But Suzanne was more than a match for his strength. She pushed him back to his knees.
Mary Tudor sniffed in disgust. “Why is the Minotaur still here? Haven’t we sentenced him to death yet?”
Tantalus frowned. “I suppose we haven’t. All in favor?”
“Death,” agreed Pirithous.
“Death,” confirmed the queen.
“NO!” Nico yelled.
But it was too late. The red-robed guard jabbed his spear at Asterion, and the bull-man began to crumble and smoke.
“Asterion!” Will sobbed.
The bull-man clutched at his chest, as if that might stop the process. His large brown eyes gleamed with pain, but he managed to speak: “Th-thank you for trying, my demigod friends. You have given me faith that…that, one day, those like me will be accepted.”
Then a web of fire raced across his body, and the gentle giant disintegrated into ash.
Nico’s vision blurred with tears. He couldn’t bear the weight of his despair. Another friend gone. Taken from him. And he had just let it happen.
“Nico!” Will cried. “Nico, look at me.”
He couldn’t. He feared that once he looked at his boyfriend’s face, his entire world would shatter. He heard Hazel crying nearby. The smell of cinders cloyed his nostrils.
Asterion was gone. Gone.
“Nico,please.”
Will cupped Nico’s jaw with his good hand and gently turned his face. Will’s eyes swam with tears, but there was a fierce determination in them, a light that refused to go out.
“We will get out of here,” he said. “Believe it.”
“Touching,” Pirithous muttered. Then he motioned for the other judges to take their seats.
“Moving along,” Pirithous continued, “as we have several more cases on the docket before we can break for lunch.” He gave Hazel another cold smile. “We thank Will Solace and Nico di Angelo for the gift they have brought us—this architect of depravity, who is even more responsible for the breakdown of the natural order than Asterion! Her punishment will help our cause in ways you can’t even dream of. If my colleague would do the honors…”
Mary Tudor gazed upon Hazel with a resolute smugness, and then she pulled a scroll from her robe.
“Hazel Levesque,” she said, a blood-chilling smirk on her face, “your trial begins now.”
“Mytrial?”
The words seemed to snap Hazel out of her daze. Nico watched as the grief on her face transformed into rage. She reached for her spatha, but she had no chance with the red-robed guard’s spear at her back.
So Nico raised the dead.
The floor splintered at his feet. Dozens of bony arms emerged from the crevice. But if he’d been hoping to cause a panic, he was disappointed.
Pirithous glanced at the undead wriggling forth and then waved his gavel lazily at the three gray men in the front row of the gallery. “Nice try. Take care of it, Dis.”
The gray man on the left, whose beard hung down to his waist, raised his hand and made a swatting gesture. Nico’s undead instantly turned to dust.
“What?” cried Nico.“How?”
The gray man’s mouth twitched. “The youth are so uneducated. Do you honestly not know who we are?”
Will sized them up like he was imagining lighting their beards on fire. “Sorry. Can’t say we do.”
