings so clearly . And that makes everything easier to accept.

It’s sort of like, I don’t know, like when I’m denying my feelings, I’m using the Mist against myself , and the Puff doesn’t let me do that.

” She knit her eyebrows. “That probably doesn’t make any sense. ”

“That’s fascinating,” said Will. “And it actually makes perfect sense.”

For the millionth time, Nico was grateful to have such an empathetic boyfriend.

He put his hand on Will’s shoulder. “Could you take over? Pair everybody up with a Puff?”

Will met his eyes and seemed to get the message: Nico wanted to talk to Savannah alone, make sure she was truly okay.

“Of course!” Will said cheerfully. “All right, campers! Let’s match you all with an emotion!”

The Puffs bounced excitedly around Will’s feet. Of course, Will had chocolate in his pockets, so why wouldn’t they?

Nico turned to Savannah, whose face was still flushed. “Walk with me?”

She nodded, wiping away tears with the sleeve of her pullover.

They crossed to the southern part of the Field of Mars, where Hannibal the elephant was enjoying some destruction therapy, wielding a tree trunk like a baseball bat as he smacked down old fortifications.

Nico wished they could take the elephant with them to face Pirithous, but he doubted Hannibal would fit in a Chevrolet Express.

Once they were out of earshot from the group, Nico asked, “Savannah, can I do anything to help?”

She tucked Grief into the pouch of her carrier, where it nestled and purred. “You’ve already helped me a lot, but…yeah, I’ll take anything I can get.” She smiled sadly. “Does it ever get easier?”

Nico was silent for a moment, unsure how to express what was on his mind. He decided the direct route would be best.

“Easier, yes,” he said. “But never easy. Just last night I dreamed about my mother and my sister Bianca…right before the fire, when Zeus killed my mom.”

She looked stunned. “You’re still dreaming about it?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “I think I had this idea when I was younger that if I just got all my sadness out of the way, then I’d never feel it again. But that’s not how it works.”

Savannah rubbed her sniffly nose. “I—I didn’t know that. So it just goes on forever ?”

Nico shrugged. “I mean…yes? But it doesn’t feel the same as it did in the beginning. It dulls over time. And I promise this isn’t as sad as it sounds, but I sometimes go days or weeks without thinking about it. Same with Bianca. Or Jason. I still miss them, but it’s like…”

Nico hesitated, and the image of the exploding TV set from his last conversation with Mr. D arrived in his mind.

“It’s like having a television on in another room. You can sense it’s there, but it’s easy to drown out and forget.”

She hugged herself in the morning cold. “I’d settle for feeling normal for a day.”

“I know,” he said. “And it’s probably hard to believe right now, but you will feel joy again. It just may be harder to find. It won’t come running when you offer it chocolate like this little greedy-guts.”

Grief peered up from the comfort of its pouch, purring sleepily as if to say More chocolate? Yes, please.

Savannah let out a broken laugh. “I’m actually getting comfortable with this little guy.

He makes me feel so much. But it’s not just my parents’ death I see when I hold him.

It’s little things from our lives together.

My dad pushing me on the swing at the playground.

My mom showing me how to center a pot on the wheel.

Waking up on Christmas morning to a mound of presents… that kind of stuff.”

“I get that,” Nico said. “Lately I’ve been noticing the same thing—the Puffs showing me positive memories associated with their emotions. I guess that makes sense. Grief is remembering the awful and the magical, sometimes all at once.”

Savannah gazed back at the demigod squad now strapping Cocoa Puffs into their carriers like they were preparing for the weirdest nursery-school field trip ever.

“I still want to go with you,” she said. “To find Hazel.”

He smiled. “I hoped you would.”

“Even though I’m a scared, emotional mess?”

“That’s okay! You don’t think I’m anxious about this?”

“It’s hard to tell,” she admitted. “I guess when I see people like you and Will and Frank, I assume you’re fearless and perfectly put-together.”

He barked out a laugh. “Oh, I assure you that we’re just as messed-up as everyone else.”

Savannah’s eyes were still as red as her hair, but they looked a little warmer. Comforted.

“Thank you,” she said. “It’s not easy to ask for help. Can we head back now? I do want to train some more.”

Something tugged at Nico’s heart—like a small magnet pulling his attention south. It’s not easy to ask for help .

It had never been easy for Nico, either, but maybe it was time to treat himself with the same honesty he gave to others. He looked across the valley, toward the glittering domes and spires of Temple Hill.

“Actually, would you mind heading back alone?” he asked Savannah. “Tell Will I needed to speak with someone.”