Page 47 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

She wasn’t sure how the Mist was supposed to “break,” exactly.

She’d never heard of such a thing happening before.

But now that she’d become more attuned to the Mist’s currents, she could sense them moving swifter and stronger around their prison, accumulating like scar tissue trying to cover a wound. That probably wasn’t a good sign.

For the moment, Hazel had other problems to focus on.

She was hungry. She was freezing. And then there was the little issue of running out of air to breathe.

Hazel was no scientist. She had no idea how to run the variables to figure out when their oxygen might be depleted, but she knew they were no closer to finding an escape than they were yesterday.

Last night Hazel had eventually fallen asleep under a huge sycamore tree.

She’d dreamed about the judgment she’d received in the Underworld so very long ago.

She did not like being judged. Being misunderstood.

Being shamed. But she also held on to a gnawing doubt that maybe Pirithous had a point—maybe she had belonged in Asphodel.

As much as she’d tried to be worthy of a second chance since returning to the upper world, she’d never quite lost the sense that she’d cheated the system when Nico rescued her.

Regardless, that did not justify what the Court of the Dead was doing to all these mythics who just wanted to live a different kind of life. And it did not lessen her desire to smack Pirithous in the face with her spatha.

She spent the morning helping Asterion, Arielle, and Quinoa, who were doing their best to keep all the newcomers informed in order to prevent mass hysteria.

She met self-identified monsters, like a Cyclops named Julian, who had been kidnapped in Santa Fe, New Mexico, for daring to operate a fusion taco food truck.

She learned that Stymphalian birds not only grouped themselves into flocks but also shared the same name within the flock and communicated as a single organism.

The birds here were named Gregory. They’d been exiled from the rest of their species because, unlike most Stymphalian birds, Gregory enjoyed loud noises.

They were particularly fond of Norwegian death metal.

She met many other mythics who had just been trying to make a living in the human world.

She got a chance to speak briefly to Morpho, the telkhine Etsy entrepreneur who had been “executed” as Hazel and her friends arrived at the courthouse.

Asterion even introduced her to a centaur named Nessus who was apparently famous for killing Hercules through trickery.

Nessus did not seem crafty or murderous to Hazel, at least not anymore. He blushed when Asterion told the Hercules story.

“I’m sorry I ever did that,” Nessus said. “I just like making custom birdhouses. I have a workshop in Vermont. You should visit sometime!”

Asterion smiled like a proud father. “I will trade you some of my soon-to-be-patented hand-knitted underwear!”

“If we ever get out of here,” Quinoa said under his breath.

“When,” Hazel corrected him.

Hazel tried to cling to that optimism, but as more and more mythics materialized in the park, her distress grew.

The edible foliage was disappearing. Water was still running through the fountains, but the basins were getting mucky and polluted.

The giant crab wasn’t helping. Asterion had been forced to break up a fight over a bag of peanuts between some fauns and a strix—a flesh-eating owl-like creature who spat milk.

Hazel wondered why the strix spat milk, and where that milk had come from, but she decided that some things were better left unknown.

“This just feels so cruel ,” Arielle said as she helped a freshly arrived dracaena to her feet. “How can Pirithous think it’s just and fair?”

Asterion grunted. “He has aptly named his court, Arielle. It is a court of the dead. Their hearts no longer beat like ours. These judges have no real recollection of what it was like to be alive in this world—how hard it is.”

Hazel knew Asterion had a point, but she wanted to argue that being dead was no excuse for being callous. She’d been dead. She’d gotten over it. And she’d never stopped feeling.

“They want us to remain the same forever,” she said. “They don’t understand that every living thing has the capacity to change.”

Arielle nodded. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? If we try to do something different from what we were destined to do at birth, they punish us for it.”

“You are indeed correct.” Asterion sighed. “I am going to do another walk around the park. For some reason, my presence seems to dissuade fights from breaking out.”

“I’ll come with.” Quinoa flapped his wings. “Probably time to do another head count!”

While Arielle counseled the new dracaena, Hazel headed east to check on the harpies, two of whom had injured themselves last night testing Pirithous’s claim that their prison had a ceiling. Turns out it did, in fact, have a ceiling.

The harpies’ chosen leader, Rhodope, sat atop a cypress tree, scowling down as Hazel approached.

“What do you want, demigod?” Rhodope asked, ruffling her gorgeous orange feathers.

Hazel put her hands up in a placating gesture. “Just checking in. How are your injured?”

“Still injured,” Rhodope snapped. “Have you found a way out?”

“Not yet, but we’re—”

“Come back when you do,” Rhodope said. “Or when you’ve found a first aid kit. Or a bag of birdseed.” She tucked her head under her wing.

Hazel didn’t want to push things, so she left without another word.

She didn’t blame the harpies for their mistrust. She walked along the northern border of the plaza, her anger at Pirithous getting more intense every time she passed a sobbing mythic.

Perhaps Asterion was right and the judges had forgotten how difficult it was to live a life. Or maybe they simply didn’t care.

She was headed toward a nest of griffins when she spotted a mortal woman just outside the invisible barrier, peering into the plaza with an unusual degree of interest. She was resting her hand right on the invisible wall.

The woman had a striking quality that drew Hazel’s eye.

Her expression was open and friendly. Her curly blond hair glimmered in the sunshine.

From the clothing she was wearing—a maroon leather jacket over an Austin City Limits T-shirt, tight black jeans, and cowboy boots—Hazel guessed she was a musician of some kind.

The stranger shielded her eyes from the sun and scanned the park.

As Hazel moved closer, she heard the woman talking to herself. “What in the world? Are the demigods keeping a zoo now?”

Hazel flinched. Demigods?

Whoever this woman was, she knew things mortals weren’t supposed to know. And she could apparently see through the Mist. Maybe Hazel should’ve been suspicious and hidden herself, but some instinct told her this woman wasn’t dangerous.

“Hello?” Hazel called.

The woman glanced over. “Oh, my goodness! Hello, sweetheart! Are you a demigod?”

Hazel was so shocked she didn’t quite know how to reply. Her usual response would’ve been Maybe, unless you kill demigods , but again, this woman did not seem like a threat.

“I, um, yes?” Hazel said. “Humor me for a second…. What else do you see in this park?”

The woman squinted. “Well, let’s see. Centaurs. A baby drakon. Beautiful orange harpies in that tree over there. And…is that a satyr or a faun? I always get those mixed up, but my son says the difference matters.”

Hazel’s mind was swirling. Her son?

“My name is Hazel,” she volunteered.

“Pleased to meet you!” The woman sounded genuine. “I’m Naomi. Just in town for a few days, actually. I’ve got a show at the Fillmore tomorrow night. Thought I’d check out the park today. Is this your—sorry, I don’t know what to call it—monster habitat?”

“Um, not exactly.” Hazel still couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. “Just to clarify: you’re mortal, and you can see through the Mist?”

Naomi gave her a little bow, making her silver dangle earrings jingle. “Afraid so, on both counts.”

“And your son…?”

“You probably wouldn’t know him,” Naomi said. “He’s a great kid, also a demigod! But he’s way across the country in New York. His name is Will, and— You okay, hon?”

“Will…” Hazel said, feeling wobbly. “Will Solace ?”

“That’s him!” Naomi beamed. Her warm, ear-to-ear smile looked just like Will’s. “So you do know him?”

“Know him? Ms. Solace, he’s one of my favorite people in the world!”

“That’s amazing!” Will’s mom spread her arms for a hug, and then apparently remembered there was a force field between them. Her arms flopped to her sides. “And no need for the ‘Ms. Solace’ nonsense, Hazel. You can just call me Naomi. Have you seen Will lately?”

Hazel felt like she was about to pass out.

What were the odds of running into Will’s mother in San Francisco, just when Hazel most needed to get a message to Will and Nico?

Then Hazel asked herself what the odds were of being a daughter of Pluto, or of coming back to life from Asphodel, or of being stuck in a giant invisible cage with 249 mythic creatures.

Odds didn’t seem to apply when you were a demigod.

The chance of weird coincidences was always one hundred percent.

Hazel couldn’t control what happened. She burst into tears.

“Oh, honey, what’s wrong?” Naomi stepped forward again but smacked right into the barrier. “Oof! What is this force-field thing?”

“I’m sorry,” Hazel said, sniffling. “It’s just…

We’re stuck inside this barrier. Me and all these creatures.

There’s this evil Court of the Dead. And we’re running out of air, food, and water.

And Will…He was with me, at the courthouse in San Francisco, but now I don’t know where he is. I—I could really use your help.”

Naomi’s expression sobered. Hazel knew a mama-bear face when she saw one. Naomi was going into full nobody touches my kid mode.

“Of course,” she said. “What can I do?”

“I need you to go to Camp Jupiter,” Hazel said. “I’m pretty sure that’s where Will and Nico are right now, assuming they escaped.”

“Nico!” Naomi’s face lit up. “Oh, I’m so glad he’s here, too. But…escaped? Escaped what?”

Hazel did her best to explain, but it was a lot.

She felt like she was tossing Naomi Solace a million balls to juggle all at once: kidnapped mythics, the Court of the Dead, the plan to break the Mist and put Hades on trial.

Once she saw Naomi’s eyes glaze over, she realized the details didn’t matter.

What did matter was that Hazel needed to get her whereabouts to her friends as soon as possible.

She instructed Will’s mom about how to find the entrance to Camp Jupiter and what she should say to Frank and the others.

When she was done, Naomi grimaced. “Yeah, I didn’t understand most of that. Court of the Dead. Dodecahedrons. Frank Zhang. But I can definitely relay the message.”

“I can’t thank you enough.”

“You don’t need to, sweetheart. It’s going to be okay.

” Her face wrinkled in worry as she typed Hazel’s dictation on her smartphone.

“I admit I haven’t had much experience with your world.

I was there the day a flock of birds attacked my son in New York and the satyr Maron rescued us, but since then… ” Her voice trailed off.

Hazel realized that Naomi was looking past her now, at something that had made her jaw drop.

Hazel turned to find Asterion towering over her.

“You are speaking to a human,” the bull-man noted. “Is she an ally or an enemy?”

“Oh my gods,” said Naomi, her eyes wide. “Are you…?”

“Naomi Solace, meet Asterion,” said Hazel, before Naomi could use the dreaded word Minotaur . “Asterion, this is Will’s mother.”

At the mention of Will’s name, Asterion immediately took a knee. “Your son is a brave hero, madam. I am indebted to him and his boyfriend for all their assistance.”

“Asterion, it’s so good to meet you,” Naomi said. She seemed to have recovered her wits in record time, given that she was talking to a mountain of mythological muscle. “And please, get up. I wish I could shake your hand or give you a hug!”

“She’s going to Camp Jupiter for us,” Hazel explained.

Asterion rose. “Then you have my admiration as well. Thank you. You will help us immensely by informing our friends of our location.”

“I’ll get going, then.” Naomi hesitated for a moment. “Wow, I’m glad I stopped by the park today. It’s like fate!”

Hazel had dealt with the Fates before, and she didn’t think much of them, but she gave Naomi a grateful smile. “We’re glad, too. Please, be careful.”

Naomi Solace dashed off, still talking to herself excitedly.

“She will find them,” said Asterion. “This is a wonderful development.”

“I know,” Hazel said. “But I’m still so worried.”

“That is natural when one is trapped,” he said. “Imagine how I felt in the Labyrinth. I knew I could easily best every human that was sent to me, yet I still could never leave.”

Hazel took his hand. The baby-blue nail polish was starting to chip off his fingernails. Hazel made a mental note to share some new colors with him if— when —they got back to camp. “I’m sorry you’re a prisoner yet again.”

He twitched his ears. “At least now I am with friends. And this time, I was taken prisoner for living the life I wanted to live. That is a risk always worth taking. Besides, hope is not lost! I was just coming to tell you that the telkhines have an idea.”

“An idea? For what?”

He smiled. “They think we can dig our way out.”