“Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate you saying that.”
The two couples finished their meal with no more talk about mythics or threatening nightmares. Nico tried to hold on to that glimmer of hopefulness.
We’re going to figure this out, he told himself. He just wished he could make himself believe it.
That night, he had another dream. He was sitting in a cold metal chair in the middle of a dark room. The only exit was a closed door just in front of him. Light seeped in around its edges. The shadows of two feet shifted restlessly across the threshold. Someone—or something—knocked.
Nico wanted to answer, if only to confront his fears. But he couldn’t stand. Couldn’t even speak. The most horrible feeling filled him: this was the final moment of his life. As the son of Hades, he could sense death.Thatwas what waited for him on the other side of the door: his final judgment.
The knob rattled. Nico braced himself. The knocking became more insistent. Something heavy banged against the door….
Nico woke with a start. His Cocoa Puffs were cuddled around him in his bunk, but they’d woken up too, their glowing white eyes like polka dots in the darkness.
The door of the guest barracks swung open. Standing there, silhouetted in the moonlight, was Hazel, still in her sleep bonnet.
“Nico, Will.” Her voice trembled with emotion. “Get dressed. Arielle is missing.”
Nico was thankful he’d grabbed his bomber jacket. The predawn air was cold and damp. On their way across the Field of Mars, Hazel deflected their questions with “I don’t know” and “Asterion will explain.” The Puffs bounced along excitedly behind Nico, perhaps wondering where they were going and whether there would be new emotions to play with.
When they arrived at the mythics’ quarters, they found the whole group standing outside on the porch in various states of undress. Asterion wore a blue knit sleeping gown that must have required the wool of an entire sheep’s herd.
“Thank you for coming,” he said. “I sent Semele to wake Hazel as soon as I realized Arielle wasn’t here.”
“What happened?” asked Nico, his nerves still jangling from his nightmare. “Where could she have gone?”
Quinoa crossed his pudgy little arms. “If we knew that, genius, we wouldn’t have raised the alarm, and we wouldn’t be standing out here in our pajamas!”
The karpos’s loincloth looked no different than usual, but Nico decided that wasn’t the most important matter at hand.
“Okay,” Will said. “Could she just be, I don’t know, taking a walk? Trying to clear her head?”
Orcus squawked. He wore the world’s tiniest nightcap, which under different circumstances would have made Nico pass out from cuteness overload.
“A walk?”The griffin practically spat the words at him. “One does not simplywalkthrough the Field of Mars at four in the morning! It’s a literal minefield!”
“Please, Orcus,” said Johan. Strapped across the top of his shoulders was a sleeping mask that looked like a giant bra. “I know we are on edge, but yelling at each other isn’t polite.”
The griffin glared at the blemmyae. “I’m going to fly another circle around the valley. Just to be sure.”
Before Nico could remind him about the dangers of highways, Orcus launched himself into the dark sky.
Hazel scanned the fields, as if she might be able to make Arielle show herself just by concentrating hard enough. “Frank is organizing search groups. We’ll sweep the camp and the city, but it’s a big area.”
Nico grimaced. If the legionnaires disliked the mythics before, they weren’t going to love getting up even earlier than usual to search for the missing empousa.
“What if she chose to leave, like she’s been threatening to do?” Nico hated asking, but he had to. “I mean, after yesterday, I wouldn’t blame her.”
Asterion’s nostrils flared. “I do not believe she was in any condition to leave. Her wounded arm was in a sling. She was listless and depressed. She had not eaten in several days.”
“Besides,” Johan said, “I made her a nice cup of herbal tea to help her relax. She was the first one of us to fall asleep. And all her things are still in her room.”
Quinoa grunted. “Not that she has a lot of things. Mostly just stuff Asterion knitted for her.”
Asterion nodded. “Surely she would have taken the ‘I Luv Demigods’ sweater.”
Nico’s head spun. It wasn’t unheard of for people to disappear from a demigod camp. Nico had heard stories of similar occurrences at Camp Half-Blood a few years ago. But something wasn’t adding up. He felt like he was back in his nightmare. Someone was knocking insistently on the door, trying to get in, but he couldn’t reach the knob.
Right next to him, Semele said, “What if someone took her?”
