Asterion crossed his arms. “You have no right to judge me. This entire proceeding is a farce.”
“Blasphemy!” cried a ghostly figure in the front row, waving his tricorn hat.
“Exsssssecute him!” called a nearby dracaena.
Pirithous raised a hand for silence. “Asterion, we are here to restore the natural order of things. This court has been formed as a bulwark againstexactlyyour sort of degenerate behavior. Living in peace with mortals? Pursuing arts and crafts? Encouraging others to abandon their gods-given nature? No! If the gods will not intervene,we will. We will remind Olympus, the Underworld, and the realm of mortals that some lines are not meant to be crossed!”
He’d clearly been practicing that speech in the mirror, and it had the desired effect. The crowd leaped to its feet (and hooves and snake trunks), cheering wildly.
Hazel gripped Nico’s leg hard.“Now!”she said.
Nico rose, and the world tilted off-balance again. A wave of pressure rippled outward from Hazel’s seat, making Nico’s ears pop and his breath steam. Suddenly the cavern looked a thousand times bigger—a stadium ringed with tiers of bleachers, thousands of fans packed to the rafters, screaming ecstatically. Lights flashed and pulsated from the Jumbotron overhead. The noise hit Nico like a brick wall.
He and Will were standing on the floor of a massive concert, ten rows from the stage rail—about the same distance as they’d been from the judges’ bench. And on the stage, a band was rocking out. Two guitarists traded screaming electric leads. The drums thundered. The bass quickened Nico’s heartbeat. A row of background singers danced in matching blue sequined dresses. And in the center of the spotlights, a balding man with a white goatee and a blue silk suit sat at the piano, his hands flying across the ivories as he howled into his microphone. “I am an innocent man!”
Will froze. “This—this is Madison Square Garden!”
Nico tugged his hand. “Will, come on!”
“That’s Billy Joel!” Will said. “My mom opened for him once!”
“That’s great,” Nico said, panic rising in his throat, “but we’re not really here. We need to—”
“Right,” Will said, swaying in place. “My mom is…” He frowned. “Actually, I think she’s got a gig in San Francisco this week. Huh. But Billy Joel at the Garden!”
Under different circumstances, Nico would have been happy to indulge Will in an imaginary concert or hear about Naomi Solace’s music career. But they didn’t have time right then.
He gripped Will’s hand tighter and pulled him toward the stage, weaving around monsters and spirits who had suddenly found themselves at a different kind of spectacle. In a stroke of genius, Hazel had given the crowd imaginary smartphones, which monsters normally never had. They were ignoring everything—Nico and Will, the stage, their neighbors—as they held up their phones to snap the perfect selfies, wave their flashlights, or capture video footage they would never watch again on their tiny screens.
Nico and Will made it five rows up before the illusion began to flicker. For a split second, they were back in the mortal courtroom, charging toward the judge’s bench as a lawyer droned on about insurance limits. Then they were back in the Court of the Dead, the three masked judges all on their feet, Pirithous screaming, “Stop this! Who is doing this?”
Asterion turned toward Nico and Will, and his eyes widened. “My friends?”
Then they were back at the Billy Joel concert, pushing through a mass of dancing fans who blocked the aisle.
Nico drew his Stygian blade. The dark iron smoked whenever the lights hit it.
A wave of nausea rolled through him. It was too disorienting. He couldn’t think. But theyhadto be close to Asterion, and Hazel couldn’t keep up this illusion much longer.
“There!” screamed Pirithous, pointing in Hazel’s direction. “Get her!”
The stage was now a jumble of realities. Queen Mary was standing on the mortal judge’s bench. The Cyclops-at-arms was dancing with Billy Joel’s backup singers. Tantalus had gotten into a fistfight with the lawyer from the civil trial, and Pirithous was trying to extricate himself from the drummer’s wind chimes, which had gotten tangled in his robes. Pirithous pointed right at Hazel again, who was exactly as Nico had left her—in her seat in the court, her eyes closed, her lips moving as she muttered an incantation. The Mist formed an aura around her, much like the Iris-message of a tessera. She was the only fixed point in the chaos of sounds and images.
The red-robed skeletons noticed her. They lowered their twin-pronged spears and advanced.
“Will, hurry!” Nico pushed forward—and ran straight into Asterion’s chest.
“Nico di Angelo!” Asterion said with both shockandjoy. “Will Solace! You found me!”
“Someone stop these intruders!” Tantalus shouted. “Now!”
Nico brought his blade down on Asterion’s chain. Iron sparked against iron. The restraint didn’t quite break, but it was weakened enough for the bull-man to snap it with a tug of his arms. His limbs were still shackled together, but at least he wasn’t anchored to the floor anymore.
Will began to glow. “Asterion, we’re gonna get you out of here.”
Unfortunately, one of the red guards had turned in their direction. He marched toward them while his companion continued to advance on Hazel.
Before Nico could think up a plan, the ghost with the tricorn hat flew at his face. “How dare you interrupt this proceeding! Do you hatejustice?”
