Page 6 of The Court of the Dead (The Nico di Angelo Adventures #2)

He fished inside the pouch of his hoodie and produced a Ziploc bag of baked goods. He passed Nico an oatmeal raisin cookie. Then he offered the bag to Yazan and Savannah. “Helps with shadow-travel sickness,” he explained. “But I’ve got plenty.”

“Uh…I’m good,” said Savannah. She was studiously ignoring Defiance, who was dancing around her sandals, trying to pick a fight. “Snacks aren’t allowed while on duty.”

“Really?” Will looked shocked. “That’s a weird rule.”

Nico coughed. “He means to say that your rules are different here. But we respect them.”

“Yeah,” Will agreed, stuffing half a cookie in his mouth. “Respect.”

As they made their way through the tunnel, Nico was surprised how quickly his strength recovered.

The cookie helped, and his nausea had passed.

Now, however, he was starving. Perhaps this was a benefit of staying in one place for months—Nico had built up enough reserved energy to shadow-travel across the country without face-planting.

“I did warn you, right?” he murmured to Will as they walked. “Camp Jupiter is more formal. Stricter. Might take some getting used to.”

“I get that,” Will said. “I remember Leo Valdez telling me—”

“Leo Valdez?” Yazan whipped his head in Will’s direction. “You know the Great and Mighty Leo?”

Will raised an eyebrow. “Uh…yeah. I can attest that he’s a great and mighty goofball.”

“And sometimes a jerk,” Nico added. “He likes to trick people who don’t know any better into calling him the Great and Mighty Leo. Also, he doesn’t tell his friends when he comes back from the dead.”

“What?!” cried Yazan. “The Great—I mean Leo Valdez died ?”

“No, he—” Nico put his hand on his forehead. “Don’t worry about it. He’s very much alive. Shall we continue?”

Finally, a brightness grew at the far end of the tunnel. They stepped into the sunlight, and Will gasped. “Oh. My. Gods.”

Nico would always have an affinity for Camp Half-Blood. (And he certainly believed it was the superior camp, thank you very much.) But the idyllic panorama spread out below them was beautiful.

Much like Camp Half-Blood, the Romans’ bowl-shaped valley was hidden from the eyes of mortals. Unlike Camp Half-Blood, an entire miniature society was nestled inside this ring of verdant hills.

The Little Tiber etched a glittering blue crescent around the western half of the valley, emptying into a crystal-clear lake right in the center, dotted with triremes and fishing boats.

Just across the river from where Nico stood, the fortifications of Camp Jupiter itself looked as formidable as ever: high wooden walls with sentry towers at each corner, surrounded by a moat lined with sharpened stakes.

Inside the walls, identical barracks lined the Via Principalis —everything neat and orderly.

Nico could see soldiers of the Twelfth Legion bustling about on their daily routines—marching in columns, polishing their armor, sparring with swords and spears.

If a legionnaire from ancient Rome had materialized inside Camp Jupiter, they would have felt right at home.

The Twelfth Legion had constructed their base exactly like every Roman legion had for the entire history of the empire.

To the north stretched the Field of Mars—a vast training ground that was part construction zone, part war-game playground, part postapocalyptic wasteland. Nico had almost died on that field a couple of times. The Romans took their training exercises seriously.

To the south, the vast complex of monuments and shrines on Temple Hill glittered in the sunlight.

Smoke rose from the altar of the largest temple to Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

Somewhere below that, Nico knew, literally in Jupiter’s shadow, crouched a much smaller shrine to Pluto—the Roman alter ego of Nico’s father.

Finally, Nico’s eyes drifted east, across the lake, to the real jewel box of the valley: New Rome.

It was a small city, housing barely more than a few thousand, but it was built to have everything a discerning Roman citizen might want.

The Forum would be full of merchants and shoppers this morning, Nico imagined, between the gold dome of the Senate House and the gleaming white Colosseum.

Somewhere in the city, amid the winding streets, gardens and villas, cafés, and theaters, Nico’s friend Tyson the Cyclops ran a bookstore with his girlfriend, Ella the harpy.

Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase would be attending classes at New Rome University.

The idea warmed Nico’s heart, but it also made him feel a little wistful.

The Romans did one thing very well: they planned .

This valley wasn’t just a training camp.

It offered a home for life to anyone who graduated from the legion.

Demigods could live here forever, follow their dreams, get married, raise a family—whatever they wished, all in relative safety.

It was the ultimate lesson in being present, Nico thought. Staying put. Living life. All those things Mr. D had been trying to teach him. Maybe that’s why the place made him feel so uncomfortable.

“Welcome to our camp,” said Yazan proudly.

“You’re kidding me.” Will gave Nico an accusatory look. “ This is Camp Jupiter? You did a terrible job describing it!”

Nico shrugged. “I still prefer our slice of woodsy chaos. But yeah, this place is gorgeous.”

Savannah marched over to a nearby sentry hut. She hefted a bronze horn and blew a signal blast that echoed across the valley. A moment later, a horn answered from Camp Jupiter. The Decumanian Gate swung open, and a mounted figure galloped up the road in their direction.

Nico grinned. He recognized that brown stallion, the rider’s flowing purple cloak, her praetorian armor, her long dark curls.

He was glad he’d recovered from his shadow-travel, because he actually had the energy to run down the hill to meet her. “Hazel!” he cried.

Arion, her superfast steed, covered the distance between them in seconds. Hazel swung down from the saddle with the grace of a seasoned cowhand and ran to embrace Nico.

He buried his face in his sister’s shoulder and held her tightly. She smelled of sweet, freshly turned earth.

Images flashed unbidden through his mind:

Bianca in the Lotus Hotel.

His mother gazing at him lovingly.

Apollo outside the Big House.

He pulled away and discovered Grief sitting on his shoulder, its tiny appendages stretching toward Hazel as if it, too, wanted a hug. Arion whinnied in alarm. Hazel gasped and stepped back, her hand closing around the hilt of her spatha. “Nico, what is that?”

“It’s okay!” Nico told her. “They’re with me!”

She kept her grip on her cavalry sword. “They?”

The rest of the cacodemons came tumbling down the hill, followed by Will, Yazan, and Savannah.

“Hazel!” Will beamed like he was having the best day of his life. “Nice to see you again! Say hello to the Cocoa Puffs.”

The cacodemons formed a bouncing, yipping semicircle of fuzzy darkness at her feet.

She took her hand off her sword hilt and knelt like she was about to pet a cute dog. “The Cocoa Puffs? Oh my gods, they’re adorable ! What exactly are they?”

“That’s a long story,” said Nico. “I can tell you la—”

She extended one finger toward the single-eyed, urchin-like Puff.

“Wait!” Nico said.

Too late. She touched the top of its…head? Body? Nico wasn’t sure because Loneliness’s whole body was its head. It didn’t matter. Hazel’s face went blank. Tears sprang to her eyes.

Nico scooped up Loneliness. More images flooded his mind—his days alone inside a giant bronze jar, his time wandering the dark corridors of the Labyrinth—but he was braced for them. He put the Cocoa Puff aside and turned to Hazel. “Sorry about that.”

She wiped her eyes. “What…what just happened? I was back in the Fields of Asphodel.”

“The cacodemons can trigger your memories,” explained Nico. “While we were in Tartarus, a very old god created them from my psyche. They’re basically personifications of my emotions.”

Hazel blinked. “I’ve heard and seen a lot of things as a demigod, but cacodemons?” She shook her head. “I guess there are still new things to learn in this world.”

“We’re still learning about them too,” Will said. “They seem to be reaching out to other people more often now. We think it’s their way of communicating.”

Next to Nico, Yazan shifted nervously. “I’m sorry, Praetor. Perhaps I shouldn’t have allowed the demons in.”

“No, it’s fine.” Hazel managed a smile. “My brother is welcome, and so are his personified emotions. Yazan, Savannah, you’ve done a good job. You may return to guard duty. And, Arion, thank you, my friend. I can walk back.”

The horse nuzzled the side of Hazel’s head, messing up her hair with a sloppy kiss. Then he disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Yazan hesitated. Maybe he was curious to see what would happen next. But Savannah grabbed his wrist. With a respectful nod to Hazel, and one last suspicious look at Nico, she led Yazan back up the road to the tunnel.

“Those two are new here,” Hazel explained. “Yazan’s father is Vesper, the god of dusk. Savannah is a legacy. Third generation. She’s, um, had a particularly hard time.”

Nico filed that away to ask about later. Demigods all tended to have rough lives, at least until they grew into adulthood, got fully trained, and learned to survive in the mortal world. If Hazel made a point of saying Savannah’s life had been particularly hard…it must’ve been bad indeed.

At the moment, though, he had more burning concerns.

“So, now that we’re here,” he said, “can you tell us what’s going on?”

Hazel grimaced. She looked suddenly weary, as she had on yesterday’s Iris-message. “I think it’s best if I just show you. Come on.”

As they crossed the footbridge over the Little Tiber, Will peppered Hazel with questions: How was Frank, her boyfriend and co-praetor? How had they managed to repair Camp Jupiter so quickly after the Battle of San Francisco Bay? What was her favorite meal in the mess hall?