Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It isn’t every day that you end up sitting in a slowly flooding drainage system with nothing but the clothes on your back. More like, every other day. The day when it’s raining and you’ve run away from your foster family again because if they went on about how much better their real son was one more time-

Leo sighed and slumped down even lower. His life just kept going down the drain, didn’t it? Literally in some senses of the world. He had thought that for once, maybe this family would be the one that he stayed with.

They seemed nice enough. His ‘new mum’ was an excellent chef. His ‘new dad’ was busy at work a lot but seemed to want to spend ‘quality time’ with Leo, watching sports and everything. His ‘new brother’ would laugh at his half-hearted jokes.

It just couldn’t last, though. New Mum complained that his room was always a mess and her real son’s room was never messy. New Dad would sigh in agitation whenever Leo declined watching soccer with him, muttering that his real son loved soccer and would never miss a game. Said real son started to tease him whenever his friends came over. The son’s friends, not Leo’s. Leo didn’t have friends, just to be clear.

Leo sighed again, crossing his arms in annoyance. He could have lived with it if it weren’t for the accidents. He supposed he was lucky that a gas leak hadn’t caused the house to explode while he was home alone this time. Yeah, that had been a fun experience. Outside, lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a sharp clap of thunder. The rain went from a slight downpour the buckets of cold, wet raindrops falling from the sky.

Knowing his luck, the drain would be full of water and Leo would be soaking wet, despite his futile efforts to find shelter. He may as well try and escape to find somewhere dry while he could. Maybe there would be a homeless shelter. Not that Leo really looked homeless. Just a scrawny, scruffy kid who’d run away from his forth foster family.

Leo stood up and stretched as best he could. He couldn’t even straighten his back, but take what you can get, at least he was still dry-

A pair of legs swung through the drain’s opening, and a person slid into the drain, landing with a splash in the stream of rainwater and sending it spraying all over Leo. Shocked, Leo stumbled backwards, falling and landing where he had been sitting seconds before, except now he was wetter and sore from hitting the concrete.

Well shoot.

The person crouched down and shuffled backwards away from the drain. They were wearing a dark green shirt and beige cargo pants that had been torn and burnt badly, black converse and socks that were no doubt soaked from the rain. Their blonde hair hung matted around their shoulders, at least Leo thought their hair was blonde – it was hard to tell in the darkness and with their hair soaked in water. The person was pale and even scrawnier than Leo, and from the back with that shoulder length hair, Leo couldn’t even tell their gender.

Leo pushed a wave of his own now-soaked hair off his forehead and cleared his throat. The person started and literally jumped, banging their head on the curved roof of the drainage system. They spun around, revealing a boy about Leo’s age, maybe a bit younger, but taller and skinnier.

“What are you doing in here?” He demanded, as if Leo had splashed him.

“Oh, you know, enjoying the sights and scenery of Boston. Not being homeless.” Leo shrugged. “And hoping that random people don’t jump into my drain and soak me while I’m trying to shelter from the rain.”

“Your drain?” The other demanded. “This is my drain. I’ve been hiding out here for the past three weeks.”

“Yeah, it’s a shame that I’m so scrawny there isn’t any room for other people to possibly be in the same drain as me, let alone skinny kids like you.” Leo spat, although not really intending to offend the blonde kid.

The other boy plopped down next to Leo. “Magnus Chase. Me. I mean, I'm Magnus. Magnus Chase.”

“Yeah, I got that." Leo chuckled. "I'm Leo. Leo Valdez. So, three weeks, huh?”

“More or less.” Magnus nodded. “You?”

“This time only two days.” Leo said.

“This time?”

“I have a bit of a habit of running away from my foster homes.” Leo said non-commitantly.

“Sucks.” Magnus agreed.

“You’re telling me.” Leo said. “So why aren’t you . . . somewhere else? Surely social services-”

“No. As far as I know, they think I’m dead.” Magnus shivered slightly, as if remembering something unpleasant. Leo tucked his legs closer to his body. “Oh. Wish that could happen for me.”

“You wish they thought you were dead?” Magus gave Leo a strange look.

“Yeah.” Leo expanded. “Social workers will be after me before long and I’ll be shipped off to some other part of the country.”

“How many foster homes have you-”

“Too many.” Leo said shortly, listing all four places in his head. “Enough to know that it isn’t my idea of fun.”

Magnus opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again. Leo heard thunder crackle overhead, then Magnus pulled something out of his pocket. A granola bar. “It’s my last one, but we can share if you want.”

“Oh.” Leo hesitated. In all the times he’s been on the streets, no one has ever offered to share something as important as food. He weighed the options. On one hand, Magnus had only been homeless for a grand total of three weeks. He didn’t know what it was like to be really starving. Leo should let him have the bar to himself. But on the other hand . . . Leo was hungry. The Latino’s stomach rumbled in agreement and Leo made up his mind. “Okay. Thanks.”

Magnus peeled the bar and snapped it in half, pocketing the wrapper as if it were precious and handing one half of the bar to Leo. Leo took it gratefully and nibbled on it. He hadn’t thought to take anything when he left, which he had been sorely regretting.

Another burst of thunder crackled overhead. Leo searched for something else to say, such as ‘what great weather we’re having’ or ‘how’s your day been’. For some reason, neither of those struck him as particularly appropriate things to say.

“It’s pretty cold in the rain, isn’t it?” Magnus said, swallowing the last of his granola bar.

“Huh?” Leo asked, surprised. Despite the rain and his thin clothing – he was only wearing a white button-down shirt and overalls – he didn’t feel cold. In fact, his clothes had dried already.

But when he glanced at Magnus he could see the boy’s lips were turning blue and Goosebumps were raising the hair on his arms.

“Oh, uh, yeah.” Leo felt an absurd urge to hug the other boy. Magnus looked really cold, huddled in on himself. With his pale blonde hair and pale skin he looked like he was turning into an icicle. But hugging someone he just met would be weird, so Leo stayed where he was.

Once again, they sat in silence, only interrupted by the crackle of thunder and the quiet chatter of Magnus’ teeth.

“So.” Leo said. “Since this is ‘your drain’, can I ask you, as king of the sewerage, for permission to sleep here?”

“Hey!” Magnus protested through chattering teeth. “I’m n-n-not king of the s-sewerage.”

“But I thought this was your drain.” Leo teased. “Either way, do you mind me staying the night or . . .”

“S-sure. Stay as l-l-long as you w-want.” Magnus said, then as an afterthought added, “Just don't d-disobey your king o-or you’ll be cast into the d-dungeons.”

“Do I even want to know?” Leo asked, thinking of what else could be found in less pleasant drainage, before they both laughed. Maybe it was the cold, or the hunger or just how much both their situations sucked, Leo reasoned. Because it really wasn’t that funny.

But before either could get in another word, heavy footsteps, like someone jumping, sounded right outside their drain and a moment later, as if in slow motion, a body fell, landing with a thud outside the drain, head colliding with the pavement with a horrible cracking noise.

The body lay still, Leo couldn't even tell if they were alive or not.

Chapter Text

Magnus gasped, standing as best he could and looking out at the person who’d just fallen down. “He isn’t getting up.”

He could feel Leo’s body beside him as the Latino stood, he surprisingly warm and dry. Part of Magnus wanted to hug the smaller boy, to steal his warmth away, but this was more important. And anyway, that would be weird.

“Do you think he hit his head?” Leo asked, sticking his head up to peer out next to Magnus.

How weird this must look to an outsider, Magnus thought, two kids peering out of a drain in the middle of a thunderstorm, staring at a third, unconscious boy.

“We should help.” Magnus said.

“Us?” Leo asked. “What can we do? We’re two homeless fourteen year olds. Well, I’m fourteen, you look like you’re-”

“Also fourteen.” Magnus supplied.

“Yes.” Leo nodded. “That is what I was going to say. Absolutely.”

“Shut up.” Magnus ordered. “Help me pull him in here.”

“What? Into the drain like we’re hiding a body?” Leo asked.

“Unless you have a clean and hygienic hospital ward.” Magnus snapped.

Together they grabbed hold of the boy who was lying unconscious in the rain, turned him so his feet were facing the drain and dragged him inside. Magnus lunged forwards to support the boy’s weight as he came crashing to the ground. Magnus knew he wasn’t particularly strong – understatement of the year – but this boy has to be extremely underweight because it was like holding a feather.

Magnus lay him down beside the stream of water and inspected the boy. His skin was a sickly pale grey. His black hair was longer than Magnus’, it mattered and dirty and clung to the boy’s head, fringe covering his face all the way down to his nose. His chest was rising and falling rapidly. The boy was wearing a thick but worn aviator jacket, black jeans and black converse. A silver skull ring was on his right hand. A chain served as a belt and from it hung-

“Leo.” Magnus said, worried.

“Hey, looks like we found someone paler than you and scrawnier than me.” Leo said, inspecting the boy’s hands, which were twitching nervously in his sleep.

“Leo.”

“Yeah?”

“Tell me this kid doesn’t have a sword hanging from his belt.” Magnus requested, eyes never leaving the jagged black sword that smoked at the boy’s side.

“This kid doesn’t have a swor- holy cra-a-a-abapples.” Leo was also staring at the sword. “This kid does have a sword.”

“How? Why? Where?” Magnus wondered aloud. “Is it real? He doesn’t look more than eleven.”

Leo shrugged. “We can ask him when he wakes up. He’s still unconscious. What should we do?”

“I don’t know.” Magnus fretted. “Um . . . do you have anything on you?”

“The clothes on my back?” Leo offered. “Somehow I think it would be more useful if they stayed on. Unless you-”

He stopped as Magnus shot him a glare. “Okay, okay, not the right time for that, I get it.”

Magnus bit his lip. “Roll him onto his side. My m- someone said it’s the safest position to put someone uncurious because if he starts to choke and he’s lying on his back or front he could choke and die.”

“Okay. On three.” Leo agreed. “One. Two. Three.”

Really, they didn’t need to count. Magnus could have rolled the kid over by himself. The boy took a shuddering breath and one hand reached towards the hilt of his sword, but he stayed unconscious. Magnus shifted the boy’s head so his mouth was facing down, the chin tilted away from the boy’s body, remembering what his mother had taught him.

“Okay, we should . . . take his jacket off.” Magnus said. “That way if he needs CPR or something we can give it more easily.”

“You know CPR?” Leo asked.

“Sort of.” Magnus said. “Why?”

“Wow, you are desperate.” Leo joked. “If you’re willing to-”

“You’re not taking this seriously.” Magnus accused. “This boy could die.”

“I don’t think we should take off his jacket and let him freeze is all.” Leo raised his hands in defence.

“You’re right.” Magnus sighed, realising he was panicking, not thinking things through in his rush to help. He didn't think the kid was going to need CPR any time in the foreseeable future. “I guess we should keep him warm and dry.”

Leo nodded and the two sat down next to the unconscious boy beside them.

“But the next person who intrudes is not coming in here.” Leo warned. “Three soaking wet homeless kids is enough for any drain.”

“We don’t know he’s homeless.” Magnus said, but thinking that Leo was probably right if the appearance of the boy was anything to go by.

Beside Magnus, Leo was tapping a rhythm on his knee. Magnus tried to distract himself, but he couldn’t help it, his eyes kept drifting back to the boy lying unconscious at his feet. Without meaning to, and without really being aware of it, Magnus pushed a strand of hair out of the boy’s face. When the kid didn’t react, Magnus pushed the rest of the hair out of the boy’s face. Despite being wet and dirty, the kid’s hair was soft. It looked like the boy’s main concern wasn’t his hair though, as it was filthy and it seemed clear by the uneven length that the kid hacked at it himself with some kind of blade.

Without any warning, Leo heaved a huge sigh and leant back against the wall of the drain, startling Magnus.

“Leo?” Magnus asked softly.

“Mm fine.” Leo mumbled. “Just tired.”

“Okay.” Magnus nodded. “You can get some sleep. I’ll wake you if this boy wakes up. Or if someone comes. Or if something happens. Or- well, I’ll wake you.”

“Thanks Magnus.” Leo said. “You’re pretty weird for a homeless kid. You’re . . . really nice.”

And before Magnus could even try and think of a response, Leo had curled sideways and closed his eyes. He looked cold and small in just his thin shirt and overalls and Magnus reached out to see if Leo really was cold, but Leo’s entire body seemed to be radiating a gentle warmth, like a wood fire in winter.

An idea struck Magnus, and the blonde reached over to cautiously drag the unconscious boy closer to Leo. Leo opened one eye in a sleepy puzzled question.

“You’re warm. This kid is cold.” Magnus offered.

Leo huffed and rolled his eyes, but shuffled a little closer to the kid - and also therefor closer to Magnus - before closing his eyes again.

Chapter Text

When Nico woke up, his head was pounding and his mouth was dry and had a bitter taste. He wasn’t sure how far he had shadow-travelled, but it was surely a long way from Los Angeles. There was something warm pressing against his back, trying to pull Nico back into the realm of unconsciousness. Nico tried to clear his mind from the sleepy, confused feeling.

Suddenly, he forced his eyes open, a thought jolting his brain into full awareness. He had fallen unconscious right after shadow travel! He had no clue where he was or how much danger he was in! He could literally be one second away from death! He pushed himself away from the warm thing behind him and rolled face first into a stream of icy cold water. Spluttering, he pushed himself up, but before he could even stand, his head banged into hard concrete.

There was a small chuckle. “You okay?”

One hand on the hilt of his sword, Nico glanced around. On either side of him, a long, low, round passage crept endlessly on into darkness. And opposite him were two people, a pale boy with long blonde hair who was sitting against the rounded wall, watching him, and a sleeping Latino in suspenders.

Nico concentrated, ignoring his headache, instead focusing on his demigod senses, trying to find the blonde's and the Latino's life forces. These weren’t normal mortals. They were magic. In his confusion, the thoughts whirled together. Magic, tunnels, endless . . . Nico felt his breathing quicken.

No. No. He thought he had destroyed this place when Daedalus died. How could he be back here?

“Hey, calm down, we aren’t gonna hurt you.” Blonde said. “Breathe, breathe, okay? Deep breaths.”

“What do you want from me?” Nico demanded, grip tightening on his sword’s hilt. Neither of the boys opposite him appeared to be armed, but that meant nothing in the demigod world. They could be monsters, or they could have been working for Kronos, or they could be monsters that had been working for Kronos.

“Um? To make sure you don’t die.” The blonde suggested nervously. “You fell outside the drain unconscious late last night and we could have saved your life."

“I’ve been unconscious for a day? Di immortals.” Nico cursed.

“Hey, could you maybe take your hand away from that sword.” The blonde asked carefully.

“So you can disarm me? No way.” Nico snapped. “I’m not an idiot.”

“We don’t want to hurt you! If we did, we could have done it while you were asleep.” The blonde pointed out.

Nico hesitated. That was true. He slowly moved his hand away from his sword hilt, palms towards the roof. They couldn’t be monsters, then. But still demigods working for Kronos. That was an unfortunate possibility. “Where am I?”

“In a drain?” The blonde offered.

“No, where am I- agh, what is this place- I mean-” Nico struggled to find a way to word his question that wouldn’t result in a dumb answer.

“You’re in Boston.” The blonde said, looking doubtful. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

“No.” Nico snapped, frustrated that the blonde wasn’t taking this seriously. “Okay, here’s the deal, you be honest with me and I won’t cut off your head.”

The blonde kid paled. “Okay, wow, no need for drastic measures.”

“Who are you?” Nico asked.

“Magnus.” The blonde kid said. “And this is Leo. And you are . . .?”

“Alright, Magnus.” Nico said, scowling. “I’m giving you one more chance, where is this and what do you want from me?”

“This is Boston!” Magnus said, raising his hands, palms facing Nico. “All we wanted to do was save your life and not get decapitated for it.”

“Swear on the River Styx that is all you intended to do.” Nico insisted.

“I swear on the River Styx that’s all I intended to do?” Magnus repeated.

Nico felt his shoulders slump. “Okay.”

“So am I still getting decapitated?” Magnus asked.

“No.” Nico said. Then under his breath added, “Not yet, anyway.”

“Why isn’t he getting decapitated?” The Latino, Leo, yawned and blinked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He caught sight of Nico and flinched. “You’re awake.”

“Do you want me to get decapitated?” Magnus asked.

“Let me think . . .” Leo said, tapping his chin.

“Okay. Whatever.” Nico interrupted, not amused. “I have to ask a bit of a weird question.”

“You mean weirder than everything you’ve already said?” Magnus asked doubtfully.

“Who are you parents?” In sync, both of them winced. Nico sighed. Touchy subject. “I’m sorry, but this is very important. Do you know who you’re parents are?”

“I never knew my dad.” Leo said hesitantly, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“M-me neither.” Magnus muttered. “I, uh, swear on the River Styx?”

“Don’t say that!” Nico tried to keep from yelling. Were these two asking for death? But if they didn’t know how serious an oath on the River Styx was, then they couldn’t know they were magic in any way. “Okay. Forget the parents question.”

Nico figured that they were both unclaimed demigods. After all, both missing one parent, who they never knew, and they were magical. Yeah, that was the only option. Ha, what luck, three demigods stuck in the sewerage of Boston. This was practically asking for a monster attack.

“What’s his name?” Leo asked Magnus.

“No idea.” Magnus shrugged. “He never told me.”

“I’m right here.” Nico said. “You can talk to me you know.”

“What’s your name?” Leo asked.

“Nico.” Nico said shortly. He turned to look out of the drain, and maybe leave, when a thought struck him. He couldn’t leave these two unclaimed demigods alone here. They would be found and killed for sure! He had to get them to Camp. But that meant shadow-travel.

“Okay, this has been, um, great.” Nico started. “But I have a favour to ask. We have to go. Now.”

“Hey!” Magnus said. “You’re probably still hurt from collapsing. We can’t go anywhere! And we’ve only just met you.”

Nico shook his head. “We need to get to Long Island.”

“How? Walk?” Leo asked sceptically.

Nico didn’t grace them with an answer. Instead, he turned and pulled himself out of the drain, hearing Magnus and Leo shuffling about behind him. He glanced back to see them about to pull themselves out after him, then stood to come face to face with no less than four grim-looking police officers.

Chapter Text

Leo heard Nico’s sharp intake of breath and saw the boy’s hand move to his sword a second before he saw the four police officers surrounding him. A sudden thought struck Leo. They didn’t know this kid. Nico mightn’t even be his real name. For all they – meaning Leo and Magnus – knew, Nico had broken the law and was a criminal. The kid had a sword, for crying out loud!

“Shh.” Leo hissed, sticking out his arm to stop Magnus from exiting the drain.

“What?” Magnus whispered.

“Wait.” Leo hissed in return. The two peered out cautiously.

“Nico di Angelo.” One of the police officers said, voice nothing more than a deep rumble. It was almost animalistic. The police officers were all at least six feet tall, with bulging muscles covered in tattoos. Their blue uniforms were faded and needed washing almost as badly as Leo’s own clothes. “We have found you at last.”

“Magnus, Leo. Don’t look.” Nico’s voice was so cold that it made Leo shiver.

“Huh?” Magnus asked.

“Don’t look. Get back.” Nico said. “Stay in there until I tell you, but be ready to run if these ‘police officers’ come after y-”

One of the officers let out a monstrous roar and leap towards Nico. Magnus stumbled back, one hand grabbing onto Leo. Both of them toppled back into the drain and scrambled to the other side of the drain. Leo caught a glimpse of Nico with his sword drawn, swinging at a police officer before he remembered Nico’s warning and closed his eyes.

The words had sounded so dangerous, so powerful, that Leo didn’t dare disobey him, no matter how skinny and unintimidating he looked. Leo closed his eyes tight as he heard a huge thump, like a body landing heavily on the ground. A second later there was a hiss, then a sound like the ground cracking and an unearthly clattering, like bones being rattled.

More fighting, sounds like bones being rattled and shaken about then finally silence. A second later they heard a sound as if Nico was clicking, muttering under his breath in another language. Leo tried to think of what the kid could be doing. How would that help him win a fight?

Wait? There had been a fight? Between whom? And why was Nico involved?

Nico’s voice said. “Are you safe?”

Leo opened his eyes. Nico was kneeling next to the drain, peering down at them. The pale sunlight was behind him, illuminating his dark frame against the small gap of light. Leo nodded. Then he became aware that Magnus was pressed against him, hugging his side, and he blushed, pushing the blonde away.

“Y-yeah.” Leo’s breath caught in his throat.

“What was that all about?” Magnus asked, also scooting a little away from Leo.

"What was what all about?" Leo asked quietly, but it seemed that neither Magnus nor Nico heard him.

“Uh . . . it turns out Canadians can hold grudges?” Nico offered. Canadians? Had Nico been to Canada? And what on earth had he done to get into a fight? Leo leaned to the side to peer past Nico, but the other boy shifted, maybe by accident, to block Leo’s view. Despite that, Leo thought he caught a glimpse of dust and bones lying on the street.

“Canadians, eh?” He forced himself to joke. “What do they have to hold grudges a-boot? Did you steal a moose or something?”

Nico frowned, looking confused, but shrugged and slipped back down into the drain. “Nothing important. Are there any other exits to this drain?”

“Ask King Sewerage.” Leo said.

“Hey!” Magnus punched Leo’s shoulder lightly. “There should be one at the other end of the street. Why?”

“Lead us there, through the drain. We'll exit there.” Nico said.

“What happened with the police?” Magnus asked.

“What police?” Nico said vaguely, glancing behind him.

“What police?” Leo echoed. Nico said that he had fought with Canadians, not police. Wait, why did Nico get into a fight?

“The Canadian police that hold grudges.” Magnus said.

“Hurry up and show us the other way out.” Nico demanded, swinging his legs down and sliding into the drain.

“Alright-o then.” Magnus said, turning and peering to his left. “Should be this way.”

Leo followed behind Magnus and Nico bought up the rear.

“I love enclosed spaces.” He heard Nico mutter sarcastically.

Chapter Text

Magnus was relieved when the light at the other end of the tunnel grew bright again. The three of them had been walking in near complete darkness for the last probably-only-seconds-really, and Magnus did not like it. Aside from the obvious awfulness of walking through a damp drain pipe nearly bent over double, there was the feeling of being so hopelessly lost. You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. The darkness stretched out in every direction, and something could loom out of the darkness and grab you at any second, drag you away and it felt like the darkness would smother your screams and you’d be lost forever.

So seeing the light being a relief again was an understatement.

Magnus glanced nervously back at Nico. “See, exit. Can we, um, go out?”

“I’ll go first.” Nico said, pushing past Leo and Magnus and heaving himself out of the drain again. There was a pause as Nico inspected their surroundings, then said, “Come on up.”

“After you?” Magnus offered Leo. Leo grinned and false curtsied on his way past, then pulled himself out of the drain. Magnus was about to pull himself up after Leo, when Leo pushed his hand into Magnus’ face.

“Excuse me?” Magnus asked, not thinking about how Leo’s hand practically radiated warmth.

“I’m giving you a hand up, duh. It’s called common courtesy.” Leo said as explanation.

“Oh. Thanks.” Magnus said, gratefully taking Leo’s hand. It was warm, like holding a flickering candle in Magnus’ hands. It reminded Magnus of campfires when he had been camping with his mother, of ‘smores and the smell of smoke. Part of his mind wondered if Leo smelt like smoke.

Okay that’s enough wondering, he decided a moment later. Once he was outside the drain, Leo dropped Magnus’ hand quickly.

Magnus shot the Latino a glance. In the dimness of the drain, he hadn’t been able to see Leo well. The kid had just looked scrawny and hungry. In the sunlight, Magnus could see lean muscle beneath Leo’s skin. The Latino’s hair was thick and curly and resembled little flickers of candlelight with the sun reflecting off it that way and again, for the second time that minute, Magnus wondered if it smelt like smoke.

He really had to stop wondering such distracting things.

Leo’s eyes were a warm brown and his skin was smooth and clear. He was shorter than Magnus had thought, too. Not as short as Nico, who was clearly younger and stood below Magnus’ shoulder level, but Magnus was a good half a head taller than Leo. Leo was staring at Nico with a puzzled expression and Nico was glaring suspiciously at someone across the street from them.

Magnus followed Nico’s gaze and saw someone dressed like they were in a black and white film, wearing a black leather jacket and black motorcycle pants. To top it off, he was pale with hair so blonde it was almost white. The only bit of colour he had was a ridiculously long red and white scarf, like a candy cane, wrapped around his neck.

“Who’s that?” Magnus asked.

“Not anyone I know.” Nico said. A moment later, the person turned and walked away. Nico hummed thoughtfully. “Thought you might know him, since he was staring at you. He looked shifty. I’d avoid him if I were you.”

“So what now?” Leo asked.

“Now we go to Long Island.” Nico said.

“No. You still need help!” Magnus said. “After being unconscious and a brawl with police-”

“Canadians.” Leo interjected. "Wait, fight?"

“-or Canadians or whatever you want to call them!” Magnus said.

Nico was staring at Magnus with a look of suspicion and confusion. He mumbled under his breath, "Why isn't it working?"

Magnus shook his head. “Whatever! You can’t just ‘go to Long Island’! Not to mention – completely different state? We’re staying right here.”

“We are?” Leo asked.

Magnus couldn't help it, his expression fell. He should have known. Leo would probably want to go somewhere, maybe a homeless shelter, and get something to eat. Magnus was honestly more than a little hungry himself.

“I mean. You don’t have to.” Magnus muttered. “I can’t expect you to stay, since we’ve only known each other a day, but-”

“We are!” Leo announced. “Staying here, I mean.”

Magnus sighed in relief. He had really not wanted to be with Nico alone. The younger boy was grumpy, sullen and unpleasant. He much preferred Leo’s good-natured jokes and easy going attitude. And warmth. And kindness. And that warm fuzzy feel Magnus got around Leo. And to find out if his hair smelled like smoke. Okay, time to stop, Magnus chided himself.

But he would have stayed with Nico. Any friend, even one that Magnus had only known for a night, was someone Magnus wanted to be loyal to. Although Nico didn’t exactly count as a friend. It was more than Magnus felt somehow responsible for the smaller boy. In the few hours that Magnus had known Nico, he had already fallen unconscious and gotten into some sort of police-involved brawl.

Nico was scowling, clearly displeased. He opened his mouth, hesitated, then sighed. “Don’t freak out.”

“Um, why? Because people usually say that before revealing something that totally should freak everyone out.” Leo asked. “Are you going to confess to something weird like eating people?”

That clearly did nothing to improve Nico’s mood, and only made him scowl more. But instead of answering, the smaller boy just reached over and took Leo’s and Magnus’ hands in his. Magnus flinched. In contrast to Leo’s warm hands, Nico’s hands were deathly cold.

“Wow, this is forwards. I never knew I was so popular.” Leo joked. Magnus blushed and nudged Leo with his shoulder.

Somehow Nico managed to scowl even more. “Long Island, here we come.”

“Um, what?” Magnus was quite sure that Long Island was quite a ways away from Boston and that standing in the street and holding hands was not getting them any closer. He glanced at Leo, who was wearing a similar expression of confusion. Magnus opened his mouth to express his confusion, but before he could get a word in, he felt Nico tug on his arm.

Magnus stumbled forwards, but Nico had only taken one step back, into the shadow cast by a building beside them. Then Magnus felt the tugging feeling again and he fell face first towards the pavement. He closed his eyes, bracing himself to hit it, but it never happened. He just kept falling. Beside him Leo was screaming.

Magnus opened his eyes, but aside from Leo, who was screaming in fear, and Nico who looked like he was in deep pain, he couldn’t see anything but darkness. Magnus felt fear and confusion fill him. Suddenly he felt warmth and saw light and a second later all three of them rammed head-first into a tree and tumbled backwards town a hill. Magnus lay panting in long grass that pricked at his back, feeling Leo pressed against his side. Nico was draped over their stomachs, body heaving.

“It failed. Why did it fail?” Was all the boy said, before going limp.

Chapter Text

Nico felt his mind slip away from his body, his eyes closed and his mind went dark. There was nothing he could do to stop the onslaught of dreams he knew would were coming. He could only cross his fingers and hope that it would stop soon.

It started like always, he was standing on a plain of dead grass, much like those of Asphodel, but devoid of the spirits that inhabited the Underworld. The sky above was dark, the greying grass spread out in all directions. And directly in front of Nico were two people.

He knew who they were. Well, who they were disgusting, twisted copies of.

One was taller, with sea-tossed black hair and ocean green eyes that gleamed in the darkness. His glowing sword was in his hands, illuminating an ugly sneer on his face. The second stood with her arms crossed over her silver parker. Her long hair was done in a braid that hung over one shoulder, framing her olive skin, brown eyes and freckled nose. They were both glaring at him with matching expressions of hatred and distrust.

Nico knew who they were meant to be, but he refused to label them as such. The real life counterparts would never, surely they would never, look at him with such pure hatred. Surely not even Nico deserved that.

"Your fault."  The girl hissed. "It's your fault I died."

Nico was unable to move, unable to cover his ears or turn away from the spiteful words.

"You should have saved me, Nico."

"Don't you care about your own sister?"  The boy chipped in.

"You aren't my sister." Nico hissed.

"Oh, but I am, Nico."  The lookalike of Bianca insisted.

"Pathetic."  The boy scoffed. "You kill everything you touch. Why do you even wonder why they kicked you out of camp?"

"They didn't." Nico insisted, but he couldn't force his voice to be any louder. "They didn't. It was my choice to leave."

"Maybe the one good choice you've ever made."  Not-Bianca said.

The one that looked like Percy chuckled.

"Stop." Nico hissed. "Stop."

"This won't ever stop Nico."  Not-Bianca said. "You know why? Because deep down you know it's all your fault. You'll keep reminding yourself of that till you die."

"NO! ENOUGH!" Nico finally forced himself to move, wrapping his arms around his head and doubling over, blocking out the words as they pressed into his ears, become screams, becoming inhumane screeching, then finally became static.

He straightened up again, expecting the dream to end, now that he'd 'beaten' it. That was how the 'game' his own mind played with him worked.

But instead of fading to white, everything remained static, black and white waved blurring his vision. Then it faded to black.

Nico blinked and rubbed his eyes and when he opened them again it wasn't black anymore. It wasn't the Asphodel-like field that usually plagued his sleep. In fact, it looked like a public bathroom. He glanced over his shoulder to find open, empty stalls, divided by speckled, off-white walls. The greying tile floor gleamed yellow in the flickering lights. To Nico's left was a door with a barred door gaping open, a broken chain hanging over one of the bars. Outside the door was a park bathed in moonlight. It was clear that this bathroom had been broken into. There was the sound of taps squeaking and water running, high pitched and irritating in Nico's ears.

Nico turned around in a slow circle again, then came to a stop as he saw two people leaning over a sink. Nico could have sworn they weren't there before. Had they teleported in? Or perhaps they had been using Mist to disguise themselves.

Nico recognised one of them as the guy who looked as though he were in a black and white film. Next to him, so close that they were almost touching, was another man, this one with a weathered expression on what Nico could see of his face, as well as a crooked nose, dark skin that shone in the bathroom's lights and wiry black hair imbedded with leaves and sticks. And jeez, Nico had thought that he had no respect for his hair. The man was wearing a long trench coat that covered his other clothing.

They were both leaning over a sink, staring at it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. As Nico watched, black-and-white-film guy reached forwards and twisted off the taps.

Without a word, the guy with the trench coat bent over and unzipped a bowling bag at his feet that Nico hadn't previously noticed. He reached in and pulled something out. It looked like he was holding hair, Nico frowned, then a moment later brought his hand to his mouth to stop himself from screaming.

Trench-Coat was holding the most hideous, ugly decapitated head. It was shrivelled and wrinkled with tufts of rust-coloured hair, sunken eyes that were thankfully closed and a bearded jaw jutting out like a bulldog's, displaying crooked yellow teeth. And despite it clearly being a decapitated head, Nico couldn't sense any death from it. In fact, it emitted a glow almost akin to that of the gods. But somehow obviously different.

Nico was right to think that Film-Guy wasn't mortal. And now Nico knew he had a friend. Trench-Coat carefully lowered the decapitated head into the sink. Water spilled over the sides and, despite his misgivings, Nico crept closer to watch over the two men's shoulders. And as Nico watched, the head inflated, wrinkles softening, skin turning from grey to pink.

Both the men gave short bows from the waste as the head began spewing water from his mouth and nose. His eyes opened and turned from a cloudy white, eerily similar to May Castellan's, to blue. The sense of godly power increased, but it was different, more rugged and not as ancient as the Greek gods Nico was familiar with.

"Where are w-" The head was cut off, coughing and spluttering, than continued, "Where are we? Is this a- a public bathroom?"

Film-Guy waved his hands and, after a moment, Nico realised it was sign language.

"You know what? Never mind, never mind." The head rolled his blue eyes. "Did you find the boy?"

"Well yes." Trench-Coat said. "And no."

"What?" The head demanded.

"Hearth saw him, Capo." Trench-Coat said, gesturing towards Film-Guy, whose name, Nico deduced, must be Hearth. "But he was with two other kids. Not normal, those kids, either."

"Yet not like the boy." The head, Capo Nico supposed, said.

They had to be talking about when Hearth had seen Nico, Leo and Magnus earlier today. These three were deeply imbedded in the demigod world and they were searching for either Nico, Leo or Magnus. One of them in particular. But which one? Nico's mind immediately jumped to himself.

He was the only one who knew about the 'magic' of being a demigod. He was the son of Hades, one of the Big Three. It would always be him that was being hunted down to be killed or something equally as fun.

But then Nico remembered how Hearth had stared at Magnus. And how Magnus was strangely resistant to the Mist. Was it Magnus they were looking for?

As Nico stared at the head, something deep in his memory itched. He recognised this, from somewhere. There was something - a god, a giant, a monster, someone from mythology - that had been just a head. Nico remembered it from Mythomagic, he knew he did. But he couldn't figure it out. Nico could swear it wasn't from Greek mythology.

"What do you mean? Are they already einherjar?" Trench-Coat asked Capo. Hearth signed something, expression contemplative.

Nico thought he recognised the language that foreign word was in. He could swear it's meaning was on the tip of his tongue. But which expansion pack had he recognised it from?

The head shook slightly, water bubbling out of his eyes like tears. "No. Exactly what they are isn't clear."

"Are they . . ." Trench-Coat trailed off with a sharp breath. ". . . Of course."

Nico leaned further forwards, wanting to know exactly what the three were talking about. Suddenly the head burst into wild cackling, water streaming out of its mouth, nose, eyes, even its ears. Nico recoiled in disgust as a choking sound came from its mouth. Then he realised it was laughter.

"Oh, he's a sly one! I already liked you - good customer, over five decades! And now here you are!" Capo crowed, staring directly at Nico. "But I'm afraid, little demigod, that it is not yet time for all your questions to be answered."

Trench-Coat and Hearth turned, but evidently saw nothing, only furthering Nico's suspicions that this head was on god-level when it came to power. Nico stumbled backwards, willing himself out of the dream. Finally, everything turned to white.

Chapter Text

"I- um- okay, what- I mean, well-" Leo gave up trying to find a way to voice his shock. He couldn't even think of a way to laugh at the entire situation beyond the type of incredulous laughter that bubbles up inside of you when something so mind-blowing that it makes you feel lucky to even be alive happens type of laughter.

"Nico?" Magnus' voice cracked with surprise. The kid was lying across their legs, unconscious. And Leo was pressed against Magnus' side. He didn't know why, but he left a blush spreading across his cheeks  and he looked the other way to avoid Magnus seeing.

"And great, he's unconscious again." Magnus mumbled.

"That's what you're worried about?" Leo asked, shaking his head. "Not the fact that we were in Boston. And now we're . . . not. How on earth did that happen?"

Magnus hummed in agreed confusion and sat up. Leo followed suit and looked around. They were laying on a hill covered in long, green grass. It would have made for a soft landing, but tree roots poked out of the soil, seemingly coming from a giant pine tree on the top of the hill. Down at the bottom of the hill was a road, but it was deserted of all cars. There wasn't even a gas station in sight. Unlike Boston, it wasn't raining, or even overcast. The sky was clear, save for the occasional fluffy cloud.

Nico was laying across their legs, definitely unconscious. His face was twisted into a frown but he was completely still.

"Okay, let's roll him off our legs." Magnus decided. "Three, two, one."

The two rolled Nico over until he lay on the ground. The boy twitched, but didn't seem to be about to wake up. Leo put a hand on Magnus' arm to get his attention. "So, um. A few questions. How? And, uh, how?"

Magnus gave a shaky laugh. "I have no clue."

"You don't have any food, do you?" Leo asked, gritting his teeth.

"I have a bottle of water." Magnus offered, shrugging off his backpack.

"It won't last." Leo sighed.

"I'm going to have a look around. There has to be something edible around here." Magnus said.

"Do you have any training in bush survival? Or are you and Nico secretly trying to kill me?"

"Actually, my m- I went camping all the time as a kid." Magnus glanced around quickly. "So, yeah, I think I can tell poisonous from not-poisonous."

"That's really cool." Leo grinned. He glanced at Magnus, who smiled back. Leo realised that his hand was still on Magnus' arm and he quickly pulled away.

"Right, I'll, yeah, I'll go." Magnus cleared his throat, then stood up and dusted off his pants. He wandered up the hill, towards the giant pine tree. Leo watched him go. Magnus looked happier somehow, now that he was out of the city. His blonde hair shone in the sunlight, he stood taller, straighter. Leo smiled to himself.

Magnus glanced back and Leo felt his cheeks heat up. Had Magnus felt Leo's eyes on him? But Magnus just continued to walk up the hill. Leo glanced back down at Nico, who was still fast asleep. His hand was twitching towards his sword again, and he was mumbling something that sounded like 'stop' under his breath.

Cautious not to touch the blade of the black sword, Leo pulled it out from its hilt and put it out of reach of Nico. He didn't want the boy rolling over and hurting himself on the sword. Magnus wouldn't want that either, Leo supposed. Leo leaned back, supporting his body with his forearms and gazing down the hill, across the road and at the rolling countryside beyond.

Despite having no clue where he was or what was going on, Leo found that he didn't mind too much. With the warm sun, the fresh air and the lack of a sewerage tunnel, Leo felt like he'd been transported into some kind of fantasy world of endless greenery and countryside and monsters and castles. And he thought that, as long as Magnus was along for the ride too, he didn't mind too much.

Chapter Text

Magnus made his way up to the giant pine tree on the hilltop, staring up between the tall branches. It stretched up towards the sky, branches grasping at rays of sunlight. Magnus closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The air smelt of pine, fresh air and something slightly sweeter that Magnus couldn't identify.

He opened his eyes again, glancing back at Leo quickly. The Latino was picking at the grass, although his eyes were gazing off over the deserted road and rolling fields beyond. Beside him, Nico lay curled on the ground, a small patch of darkness amongst the yellows and greens of the countryside.

Magnus realised that he felt lighter, happier, than he had in days. He turned back to the tree, gazing beyond it. The hill sloped down into a large meadow. Magnus could see the ocean beyond the grass, soft waves crashing against pale sand. A stretch of forest meandered into the distance to the right of the meadow.

Magnus blinked, and the air seemed to shimmer. He rubbed his eyes and when his hands dropped from his face he gasped, stumbling backwards. Where there had been nothing but grass before, there were now buildings. A large, baby blue farm house was nestled against fields of berries. There was a volleyball court and a cluster of small, cabin-like buildings.

He could see the far-off shapes of people everywhere. There were dozens of people strolling through the fields of berries and the soft sounds of music met Magnus' ears. Watching them, pacing around the edge of the field, was a man on a white horse. At least, it had to be a man on a horse, because there was no way that the man was the horse.

Magnus rubbed his eyes again. Above him in the pine tree, a bird made a high pitched whistling sound. Magnus glanced up, peering through the branches and catching sight of brown and white feathers. Dark eyes peered down at him and Magnus realised it was a bald eagle.

A smile broke out across his face. He glanced down at the farm again, but it wasn't there. There was nothing except for the grass meadow and the forest to the right. He frowned, taking a step forwards.

The eagle made a sound that was almost . . . strict and Magnus found himself unable to take another step forwards. Against his will, he found himself turning and walking back down the hill. He was about halfway back to Leo and Nico when he found himself able to control his body again.

He turned and peered back up at the top of the hill. The eagle had taken flight and was soaring in a circle above him, still watching strictly. Magnus rolled his eyes, stuck his tongue out at the bird and marched back to Leo.

"Hey Maggie." Leo greeted, turning and waving, smile dazzlingly bright in the sunlight.

"Don't call me that." Magnus protested, flopping down beside Leo.

"I made a flower crown." Leo said, undeterred. "For you."

Magnus felt his cheeks heat up as Leo reached over and placed a ring of flowers on his head.

"I, um, because, y'know, you're like the sewerage king." Leo said quickly, looking away.

Magnus laughed breathlessly. "Thanks."

"No problem."

The two were quiet for what felt like an eternity to Magnus.

"Did you find anything?" Leo asked finally, voice breaking uncomfortably over the words.

"Yeah." Magnus said, suddenly reminded of the disappearing farm. "I went up to the pine tree and I saw this berry farm on the other side. But I blinked and when I looked back it was gone."

"Are you sure Nico's the one who hit his head?" Leo asked, nudging Magnus.

"Ouch." Magnus huffed. "It's forbidden to treat your king in such a manner."

Leo laughed, head tilted back and eyes squinted shut. The sound was warm, like firelight and Magnus wondered if Leo smelt like smoke and would it be weird if he asked Leo that? Probably. But with everything that had happened was it still so weird? Yes. Definitely.

Leo would look at him like he was a looser and then he'd regret ever meeting Magnus and then that would be extremely awkward seeing as they were stuck in the middle of nowhere together.

"You okay, man?" Leo asked.

Magnus realised that he'd been staring at Leo and quickly turned to look at the road. "Yep. Just fine. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a really cute stranger. But fine."

Wait. Did he say that out loud? Oh no, oh no, oh no.

Magnus looked back at Leo, but Leo was staring at his feet, one hand tapping an anxious beat against his thigh.

"Um, I didn't mean that." Magnus said quickly. "Ack, I mean, not that you aren't, um, good looking, but-"

"I get it." Leo said. Then turned and gave a smile that looked a little forced. "We can't all be as dashingly handsome as you, that would just be unfair."

"Yeah, exactl- wait what?" Magnus asked.

Leo laughed nervously. "Um, plan B, pretend this didn't happen?"

"Sounds good." Magnus said.

The two of them turned away from each other, staring determinedly out at the road.

"But, like, if you weren't so scrawny, then you wouldn't look half bad." Leo said. "Um, no homo, though."

Without looking at Leo, Magnus said. "No homo."

Magnus didn't know exactly who that lie was fooling.

Chapter Text

“NICO!”

Nico sat up so fast he head-butted Magnus. Hard. Magnus reeled back, running a hand through his blonde hair, careful not to disturb a flower crown that was, for some stupid reason, sitting lopsidedly on his head. Head pounding, Nico scrambled to his feet and reached for his sword, only to find it wasn’t there.

“Where’s the danger?” He asked, looking around wildly.

He couldn’t see properly, the sunlight was too bright, his eyes hurt. His head hurt. His mouth was dry and bitter tasting. The image from his dream, of the two men and the head in a public bathroom, was still swimming through his head.

“Nico-”

“Where’s the monster? Are you hurt?” Nico repeated, urgently.

“There’s no m-”

“WHERE IS IT?” Nico yelled. “WHAT TRIED TO HURT YOU?”

“Nico!” Leo yelled. “There isn’t a monster!”

“Then why did you wake me up?” Nico yelled back, not wanting to admit how relieved he was.

“You were having a nightmare.” Magnus said. “You looked like you were in a lot of pain.”

“I wasn’t having a nightmare.” Nico lied.

“You were yelling and crying.” Magnus said, looking upset. “You kept yelling out the same names. Percy and Bianca. Then you went all still and rigid.”

Oh. That dream. That had happened too, hadn't it? Nico was not talking about that though. Not with Leo or Magnus. Not with anyone ever. “I was not having a nightmare. Where’s my sword?”

Leo pointed to the grass a few metres away from where the three boys sat. “We thought you’d hurt yourself with it so we took it off you.”

Magnus side-stepped to stand between Nico and his sword.

“You idiot!” Nico yelled again, still not exactly calm. “If you had been in actual danger, we would have needed that! And you could hurt yourself! That thing kills mortals if they touch its blade!”

“You . . . have killed with that sword.” Magnus said slowly.

Well what did he think Nico had a sword for? Cutting bread? But Nico couldn’t exactly tell Magnus that.

“Ye-no-I- it’s complicated.” Nico snapped. His head was hurting more than ever. The weird dream was circling his head like vultures over a dying animal, swooping in to attack him whenever he looked at the other demigods. Which one of them were the two homeless guys and the talking head looking for? “Just give it to me!”

“Are you going to hurt anyone with it?” Magnus asked.

Nico was apparently quiet for too long, because Magnus made no movement.

“Look, Magnus, there are things you just don’t understand right now. I’ll explain soon, I promise. But for now you need to give me the sword.” Nico crossed his fingers behind his back. “I swear I won’t hurt anyone with it.”

Magnus nodded slowly and Nico pushed past him and picked up his sword. He sheathed it in his belt and then said, “How long was I out for?”

“The better part of an afternoon and all of last night.” Leo said. "You missed a totally awesome sunset dude."

“And you didn’t get any help?” Nico demanded.

“We’re in the middle of nowhere.” Leo said. “Where are we meant to get help?”

“Camp is just up-” Nico glanced up at Thalia’s tree, cutting himself off. Did he really want to stumble into Camp with two homeless, unclaimed demigods, both of whom looked to be more than thirteen? Not really. After all, what would people say? What would people think? And there must have been a reason that they weren’t let in in the first place. “Never mind. There’s a gas station down the road a few hundred metres.”

Leo and Magnus looked doubtful. Magnus glanced up at the tree as well, expression drawn. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Leo saved the day by asking, “How do you know that?”

“What other choice do we have?” Nico demanded.

Neither answered, although Magnus still looked uncertain, so Nico turned on his heel, marched to the side of the road and started off down the side of it. He heard Leo and Magnus’ footsteps and knew the two unclaimed demigods were following him.

Why hadn’t the magic boundary let them in? He was sure Leo and Magnus were demigods. Or were they? Leo certainly was, he was unnaturally warm, and he was ADHD, Nico had noticed, always tapping on things and fiddling and so forth. He was probably a child of Hermes, Nico figured.

But Magnus? He radiated magic, but an odd, soft sort of magic. Was it possible that Magnus was something other than a demigod? Perhaps a nature spirit of some kind, or even a minor god in disguise. But that wouldn’t explain why they couldn’t get into Camp’s boundaries.

And what about the weird men from his dream? Where did they fit in to all of this?

Well if this was some kind of test the gods were putting him through, he was definitely failing. He wouldn’t be surprised if he was turned to a spot of grease on the road as he walked for being so disrespectful. Combined with Nico’s headaches and nightmare, figuring out parts of Leo and Magnus that the two most likely didn’t know about themselves made Nico’s head feel like it was splitting in two.

All this meant that Nico was stuck with Leo and Magnus for the next little while, and that didn’t improve Nico’s mood either. And it also meant that one of them would probably die at the hands of a guy in a trench coat, someone who looked like they belonged in a black and white film and a talking head. Wait, decapitated talking heads didn't have hands. No matter, they would probably still all die. Which sucked.

Nico didn’t know how much more death he could handle.

Nico squared his shoulders and walked faster. The sooner they got to the service station, the sooner he could get something to stop this headache. And maybe some cheap coffee to make him feel like he wasn’t going to fall asleep standing up.

Chapter Text

Leo’s stomach rumbled again. He hadn’t eaten anything except a granola bar in the last three days. Magnus had a bottle full of water that the two had emptied pretty quickly. Now? Leo’s stomach was like a black hole wanting to suck in everything it could.

How was Nico walking so fast? Sure the kid had slept for nearly a day, but he hadn’t eaten for at least two. Yet Nico was powering ahead, forcing Leo and Magnus to constantly pick up their pace to stay with him.

“So . . .” Leo panted. “You’re weird.”

“Me?” Magnus asked. Leo shook his head and pointed at Nico’s back.

“I know.” Nico said grouchily.

“Wanna tell us why?” Leo asked.

“Shut up.” Nico said.

“Who’s Bianca and Percy?” Magnus asked quietly.

“No one.” Nico snapped. Leo felt unfamiliarly cold at Nico’s tone. Clearly that was a very touchy subject.

“Sorry. I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.” Magnus said. “I just thought-”

“Well, you thought wrong.” Nico snapped, slowing down a little. Leo sighed with relief, he and Magnus slowed down too.

“Question.” Leo said.

“Yeah?” Magnus asked.

“So, um, I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but I haven’t come up with any answers.” Leo said.

“Yeah?”

“IS NO ONE ELSE CONCERNED WE WERE IN BOSTON AND NOW WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE?” Leo yelled. He and Magnus hadn't really discussed it, it was too weird, too . . . unbelievable. It wasn't like Leo thought that, if they ignored it, everything would go back to normal, but . . . he sort of did.

“We’ll get back to Boston soon.” Nico said. “Once I get my energy back. Then I promise you won’t even remember meeting me.”

“You’re leaving?” Magnus asked, seeming surprisingly upset. “Why?”

“I never wanted to be with you two in the first place. I was planning on leaving you at Camp and letting Annabeth or someone show you around, but that backfired.” Nico said, running off on a tangent. Beside Leo, Magnus stiffened, but if Nico realised he didn’t seem to care. “For some reason, you can’t get into Camp and so now I have to-”

“Did you just say . . . Annabeth?” Magnus said.

Nico stopped and spun around. Leo nearly bumped into him, slamming his heels into the ground to stop himself from crashing into the smaller boy.

Magnus looked uncomfortable. “Um, yes?”

“What in Hades?” Nico murmured. “What’s your last name?”

“Chase?” Magnus said, but it was more like a question.

“Of course.” Nico slapped his forehead. “Oh this is great!”

“What’s wrong?” Magnus asked.

“Nothing!” Nico said quickly. “Let’s keep going.”

Magnus and Leo exchanged a glance, but there was nothing they could do, so they trekked after Nico.

“So, what a coincidence we both don’t know our fathers, right, Magnus?” Leo asked, fishing for a conversation starter, then instantly regretting saying it.

“Yeah.” Magnus was quiet. He rung his hands repetitively.

“Did something bad happen with your parents?” Leo asked quietly. He mock-casually brushed his hand past Magnus’. Almost instinctively, it seemed to Leo, Magnus grabbed Leo’s hand for support.

Magnus took a deep breath. “I- I lost my home because my mother . . . there was a fire and . . .”

And suddenly, Leo was tumbling back through his own memories. The workshop, the lady, his anger. His hands catching on fire and the fire spreading and spreading and burning and burning and burning everything.

“Leo?” Magnus asked, squeezing his hand. “Is everything okay?”

“Y-yeah.” Leo tried to smile, but he was sure it looked weak and false. “Everything’s great.”

“Do you need to talk?” Magnus asked. Leo realised he was still holding Magnus’ hand, and dropped it quickly, not meeting Magnus’ eyes. Magnus would think he was weird for holding his hand. Leo hoped that Magnus hadn’t noticed.

“No.” Leo shook his head. “What’s your favourite animal?”

It was a sad excuse for a change of topic. A bad distraction. But Leo couldn’t face talking about that right now.

“Huh?” Magnus asked, clearly thrown off by Leo’s sudden change of topic.

“Personally, I’ve always like dragons.” Leo said.

“Dragons aren’t even real!” Magnus protested.

“Of course they are.” Leo said, grinning. “What else are you going to fight to defend your sewerage kingdom from?”

“Shut up.” Magnus grumbled, punching Leo’s shoulder lightly.

“So what’s your favourite animal?” Leo asked.

“Hmm . . .” Magnus hesitated. “I like horses.”

In front of them, Nico’s shoulders sagged. Magnus glanced at Leo, then asked, “What about you, Nico? What’s your favourite animal?”

“I don’t have one.” Nico said solemnly.

“Come on, there has to be some animal you like!” Leo said. “Cats? Birds? . . . Elephants? Oh, I know! Pangolins!”

"What?" Magnus asked.

"What about aye-ayes?" Leo continued. "Or . . . or axolotls?"

"Okay, I actually recognise that one." Magnus said.

"Tufted deer!" Leo snapped his fingers. "They're like normal deers, but with, like, fangs."

"That's pretty cool." Magnus said.

"So?" Leo asked the back of Nico's head.  "Did I guess correctly?"

"Ten bucks he didn't." Magnus added.

“Animals don’t really like me.” Nico said. “I think they can smell the- uh . . . um, but there’s a hel- dog. A dog. That a . . . friend of mine owns. She’s, um, pretty neat I guess.”

“You sure about that?” Leo asked, because Nico really didn’t seem to be confident in what he was saying.

“Yes. Please stop asking.” Nico said.

“What’s the dog’s name?” Magnus asked.

“Mrs O’Leary.” Nico said, not turning around.

“What?” Leo couldn’t help it. He burst out laughing. He was expecting something like ‘Spot’ or ‘Rover’. Or maybe, since this was a friend of Nico’s, something like ‘Doom’ or ‘Fang’. Not Mrs O’Leary. That was just ridiculous.

Nico shot a glare over his shoulder. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“It’s just an odd name, calm down dude!” Leo said.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t name her.” Nico said.

“Your friend must be terrible at naming things.” Leo said.

“He inherited her of an old man who died.” Nico said. “My friend didn’t name her.”

“That’s sweet of your friend.” Magnus said. “He must really care about Mrs O’Leary.”

“Yeah.” Nico said bitterly. “He does.”

The three fell into an awkward silence again. Nico started walking faster, and Magnus and Leo lagged behind.

Leo stared at the back of Nico’s head, wondering who the boy was. Was he the reason such weird things had been happening? The ordeal with the Canadian police – Magnus had retold Leo the story because he couldn’t remember it for some reason, had Nico been the only one to hit his head? – and Nico’s fight with them, then Nico making the three of them disappear out of the middle of Boston. And how Nico had a sword. And how Nico went on about weird things like a Camp of some kind. But Leo couldn’t imagine Nico going to a summer camp.

There were so many weird puzzle pieces that just didn’t fit together, no matter how Leo tried to figure it out.

“Did you ever have any pets?” Magnus asked.

“Huh?” It was Leo’s turn to be so lost in thought he’d forgotten what they were talking about.

“Did you ever have any pets?” Magnus repeated. “I just figured, since you were talking about animals before, maybe you’d had a pet?”

“Um, yeah. But no.” Leo said. “I’ve never had my own pet. There was a foster family I stayed with who had a couple of dogs. And one who had a pet snake. But I’ve never had my own pet.”

“Me neither.” Magnus said. “I always wanted a horse, but my mum and I lived in an apartment. And we didn’t have enough money to buy one anyway.”

Leo couldn’t say he’d ever wanted a pet. Other living things were always a little hard to understand. Especially humans. Take Nico for example. Although Leo thought there was a high chance he wasn’t a human. Maybe an alien, with all the weird stuff that had been happening. He imagined Nico’s grumpy face with green skin and antennae and Leo couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

Magnus stopped and stared at him strangely. Nico had stopped as well, and was looking at him in confusion. That just made Leo laugh harder as he pictured Nico in a spacesuit as well. Maybe it was the lack of food and water, and how weird the entire situation was, but Magnus started laughing too, although he had no reason to.

Nico just kept staring at them like they were the aliens. Finally, they calmed down. Leo was doubled over, supporting himself on his knees, and Magnus was holding Leo’s arm to steady himself.

Nico gave Leo a strange look and said, “Okay. I’m not even going to ask about whatever you two are laughing over. But hurry up, the gas station is right up there.”

Leo looked up and saw Nico was right. Only thirty or so metres away was said gas station, devoid of any cars, plastic gleaming in the bright sunlight.

“But we don’t have any money.” Leo realised.

“Leave it to me.” Nico said, smiling a devious smile that Leo had seen on himself many times. Leo wondered what the boy was planning.

Chapter Text

Magnus stared in silent confusion at Nico, who tossed Magnus his backpack back. It clanked heavily, and Magnus gasped and dropped it as the sudden, unexpected weight hit him in the chest. He knelt and opened it, finding it quite literally full of coins.

“What- how?” Magnus stuttered. Nico had taken his backpack and walked a little ways off the side of the road, instructing Leo and Magnus not to follow him. Leo had wanted to, but Magnus had made him stay put. A few minutes later Nico had returned with Magnus’ backpack full of currency and zero explanations.

“Don’t question a free gift.” Nico said. “Anyway, now we can go and buy some food, right?”

Magnus nodded, a little apprehensively, closing his backpack and slinging it over his shoulder. He wasn’t used to being so hungry all the time. He’d only been 'homeless' for three weeks, and while he had always been skinny, he had also always had three meals a day.

But now any food, even the junk sold at gas stations, sounded good to him at that moment.

The three boys trekked the remaining distance in silence. The automatic door opened with a soft buzz and a rush of cool, clean air swept over Magnus. He rushed inside, closely followed by Leo and Nico. Leo went straight for the candy isle, but Magnus first inspected the packs of crackers and sugary cereals. Nico was reading the label of a drink that looked both highly caffeinated and highly disgusting.

Magnus finally settled on a couple of packs of nut bars and a bag of chips and walked back to Nico’s side. Nico had returned the drink to the shelf and was now examining a bottle of water, clearly in deep thought.

“Uh, Nico?” Magnus tapped the younger boy’s shoulder. Nico literally jumped, staring around wildly.

“Oh, uh. Magnus.” Nico muttered. “Sorry, I was distracted.”

“With what?” Magnus asked.

“Nothing important.” Nico said. “What do you want?”

“Are you ready to pay?” Magnus asked.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Nico nodded. He tossed the bottle of water to Magnus and grabbed two more.

“Leo?” Magnus called.

“Wait!” Leo said. “You guys pay, I just need to. . .”

Leo didn’t finish, trailing off as he got distracted by something. Magnus and Nico walked to the counter, dumping their items on the counter, or Magnus did. Nico hadn’t taken anything but the bottles of water, a packet of painkiller and a flashlight. Magnus turned his attention to the register. The boy behind the counter was tall and thin, with pale skin, curly brown hair and freckles. He looked to be about 17, Magnus thought. His name tag read ‘TRAVIS STOLL’.

“Hey, Nico.” Travis Stoll greeted, with what Magnus thought was a hint of surprise in his voice. “What are you doing here with two mortals?”

Nico glared at him and Travis shut his mouth.

Magnus wanted to ask what Travis meant, but Magnus definitely did not like the way Nico was glaring at Travis, so instead he started counting out the right amount of coins to pay for his chips and crackers.

Nico grabbed a handful of coins and added them to Magnus' pile, leaning in to whisper to Travis. “Keep as much change as you want, just don’t tell Camp – no Chiron, no Percy, no Annabeth, no one. Or I swear on the River Styx I will make sure your afterlife is incredibly painful.”

“My lips are sealed.” Travis mimed locking his lips and throwing away the key.

“Good.” Nico snapped, grabbing his water and painkiller. “I’m waiting outside.”

Magnus pushed the rest of the food into his backpack as Nico stormed off. “So . . . you know Nico?”

Travis nodded. “Yeah.”

“He’s taking us back to Boston.” Magnus prompted.

“Oh, man, he really messed up, didn’t he?” Travis shook his head. “Good luck, buddy.”

Magnus zipped his bag closed and slung it over his shoulder. “Well . . . bye.”

He turned and found Leo behind him, arms full of various packets of lollies. Magnus snorted and shrugged off his backpack, fished out the packet of chips and then handed it to Leo. “There’s more coins in there. I’m going to go talk to Nico.”

Outside, Nico awas sitting in the shade of the cover of gas station, sipping from his bottle of water. Magnus walked over and plopped down next to him, opening a packet of chips. He wanted nothing more than to eat them himself, bag and all, but surely Nico hadn’t eaten in even longer. Magnus held out the bag, but Nico waved him off.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Magnus asked.

“I’ve had worse.” Nico said. “You eat it. I don’t want to waste your food.”

“Dude, you were the one who’s paying for this. If anything, I owe you.” Magnus said.

“Yeah, well.” Nico shrugged.

“So . . . you have a friend?” Magnus asked, recalling Nico talking about Mrs O’Leary, his friend’s dog.

“And you don’t?” Nico shot back.

“No. Not really.” Magnus shrugged. “They think I’m dead now I guess.”

Nico nodded solemnly, as if that made perfect sense.

“Anyway, how did we get here?” Magnus asked, trying to sound casual. He had tried to avoid thinking about it because, naturally, it made his head hurt and he felt sick just thinking about how he’d travelled so far in such a short amount of time.

“The less you know, the better. Trust me on that.” Nico said shortly.

They were silent for a few moments. Magnus fished around for something else to say. Something safe and normal.

“So . . . you asked about my family. If I tell you, it’s only fair you tell me in return.” Magnus finally said. Nico paled a bit, but Magnus ignored it. He had to admit, he was curious. Nico had thrown his life into chaos the moment he dropped unconscious in front of the sewer Magnus and Leo had been sheltered in.

“I never met my dad. My mum and I . . . never really talked about it much. It was just normal like that.” Magnus listed. “We went hiking and backpacking a lot. We didn’t see much of our family because mum and her brothers didn’t get along well. A few weeks back . . .”

Nico was looking at Magnus with an odd mix of pity and confusion. The pale boy tilted his head and said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I know how it feels to- to lose a loved one.”

“So what about your family?” Magnus forced his thoughts away from his mother.

“I was born in Venice, Italy.” Nico said eventually. “When I was . . . younger, we moved to America to . . . to get a better life. We stayed in a hotel for a while. Eventually a lawyer took us out and we went to a boarding school. Then . . . that’s when it gets really complicated.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Magnus asked.

“Me and my sister.” Nico said.

“You’re close?” Magnus guessed.

“We were.” Nico nodded. “She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry.” Magnus said.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault.” Nico said, looking away. “How did you and Leo meet?”

“It was seconds before we met you.” Magnus said. “He was in that drain and I was returning from looking for something to eat when it started raining. We made some small talk then you fell down.”

“Really?” Nico sounded surprised. “You two seem . . . close.”

“Oh. Um . . .” Magnus felt his cheeks heat up, though he knew that was ridiculous. He hardly even knew Leo at all.

Magnus knew that Leo had run away from a foster home, and that he was funny and his hands were warm and he made killer flower chains. And that his hair smelled like smoke - probably. Wow, Magnus needed to stop thinking about that.

“Hey guys!”

Magnus felt relief course through him at the sound of Leo’s voice. Talking to Nico was interesting, but it was also intense and scary in a strange way that Magnus hadn’t really realised until Leo had appeared. Talking to Leo was much easier and much more pleasant.

Leo crossed the empty car park and plopped down next to Magnus, dumping the backpack between the two and pulling out a bar of chocolate. Magnus noticed Nico watching him and Leo carefully.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?” Magnus asked again.

“I’m sure.” Nico nodded. “We should find somewhere to spend the night.”

“Is there anywhere to go?” Leo asked. “In the middle of nowhere?”

“We could try hitchhiking.” Magnus suggested.

“I’ve always wanted to try hitchhiking!” Leo exclaimed. “Or just driving. Just you and your car and the wide open road. No worries whatsoever.”

“Nope. Too risky.” Nico said. “Knowing my luck we’ll probably be murdered.”

Leo laughed, but Nico didn't look like he'd been joking.

“We could try camping.” Magnus suggested.

“Camping?” Nico asked.

“You know, with a tent.” Magnus said. “I used to go camping all the time with my- . . . with my mum.”

“We don’t have one.” Leo pointed out. “A tent, I mean. Not a mom. Although we don’t have any of those either. With us. Or . . . at all . . . okay. I regret opening my mouth. Sorry.”

“Yeah.” Magnus couldn’t help it, the word came out bitter.

“Travis probably can get us a tent.” Nico muttered to his feet.

Magnus perked up. “He can? How?”

“I’ll talk to him.” Nico pushed himself to his feet and walked off muttering, “I never should have ended up in Boston, shouldn’t have gone there in the first place . . .”

Personally, Magnus agreed. No one should ever have gone to Boston. Everything bad that had ever happened to him had happened to him in Boston. Well, since he’d rarely ever been out of Massachusetts, there wasn’t much of a chance for anything bad to happen anywhere else.

But that was beside the point.

“Sorry, about the comment before.” Leo said quietly, leaning back. He wasn’t meeting Magnus’ eyes when the blonde glanced over, instead he was staring into the trees on the other side of the highway.

“It’s fine.” Magnus said. “You didn’t think, those things happen.”

“So we’re cool?” Leo asked, turning to smile hopefully at Magnus.

“We’re cool.” Magnus agreed, although with Leo looking at him like that, head tilted so his curly hair that probably smelled like smoke bounced slightly, brown eyes wide like a lovesick puppy’s and just the hint of a hopeful, Magnus felt very uncomfortably warm.

Chapter Text

“Alright, di Angelo, what are you doing with two mortals outside of Camp?” Travis asked, leaning forwards as if to avoid being overheard, although there was no one else in the deserted gas station.

“First of all, they’re demigods. I think.” Nico stuck his hands in the pockets of his aviator jacket, leaning back so there was still a comfortable distance between him and Travis Stoll. “Second, they would be in Camp if the barrier would let them in.”

“What?”

“I tried to take them both directly to Camp.” Nico said defensively. “But the boarder wouldn’t let us in. No clue why, but to Hades if I’m arguing with the gods themselves.”

Travis raised his eyebrows but simply shrugged.

“So what are you doing here?” Nico asked, taking in Travis’ hideous work uniform.

“It’s easier to steal- I mean, get free stuff if I work here.” Travis said, gesturing to said clothes. “So I have a job.”

“No, really? I thought you were volunteering.” Nico rolled his eyes.

Travis laughed, actually laughed. Nico had expected him to get offended or simply stare at Nico for an uncomfortably long time. But this wasn’t any better. Nico shifted his weight from foot to foot, not really sure what to make of the situation. People didn’t laugh when he was around. Even Magnus and Leo barely smiled when talking to him.

“That wasn’t so bad, di Angelo.” Travis said finally. “Jokes – I didn’t know you had them in you.”

Nico was unable to find a reply, so he simply stared at Travis until the son of Hermes said, “So what are you doing next?”

“Well, we can’t go to Camp Half-Blood, clearly. So I’ll return them to Boston, erase their minds and pretend like none of this ever happened.” Nico said.

“You’re what?” Travis slammed the heels of his palms into the counter in shock.

“Returning them to-”

“I heard what you said,” Travis interrupted. “But dude, you can’t just leave two unclaimed demigods alone in the streets! They’ll be killed.”

“They’ve made it this far and by the looks of it they’re both at least thirteen.” Nico mumbled, sort of realising that maybe Travis had a point and it was a stupid idea to leave them both to fend for themselves.

“Well, whatever you say man, you’re the one with power over death.” Travis shrugged.

Nico scowled. “That’s not exactly how it works.”

“Look, I’m not one to mess with Hades.” Travis held up his hands defensively. “So I’m going to trust you on that.”

Nico looked at Travis critically, but before he could ask anything else, there was the rumble of a car and the two demigods peered out the window.

The first thing he saw was Leo and Magnus, sitting much closer together than when Nico had been with them. Leo was leaning back on his hands, laughing, while Magnus was staring at him with a small smile on his face. Nico scowled, stomach twisting. Magnus couldn’t have been telling the truth when he said that he and Leo had only known each other for a few minutes before Nico dropped into their lives. The way Magnus was looking at Leo, well, it reminded Nico uncomfortably of how he himself looked at Percy Jackson. No one looked at someone they barely knew the way Magnus was looking at Leo.

And pulling up beside one of the gas pumps was a car so covered in rust and mud that Nico couldn't tell its original colouring. Nico wasn't an expert on cars, but he knew that it was an expensive model. Which was odd. Nico had usually found that people with expensive cars usually tended to care for their care like it was a child.

Not these people apparently. Then one of the doors opened and a man wearing a trench coat stepped out, lifted a black-gloved hand to tug at the broad brim of his hat. Nico couldn't see any of his face, but he didn't need to. He recognised the man. It was the same guy who had had a conversation with a decapitated head in a public bathroom at midnight.

But how? How was he here now? How had he known where they were so fast, and how had he gotten there?

“You okay there?” Travis’ voice snapped Nico out of his thoughts.

“Just great.” Nico muttered.

"Monster?" Travis pointed a thumb at the guy in a trench coat, with the causality of someone who had fought hoards of monsters in the process of stopping the end of the world.

"Afraid so." Nico agreed, hand itching on the hilt of his sword.

The guy, monster, in the trench coat, looked about through dark sunglasses, then started walking straight towards Leo and Magnus, who had by now noticed the new arrival, and were glancing worriedly towards the gas station.

Travis sighed, then grinned. "Let's go kick some monster butt."

Chapter Text

"Yep." Leo muttered. "He's definitely walking towards us."

"So, um, what do we do?" Magnus hissed back.

Leo considered the options, still watching the guy in the trench coat from the corner of his eyes. He'd been cornered by people like this before, bigger and stronger than him, menacing, with knives or guns or even just fists. Leo hoped this man didn't have a knife or gun.

Options, options, what were their options? They could run, definitely outrun this guy, wearing dark clothing in the midday heat. But he did have a car. Leo doubted they could take this guy, he was a lot bigger than them. And what on earth was taking Nico so long? Couldn't he see that there was a creepy guy?

"Leo." Magnus glanced about worriedly.

"Don't let him see you're nervous." Leo stuffed his half-eaten bag of chips into his backpack and stood up, brushing off his ratty jeans. Magnus stood up too, thankfully. Leo leaned in towards Magnus slightly, partly to offer support to him and partly to comfort himself. The guy in the trench coat stopped. Leo couldn't make out any of his details, he was covered head to toe, boots, gloves, a scarf around his lower face, sunglasses, a hat and that creepy trench coat.

"Hey." Leo's voice was not trembling. "Uh, the gas pump's back there. You missed it by a metre . . . or five . . ."

The guy in the trench coat glanced back towards his car. Leo glanced at it too, nice car, he couldn't tell what model because it was covered in dust, though. In the driver's seat, peering anxiously over the steering wheel, was a man who looked vaguely familiar. He had white hair, was wearing black leather and a red and white scarf, like a candy cane. Leo couldn't remember where he'd seen him from. The driver made a shooing motion and the guy in the trench coat turned back to Leo and Magnus.

Before anything else could happen, a voice echoed across the asphalt. A boy was standing half way between the car and the service station's building, wearing an obnoxious uniform. "Is that man bothering you two by any chance?"

"Uh . . ." Leo glanced at Magnus, who looked back blankly. "Yep. I think, yes."

"Hey there, pal." The boy in the uniform continued, now walking towards the guy in the trench coat, seemingly unafraid. "I'll give you one chance to leave. We don't want any trouble. If not . . . well, you won't like what happens, I can tell you that."

Where was Nico? Leo strained his neck and saw the kid standing in the shadow of the gas station, arms crossed, watching the scene unfold. The guy in the trench coat turned sharply on his heels to face the boy in the uniform.

"Trust me, we don't want no trouble either." His voice was deep and muffled from the scarf pulled over his mouth and nose. "This isn't what it looks like-"

"Is that so? Because to me it looks like a monster about to attack to innocent half-bloods." The guy in the uniform stuck out his chest.

"Monster?" Magnus asked softly. Leo shrugged, he'd thought he misheard. He must of. Right?

"Greeks." The guy in the trench coat hissed, then turned to the car. "Hearth, we gotta get out of here!"

"Hang on just one second." Nico was suddenly beside Travis, glaring at the car. "This is weird, even by my standards. One second you're about to kill those two, the next you're backing away, just because there's more of us. It's not like monsters to suddenly grow some brains. So what's going on here? Because you two sure as Hades don't have mortal lifespans."

"You're a son of-"

"Don't." Nico hissed, hand on the sword at his belt. Right. He had a sword. Leo kept forgetting about that.

Trench coat raised his gloved hands. "Listen, this is all a mistake-"

"Nico, get them to safety." The boy in the uniform pointed at Leo and Magnus. "I'll hold these two off."

"But-"

"Just do it."

"Camp-"

"Somewhere else, surely you have places when you're not around-"

"Alright, alright, fine!" Nico shot a glare at the boy beside him, then stepped back and disappeared.

"Wai-" The guy in the trench coat was cut off, or maybe Leo and Magnus were cut off, because at that second, Leo felt Nico's hand on his shoulder and he was pulled away into darkness.

Chapter Text

They were in a kind of back alley, Magnus guessed, or maybe a ghost town? It was hard to tell. After the darkness of . . . whatever Nico had just done, the sun was near blinding. But beyond the too-bright light, he could see crumbling cement walls on either side of him, pressing in too close to be a road. The walls were short. Too short to be the walls of an apartment block.

“Where are we?” Leo muttered, blinking as his eyes adjusted.

“Um. No idea. Nico?” Magnus asked.

Nico looked around slowly, then his eyes slid shut and he fell. Magnus leapt forwards and caught Nico before he hit the ground.

“He needs to stop doing that.” Magnus muttered.

“What just happened?” Leo asked. “Where are we? What is happening?”

Magnus lowered Nico to the ground then sat down beside the unconscious boy, shading his eyes with a hand as he looked around. They weren’t in any sort of alleyway, Magnus decided. They were on a cement path lined with small, mostly identical cement houses on either side. But they weren’t exactly houses. There were no doors, no windows, they were much too small and, despite their run-down nature, much too decorative to be houses. Maybe it was a ghost town of some sort?

Leo flopped down next to Magnus and began wringing his hands together. Leo was sitting a little closer than Magnus thought nesesrcary, their legs were almost touching, was that normal? Why was he thinking about that, there were much more important things to worry about right now.

“Look at that.” Leo said, pointing up the path to something that definitely wasn’t a house of any sort. It was fenced off by a short, iron railing. The building itself was round, white and had a statue of a woman holding a large cross on the top of it. Magnus looked around. There were no people in sight.

“I guess we should go have a closer look?” Magnus murmured.

“That’d be cool.” Leo hummed.

“What about Nico?” Magnus asked as an afterthought. The boy was sprawled across the path and, although there were no people as far as Magnus could hear or see, he didn’t want to take any chances. He mightn’t blink twice at the sight of a kid fast asleep at midday in the middle of whatever this place was, but other people probably would.

“What if we just, uh, push him back into the shadows so that no one steps on him?” Leo offered sheepishly.

“What? We can’t do that!”

“We can totally do that, no one would even see him.” Leo argued back.

“But-”

“He’s not going to wake up any time soon.” Leo said, running a hand through his hair and making it bounce like campfire flames and Magnus wondered again if he smelt like smoke?

“Alright.” Magnus said. Wait what were they talking about? Nico. Right. Duh.

“Okay, he’s pretty light, right? So we can probably roll him over easy-peasy.” Leo figured.

“Yeah.” Magnus agreed. After a few moments, he and Leo managed to shove Nico into the shadow of one of the cement house-things. Leo was right, Nico did practically blend in to the shadows. Magnus stood up and dusted his hands off. Leo was still crouched by Nico’s head, examining the cement building.

“This place is old.” Leo mumbled.

“Well, even I can tell that.” Magnus said.

Leo shrugged and climbed to his feet. The two of them turned back to the white building.

“Fancy tomb, huh?” Leo asked, staring up at the white building.

“Tomb?”

“Yeah.” Leo nodded. “The cross, the statue, the fact that this is a graveyard? I’m guessing that that’s a tomb.”

“This is a graveyard?” Magnus suddenly felt marginally less okay with leaving Nico unconscious in the shadow of a crumby old tomb.

“Duh?”

“Oh. I’ve, I’ve never seen a graveyard like this.” Magnus rubbed the back of his neck.

“Huh.” Leo ran a hand through his hair again. Had he been doing that more than normal? Or was Magnus just weirdly observant at the moment? And why did it make Leo look that much better? And what?

“Um. Well. Let’s go look at it.” Magnus said, really not wanting to continue that line of thought.

The two walked along the path, past the concrete tombs that, now Magnus looked closer, were obviously tombs. There were statues of crosses, rusting plaques full of names and messages carved into the stone.

“So, I know we’re in a graveyard.” Magnus said. “But do you know where this graveyard is?”

“Nope.” Leo said. “Well, other than somewhere in America probably, nope. It’d be a little creepy if I did.”

Magnus shrugged and hummed in agreement, looking up at the tomb ahead of them. A niche in the rounded wall of the tomb made room for the life-size statue of a lady in a crown and dress. Below the niche, the word ‘ITALIA’ was engraved in the stone. On either side of the statue, the rounded walls were decorated with what looked to be drawers, three high, with handles on them.

“What a weird tomb.” Leo said as they came to the fence separating them from the tomb. “Baroque style architecture, made of marble, obviously Italian.”

“How do you know that?” Magnus asked.

“It says Italia on it. Wild guess – that means Italy.” Leo grinned. “It doesn’t take a genius to work that out.”

Magnus snorted and rolled his eyes. “I meant, how did you know what style of architecture it was?”

Leo shrugged. “I dunno. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“No?”

Leo shrugged again. “Dunno if any of that has any significance, though.”

Magnus glanced back down the path to where Nico was unconscious and obscured by shadows. “The name ‘Nico’ is Italian, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, that tomb’s Italian. Nico might be Italian. Maybe there’s a connection?”

“Oh. Good point.” Leo said.

“Doesn’t take a genius to work it out.” Magnus smirked at Leo. The other boy tried and failed to look pissed off.

“So, Nico’s family is probably buried in this tomb or something, what now?” Leo asked and Magnus choked on the air.

“You can’t just say that!” He gasped, torn between laughing and remaining indignant.

“I can too, I just did.” Leo stuck his tongue out at Magnus.

“Yeah, but- disrespecting the dead! You can’t do that!” Magnus was definitely laughing now.

“I can disrespect them all I like. They’re dead, they can’t hear me.” Leo said, turning to the tomb. “Hey zombies, your taste in architecture sucks. You’re buried in a chest of drawers. You know what else belongs stuffed in the bottom of drawers behind your socks, that’s right-”

“Okay, okay, okay, enough.” Magnus managed around his laughter. He put a hand to Leo’s mouth in a mock-attempt to shut the other boy up. Leo dissolved into laughter as well, grabbing Magnus’ wrist and pulling it away from his mouth.

After a few long moments, Magnus took a deep breath and composed himself. “Alright. We’ve hidden Nico in a graveyard and pissed off all the vengeful ghosts in the area, what now?”

“Let’s check it out.” Leo said.

“What? The drawers? There could be dead bodies in there!”

“But isn’t that cool?”

“Dude, there’s a difference between telling them their architecture is dumb and disturbing their spirit.” Magnus said.

“I know. I wanted to check out the statue though.” Leo running a hand through his hair again and this time Magnus noticed that it wasn’t the hand that Leo’d used to pull Magnus’ hand away, because Leo’s hand was still on Magnus’ wrist and that was way too many times to think the word hand and should they hold hands or would that be weird?

“C’mon.” Leo tugged on Magnus’ wrist and began climbing over the fence without letting go. Magnus followed the smaller boy and they found themselves eye-level with the statue’s feet.

“I’m gonna climb it.” Leo decided.

“Leo! Don’t!” Magnus protested.

“I just want to look.” Leo protested. “I’m not going to damage it.”

Magnus made a noise that was part disapproving and part disappointed as Leo let go of his wrist and began to climb up the tomb.

“We could get in big trouble if anyone saw us.” Magnus said.

“There’s no one around.” Leo said.

“You don’t know that.”

“You can be my lookout.” Leo was standing in front of the statue now, examining it.

“Just so you know, if we’re spotted, I’m gonna run.”

“You’d leave me here?” Leo glanced back, pouting, but his wide brown eyes glittered with humour.

“I totally would.” Magnus smirked.

“So rude.” Leo started climbing again, scaling the statue and heaving himself onto the tomb’s roof and disappeared from Magnus’ line of sight.

“What are you looking for?” Magnus called up.

“I dunno.” Leo called back. “I just have a hunch that there’s something- huh, weird.”

“What is it?”

“Come here and have a look.”

“Seriously Leo?”

“Come on up and look.”

Magnus sighed, but began to scale the tomb. For someone who was both small and scrawny, Leo had made it look easier than it was, but Magnus finally managed to scrambled onto the tomb’s roof. He glanced up to where Leo was inspecting the statue of the woman with the cross. The cross was marginally taller than the woman. The woman herself was dressed in a long gown and a veil pushed back so her face was revealed. She held the cross steady with one hand.

“So what am I looking at?” Magnus asked.

“C’mere, look at this.” Leo was peering at the cross. “There’s a nine engraved on it. That’s weird, right?”

“Maybe it stands for something? Are there other numbers? It could be part of a date?” Magnus said, climbing right up next to Leo. There wasn’t much space on the little ledge they stood on and Magnus grabbed Leo’s hand for support.

Just for support.

Wow his hands were warm.

“Nope. Just a nine.” Leo said, staring intently at the statue. As if on an impulse, Leo reached out and touched the number. There was a sound like cracking stone and the statue began to move.

It – she? – she blinked, tilting her head to the side as she examined the two boys.

Magnus wasn’t sure who was more surprised, the statue or him and Leo.

“That statue is moving.” Leo gaped. “Tell me I’m not going crazy, that statue is moving!”

“You’re not going crazy. That statue is moving.” Magnus managed.

The statue – the moving statue – spoke. “Greetings, son of Hephaestus. How may I serve thee?”

Chapter Text

Nico managed to avoid falling into the fields of Asphodel, where the demons that took the forms of Percy and Bianca waited half-formed in his mind to torment him. No, this time he plunged straight through the burning heat and dried, brittle grass into frigid darkness. Shivers ran down his spine, like electricity dancing through his bones. There was a tugging on his clothes, like a tide. He blinked, trying to clear his vision and see beyond the overwhelming blackness.

There was something now, a barely distinguishable green-white glow, too blurry to be a clear shape, but definitely there nonetheless. Nico watched apprehensively as the shape grew larger, closer, clearer. It wasn’t just a light, it was something glowing. A paler sickly green light flickered from the shape, blinding Nico.

He squinted through his lashes, making out a rounded shape. It was a soft pinkish colour, with patches of rust-coloured . . . hair? And were those two brilliant blue eyes?

Yes. Yes they were. Because that was a decapitated head. The same head that seemingly belonged to those two monsters that kept showing up everywhere. The same head that was exuded godly power.

What had the two monsters called it? Capo?

The head came to a stop, uncomfortably close to Nico. Too close for his liking.

It opened its mouth, revealing its crooked yellow teeth, and laughed. “Ah, there you are. Hello little demigod. You just keep causing trouble, don’t you?”

Nico reached for his sword, only to find it wasn’t there. Stupid dream.

“What would you do if you had it? Decapitate me?” The head burst into laughter again. “You’re too late! The Vanir beat you to it, kiddo.”

“What do you want?” Nico was too busy being surprised and annoyed to register that he was talking underwater.

“What do I want? You were the one who summoned me here.” Capo answered, lovely and cryptic as things always were.

“I didn’t-”

“Clearly someone doesn’t know their own powers. Now what do you want?”

Nico scowled. “Nothing! I want you and your stupid monster sidekicks to leave me alone, but-”

“That’s rather rude, considering it’s our world you are sticking your little nose into.” The head cackled.

“What are you talking about?” Nico demanded.

“Ah, so you do want something.” The head figured.

“Well, I guess.” Nico muttered.

“Now, I wouldn’t do this for just anyone, especially not a Greek.” The head had a grotesque twitching motion, one eye scrunching shut in what Nico realised was supposed to be a wink. “But you’re a good customer. Eighty years is an admirable amount of time for anyone to spend in a casino. So I’ll give you some free advice, just this once.”

Nico frowned. Free lunches didn’t exist. Whatever knowledge this head had, Nico didn’t think he was just going to tell him. There would be a catch. Or, perhaps the head was lying.

“You don’t believe me. Fine, fine.” Capo said breezily. “I’ll tell you anyway and you can do what you will with the info. You wanna leave the blondie to Blitz and Hearth. They’ll look after him. Trust me, he has big things ahead of him, in his own world.”

“What world would that be?” Nico forced himself to ask.

“You’re a smart kid, figure it out.” The head said, then cleared its non-existent throat with a soundlike a car engine spluttering and dying. “Anyway, you wanna leave him to us. We’ll take good care of him. I’m not interested in letting him die – don’t end well for no one, believe me. He may be scrawny now, but-”

“And what if I don’t trust you?” Nico raised an eyebrow. This disembodied head was sounding less and less trustworthy with every word that fell from its wizened mouth. Maybe it brain had become waterlogged and-

“-he’ll grow up just fine.” Capo ploughed on as if Nico hadn’t interrupted. “Well, after he dies of course.”

“Excuse me? Do you want to protect him or kill him?” Nico wished his subconscious had thought to arm him because he could really do with a sword right about now.

The head squinted at him for a moment, then hacked out another laugh. “This isn’t your first time prying into forbidden information, is it? No, you have a nasty habit of testing gods who could very easily smite you.”

“My mother was different.” Nico snapped, face heating up. How did Capo know about that? “That was personal.”

“Sad, very sad, but very good for business.” Capo said. “I’m afraid that our time here is coming to an end. It’s in your best interests to wake up soon. Are you a fan of wolves?”

“Wolves?”

The head attempted to wink again. “Good luck. Next time don’t run away because, believe it or not, we ain’t gonna be the ones to kill the son of Frey.”

Then Capo disappeared, taking his pale green glow with him and leaving Nico submerged in darkness. Before he had any time to try and process what had just happened, a loud scream shocked him into consciousness.

Chapter Text

“Son of what now?” Leo asked, glancing at Magnus. The other boy looked just as confused as Leo felt. He hissed to Magnus, “Is it talking to me? It’s talking to me, right?”

Magnus nodded slowly, squeezing Leo’s hand comfortingly.

Leo looked back to the statue, which stared back with a stony expression. “How are you . . . alive?”

“I am not alive, sir, thou have wakened me.” The statue said. “How may I serve thee?”

“How did I, uh, awaken you?” Leo asked.

“The touch of a child of Hephaestus shall activate me.” The statue said. “How may I serve thee?”

“First of all, you can stop repeating yourself.” Leo said. “Secondly, a child of what now?”

“Child of Hephaestus.” The statue intoned.

“What – or who – is that?” Leo asked, looking over to Magnus, who looked just as lost as Leo felt.

“You know not of your own father?” The statue raised a sculpted eyebrow.

“Don’t you love it when people don’t answer your questions?” Leo said to Magnus.

Magnus laughed quietly. “How are you not freaking out right now?”

Leo shook his head. “Trust me, much weirder things have happened.”

“So, um, who is Hephaestus?” Magnus asked.

“My sculptor,” the statue said, “and thine father, son of Hephaestus.”

“Yeah, but who is he? And how do you know that? And okay, I’m starting to freak out a little.” Leo admitted. It was decidedly creepy, this statue. It was talking. And it knew him? Or . . . his father?

“The father of the forge, and of fire, Hephaestus.” The statue intoned.

“The way it says that makes this Hephaestus guy sound like a . . . god?” Magnus murmured.

The statue nodded solemnly.

Leo shook his head. “That- that can’t be right. I’m dreaming. I’m just dreaming. I’ve been dreaming ever since that storm in Boston. I went to sleep in the drain, caught pneumonia and now I’m having one long fever dream.”

This time, the statue shook its head.

Leo turned to Magnus and gave his best serious-face. “Magnus, the talking statue is telling me my father’s god.”

“A god.” The statue said.

Magnus sniggered. “Does that make me best friends with Jesus? Can you do anything cool? Turn water into wine? Walk on water?”

“I can hardly even swim.” Leo mumbled.

“Really?”

“Well, growing up in Texas doesn’t do wonders for my swimming abilities. I can stay afloat, but not much else.” Leo said, not meeting Magnus’ eyes. Eager to change the subject, he turned back to the statue. “So do you have a name, or . . .?”

“I hath a name.” The statue smiled. “I am Charity.”

“So is my friend here some sort of anomaly or are we both hallucinating from starvation or something?” Magnus asked.

“He is a son of Hephaestus. The first one I hath spoken to in many years.” Charity said.

“How do you know he’s a son of Hephaestus?” Magnus asked.

“And wait, ‘a son of Hephaestus’? Does that mean there are more of them?” Leo demanded.

“I know he is a son of Hephaestus as he hath wakened me.” Charity said. “And, son of Hephaestus, surely thou do not think thou are the first?”

“Alright, let me get this straight.” Leo took a deep breath. “A talking statue is telling me my father is a god, who has also had other children.”

“Indeed. How may I serve thee?” The statue said.

“What do you mean by ‘serve thee’?”

“Surely I hath been awoken for a purpose, son of Hephaestus.” Charity said.

“Okay, you calling me son of Hephaestus is getting weird.” Leo decided. “I’m Leo. And that’s Magnus.”

“And we have a pal called Nico too, but he’s sleeping near a grave back that way.” Magnus pointed over his shoulder.

Leo sniggered. “Sleeping like the dead.”

He felt a sense of satisfaction as Magnus rolled his eyes and grinned in return. Then that satisfaction drained away, replaced by an uncomfortable, almost familiar feeling as the statue said, “Very well, Leo. Thou hast awoken me with a purpose, hath thou not?”

“Um, nope.” Leo shook his head. “I just sort of . . . did it by accident?”

“There is no purpose I must fulfil?” Charity asked.

“Well, you could tell us what is going on.” Leo suggested.

“How would thou expect me to know? I hath been asleep for decades before thou woke me.” Charity put the hand not supporting her giant cross on her hip.

“Getting sassed by a giant statue is not how I envisioned my afternoon going.” Magnus said.

Leo laughed. “You and me both.”

There was a moment of silence and, as if fate had been planning it, a wolf howl ripped through the air, tearing the strange solace of the graveyard to shreds. Leo felt Magnus’ hand clench his, uncomfortably hard. The blond had stiffened, glancing around with frightened eyes.

“Magnus?” Leo asked.

“The wolves- they- they-” Magnus looked up at Leo, then out towards the rest of the graveyard. His eyes widened and he screamed, loud and ear-splitting. Leo looked over to where Magnus was staring and saw a tear in the ground, between two tombs with wild looking wolves with glowing eyes were clawing their way up into the graveyard. Magnus turned back to Leo, looking paler than ever.

“Wolves.” He muttered, then promptly collapsed into Leo’s arms, eyes rolling back in his head.

“And now,” Leo muttered, “he’s fainted. Wonderful. Okay Charity, I think I hath something for you to do. Get rid of those wolves.”

Chapter Text

When Magnus came to, he was laying on the roof of the tomb, arm dangling off its edge. He blinked, disorientated. What was going on? Where was Leo? And that freaky talking statue? Had that been real? Then the shrieking howl of a wolf met his ears.

He felt his heart beating in his chest. Where was Leo? Was he okay?

Magnus sat up, looking about wildly. Leo was standing on the top of the tomb, one hand sheltering his eyes, staring out at something that Magnus couldn’t see because the domed roof of the tomb was in the way. Then there was a crash and the sound of a wolf yelping in pain, and Leo whooped, leaping up and punching the air.

“Leo?” Magnus asked, voice croaky.

“Maggie!” Leo turned. His eyes lit up and he scrambled down the roof to Magnus’ side.

“Don’t call me that,” Magnus mumbled.

“You’re alive!” Leo offered him a hand, pulling him to his feet. “Wait, wait, come look at what the statue can do!”

Leo dragged Magnus up the roof of the tomb again, so they both precariously stood on the top. Leo put a hand around his shoulders – just to support him, Magnus was sure, because his legs felt like jelly.

“Look!” Leo pointed.

The wolves were still there, and there were more than before. At least half a dozen of them, with glowing blue eyes, glittering silver fur and deadly sharp teeth. They were bigger than a normal wolf, at least as big as the tombs they prowled by. And there was Charity the statue, stabbing at one of them with her cross, which had a deadly sharp stone point on the bottom end. For something made entirely of stone, the statue was very nimble.

Magnus’ heart was pounding in his chest, there was a lump in his throat.

“You don’t like wolves, huh?” Leo asked softly.

“Mmm.” Magnus managed to agree.

“Oh, for Zeus’ sake!” The yell came from beneath them.

They looked down, Magnus was glad to have an excuse to stop staring at the wolves, and saw Nico, hands on his hips, glaring up at them.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Watching Charity fight the wolves!” Leo called back.

“WHAT?” Nico demanded.

“We found a talking statue and it’s fighting wolves.” Leo yelled back.

Another howl curled through the air. Magnus looked back at the wolves, petrified of what he might see. One of them had the end of Charity’s stone cross in its mouth and was tugging at it like it was a giant rubber bone.

“I leave you two alone for five minutes!” Nico cursed.

“It was a little longer than five minutes.” Leo commented.

“You two stay there, don’t move.”the Italian boy instructed.

“Not planning on it.” Magnus promised.

And then Nico was running straight towards the wolves, sword drawn.

“He has a death wish.” Magnus mumbled. “He actually has a death wish.”

“Magnus, um, not to make the worst out of a terrible situation, but remember that creep in a trench coat from earlier today?” Leo whispered.

“Yeah?” Magnus felt his stomach sinking.

“Well, uh, look over there.” Leo pointed out over the fence of the graveyard. A dust-covered car had pulled to a stop and two familiar-looking characters were staring into the graveyard. The guy with the wide brimmed hat and the trench coat and his friend who looked like he’d stepped out of a black and white film, save for the red-and-white striped scarf around his neck. Trench coat nudged his friend and pointed at them.

“Should we wave back?” Leo joked, but Magnus could tell he was only saying it to ease the tension.

“How did they get here? How do they know where we are?” He demanded. “This is really creepy.”

Another howl split the air and Magnus turned his attention back to the wolves, leaning into Leo for support. His hair did smell like smoke and why was that what came to Magnus’ mind right now?

Another howl and his attention was drawn back to the wolves. The one that had been playing tug-of-war with Charity the statue had stolen her giant cross and was chewing on it as if it were a dog toy. Nico was facing off against another wolf, clearly trying to stab it in the eye.

“Is there anything we can do?” Leo said.

“How about hide?” Magnus mumbled.

Leo laughed, but Magnus thought it sounded more than a little forced. He couldn’t blame him.

“But really,” he asked. “Can we?”

“I think we’re probably safer up here.” Leo said speculatively. “I don’t fancy our chances down there with them.”

“Fair enough.” Magnus ignored how his voice cracked as he stared at the wolves, trying not to think about the last time he’d seen wolves, their glowing eyes glaring through the flames, blood still dripping from their fangs.

He looked away and found himself staring at Trench Coat and Scarf,who were running right towards them. How the guy with the scarf could run without tripping on it – it was so long – was beyond him.

“So you know our little problem?” Magnus asked Leo.

“Yeah?”

“Well it’s about to get a whole lot bigger.”

Leo spun around to stare in the direction Magnus pointed. “Oh, sh-”

“Hey kids!” The guy in the trench coat yelled, coming to a stop at the base of the tomb. “You may wanna get down from there!”

“Uh, haha, maybe not!” Leo yelled back. “There’s some bad doggies over that way.”

The guy with the scarf tapped the other guy on the shoulder and began . . . signing? Yes, Magnus definitely recognised that as sign language, not that he knew what the signs meant.

“Listen, we don’t want to hurt you!” trench coat yelled up. “We can help you. Just come with us.”

“Yeah that sounds like a trustworthy thing to say.” Leo mumbled.

Another howl split the air and Magnus jumped, grabbing Leo’s hand to steady himself. A wolf had rounded the corner and was now standing, staring at the two guys below Leo and Magnus’ tomb.

“So, if the wolf eats them, that’s one less problem for us.” Leo said.

Magnus squeezed his hand. “Shut up dude, this isn’t funny.”

“Wolves can’t climb, right? We should be fine.” Leo paused, then said, “And if the wolves eat those two there’s less enemies for us to deal with.”

The wolf let out an excited yap - could wolves yap? Magnus didn’t know – and charged towards them. He peered back down to where the base of the tomb, but the two guys weren’t standing on the ground anymore. Nope, they had climbed over the low fence and were now scaling the tomb.

“Hate to break it to you Leo, but the two people who’ve started climbing our tomb aren’t wolves.”

Leo peered over the edge then mumbled something about statues and cursed under his breath.

“Okay, we didn’t plan for this.” Magnus told Leo. “What do we do?”

“Can we push him off?” Leo asked.

“That could break his neck!”

“So that’s a yes?”

“No!” He shoved Leo lightly.

Trench coat reached the roof first, heaving himself up onto the tomb and adjusting his hat to properly cover his face. He was panting from exhaustion, but still turned to help Scarf clamber onto the roof.

A moment later a thud as the wolf smashed against the tomb. Magnus thought he could feel the structure shuddering.

“Not the Italian Benevolent Tomb,” the guy in the trench coat panted, “the architecture-”

His friend shoved him, as if to tell him to shut up and sort out his priorities.

Leo glanced at him. “I mean, he has a point. Damaging this tomb would-”

“Shut up!” Magnus hissed. “We have more important things to deal with.”

Trench coat continued, “The stonework on the statue-”

“And the fact that it can apparently come to life!” Leo added.

“Yea- what?” Trench Coat demanded.

Leo pointed over his shoulder. Magnus glanced behind them. Charity the statue’s cross had been broken in two, while the statue herself was clubbing the wolf that had broken it over the head with one stone arm. Nico had been backed into a corner by two more wolves. Meanwhile, the wolf that had rammed itself headfirst into their tomb was now prowling around its base, snarling.

Great, Magnus thought, turning away. He would actually prefer facing the two creepy guys that kept showing up everywhere to those giant wolves with glowing blue eyes. Scarf was talking in sign language again, Magnus realised, and Trench Coat was nodding along seriously.

Trench Coat shook his head. “No. We’re sticking together-”

He fell silent as the one with the scarf continued. Magnus glanced at Leo, who was looked back at him and shrugged.

“I mean, they’re not that scary?” Leo offered.

“No! Hearth, that’s never going to work!” Trench Coat burst out.

The other one, Hearth, continued signing frantically.

“Yes, of course I trust you, but- I know it’s daytime, I can still- by Thor’s hammer, Hearth! Can you even hear yourself right now?”

Hearth gave the guy in the trench coat such a pointed look that Magnus couldn’t help but snicker.

“Okay, sorry.” Trench Coat sighed. “But seriously- HEARTHSTONE!”

Hearth had turned and jumped off the roof of tomb, right onto the back of the wolf that was prowling in circles around it.

“And he’s gone.” Trench Coat muttered. He turned back to Leo and Magnus.

Magnus squeezed Leo’s hand for support.

“Okay kids, is your creepy Greek friend anywhere about?” The guy in the trench coat asked, reaching up to pull the brim of his hand more firmly down to cover his face.

“Nico? I think he’s Italian actually.” Magnus said, avoiding actually answering the guy’s question in case Nico was all that was standing between them and a painful death.

“And he’s over there somewhere fighting wolves.” Leo added obliviously.

“But he’ll totally stab you if you touch us.” He said, stepping on Leo’s foot.

“Oh, yeah!” The Latino boy’s voice squeaked in pain, but fortunately he caught on. “He’ll kick your a-”

“Listen, I don’t want to hurt you. Neither does Hearth.” Trench Coat interrupted. “My name’s Blitz, and Magnus, we want to protect you.”

“And Leo. Protect you and Leo, right?” Leo added.

“Is this about the, uh . . . what the talking statue said?” Magnus asked carefully. “It said Leo was something, a son of . . . someone.”

“Festus? Or hepatitis?” Leo tried to guess.

“I have a feeling it’s not hepatitis.” Magnus mumbled to Leo.

“That would suck.” Leo agreed.

“Hephaestus. Another Greek.” Blitz muttered. “Why didn’t Cappo warn us- ugh, whatever. Sure, kid, we’ll protect you both. And your creepy friend too.”

“I’m . . . not Greek?” Leo said.

“Don’t question it.” Blitz said. “Let’s wait until after we’re somewhere safe, speaking of which- HEARTH WHAT THE HEL?”

Hearthstone was using his ridiculously long scarf to strangle the wolf he’d jumped onto.

“THAT WAS A GIFT HEARTH, YOU’RE GOING TO GET DOG FUR ALL OVER IT!” Blitz yelled.

“Okay, wow, priorities.” Magnus mumbled.

“STOP THAT RIGHT NOW! YOU COULD’VE JUST ASKED FOR A KNIFE! I GOT THAT WOOL FROM ASGARD HEARTH, YOU THINK THAT STUFF IS CHEAP?”

Hearth didn’t even seem to hear Blitz, which would’ve made sense, because Magnus was 90% sure Hearth was deaf. Either way, strangling the wolf seemed to be strangely affective because, as Magnus and Leo watched, the wolf crumpled to the ground, eyes rolling back in its head, and disintegrated into dust.

Hearth finally looked up at the tomb again and Blitz started signing furiously, stomping his feet as he did.

“FOR HADES’ SAKE!” Nico’s voice cried in frustration, right behind Leo and Magnus. “I leave you two alone for five minutes!”

They spun around to see Nico, his messy hair even messier, his face bright red and covered in dog saliva and one of his jacket sleeves ripped off, exposing a nasty gash on his arm.

Leo frowned. “Like I keep saying, little longer than five minutes-”

“I’ll take care of it.” Nico mumbled, although he sounded exhausted.

“Dude, I think they’re friends.” Magnus said. “And even if they’re not, they’re arguing about a scarf, so I don’t think they’re dangerous.”

“Trust me,” Nico muttered, “they’re monsters if I’ve ever seen ‘em.”

Nico shook his head like a dog, somehow making his hair even messier and also spraying flecks of dog slobber onto Magnus’ face. Then he took a deep breath and marched determinedly towards Blitz.

Blitz spun around right as Nico lunged forwards, sword raised, hands flying up to stop Nico from swinging his sword and they tumbled backwards off the side of the tomb. Magnus and Leo ran to the edge of the roof, expecting to see two dead bodies amid way too much black fabric, but instead they saw Hearthstone staring up at them with wide, almost frightened eyes.

Then there was no sign of Blitz or Nico anywhere.

And as if to make things that much worse, another wolf howl broke the silence.

Chapter Text

Nico was used to shadow-travel. He knew exactly how it worked, the darkness, the howling wind on his face, the creaks and far off wails of grief. But this wasn’t shadow-travel. This wasn’t what he’d expected. This was something he had no control over.

He plunged into the darkness, clinging to the thick fabric of the monster’s trench coat because dear gods he wanted something to hold onto, some sign that he wasn’t falling endlessly and alone through nothingness. He could feel the monster’s grasp, tight through his leather gloves, on Nico’s forearms.

Funny, when it came down to it they weren’t so different. Neither he nor the monster wanted to fade away.

And then he and the monster were standing on a cobblestone-paved street that Nico didn’t recognise. It seemed to be night, and an overcast one at that. Terrace houses lined the sidewalks, all seeming about three storeys tall. Near the end of the street was the only source of light, a grimy tavern with windows displaying neon advertisements for drinks. There was no one around, other than Nico and the monster.

Nico shoved the monster away, causing it to stumble on the edge of its trench coat. When it finally regained its footing, it pulled off its hat and squinted at him with dark eyes. It had dark skin and long black hair tangled with sticks and leaves.

“Great, now look what you’ve gotten yourself into.” It muttered, folding its hat up into the size of a handkerchief and tucking it into the pocket of its trench coat. “A Greek, in Nidavellir of all things!”

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you right now.” Nico demanded, glaring at the monster.

“You don’t have your sword.” It said, a little too easily.

“I don’t?” Nico demanded, reaching for its hilt and finding . . . nothing. He looked around desperately, but it was nowhere to be found. “Where is it?”

“How should I know, kid? You must’ve dropped it on the fall.”

“Where are we?” Nico demanded, trying to think of the ways he could kill this monster anyway. He couldn’t sense any skeletons in the ground nearby and he was way too tired to try and summon one. Even as he stood there, he could feel a headache starting in the back of his head, making it hard to concentrate.

“Nidavellir.” The monster said with a sour look.

“Home of the dwarves, one of the Nine Worlds in Norse mythology.” Nico blurted out, recalling the information from the Mythomagic Norse expansion pack, then staring anywhere but the monster in embarrassment and confusion. “But how- I mean- then you must be- you know what, sure, why not?”

He was too tired to acknowledge the dozens of protests in his mind of how-is-this-possible and what-in-Hades-is-happening and so-Norse-mythology-is-a-thing-are-we-going-to-acknowledge-that?

“Okay, great, now that we’ve accepted that, let’s get off the streets.” The monster said in a hurry. “If anyone sees you here . . . it’s not gonna end well for either of us.”

“You’re taking me somewhere to kill me.” Nico wasn’t quite tired enough to let himself be tricked. But he was tired enough to feel like he was going to collapse at any second. He blinked hard, trying to stay awake.

“Kid, seriously, it’s getting old.” The monster rolled its eyes. “First of all, I’m not a monster, I’m a dwarf. Secondly, I’m definitely not here to kill you, because hey, you’re not dead, so you can just calm down and let me take you somewhere safe so we can figure out what the Hel to do next-”

Nico’s eyes slid shut and he slumped to the ground, unable to stay awake any longer.

And then he found himself somewhere that was more than familiar. The fields of Asphodel rolled out endlessly, grey and dead and empty save for Nico and the two people who haunted his mind every time he closed his eyes.

“You’re stupid.” Percy Jackson’s voice was smug, so self-assure and confident and Nico wanted to disappear forever at the sound of it. Even though it wasn’t, it wasn’t Percy. It was some twisted, horrible copy, but it wasn’t actually Percy.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Bianca’s copy agreed cruelly, voice hissing through the dead air of the Underworld. “Everything, everything, I did for you will all be in vain.”

Nico wanted to tear his eyes away, to cover his ears and ignore what was going on in front of him. But he couldn’t move. He was completely at mercy to his own subconscious.

“But we all knew it was coming.” Not Percy sneered. “You’re pathetic, that little mind can’t tell friend from foe, that monster will kill you.”

“He said he wouldn’t.” Nico muttered, but still. He wasn’t sure.

“Oh, he said he wouldn’t? How sweet.” Not-Percy rolled his eyes.

“My brother believing the words of a monster? Over me?” Not-Bianca’s face twisted with disgust. “No wonder no one trusts you.”

“Shut up.” Nico whispered.

“What was that?” Not-Percy asked.

“Shut up, just stop talking.” Nico repeated, a little louder.

“Are we too loud, Nico? Are we hurting your precious feelings?” Not-Bianca cooed. Her voice became a scream, echoing through Nico’s head till it was all he could hear, over and over and over, “WELL WE CAN BE AS LOUD AS WE WANT AND YOU CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT.”

“Stop.” Nico whispered, voice hardly audible at all.

“Are we upsetting you? Are you upset?” Not-Percy asked, voice still sickly sweet.

“For Hades’ sake, what do you want me to say? Yes, you are, you always are, even though you aren’t even real!” Nico blurted out, then bit his tongue, wishing he hadn’t responded, hadn’t risen to the bait his own mind had tricked him with.

“This is just a dream.” He said quickly, before Not-Percy or Not-Bianca could find some new thing to torment him over. “This is just a dream and if I want to, I can just wake up. You don’t have any power over me, you’re literally just parts of my own mind. And I’m leaving. Now.”

He imagined being somewhere else, anywhere other than the dead, blackened fields of the Underworld. And his surroundings melted away as he emerged from sleep.

Chapter Text

Leo stared uncomprehendingly at the place where Nico and Blitz had disappeared, the scene replaying in his mind over and over. It was as if the shadows had simply swallowed them up. One moment they were plummeting towards the ground, the next they were gone.

“Leo,” Magnus hissed, tugging at his arm. “Wolves.”

The wolves seemed like less of a concern than the disappearing act Nico and Blitz had pulled, but Leo nodded, grabbing Magnus’ hand and squeezing it.

At the bottom of the tomb, Hearth was signing rapidly up at them, his scarf hanging over one shoulder, covered in hair and dust. Leo shrugged apologetically in what he hoped conveyed the message ‘I don’t understand sign language’. Hearth threw his hands up in a moment of frustration, then pulled out a dagger, mimed stabbing something and pointed towards the edge of the graveyard.

“Okay would I be wrong in interpreting that as he’s going to go on a killing spree and stab us?” Leo joked, because he could tell Magnus was still nervous from how tightly the blond was gripping his hand.

“Don’t be stupid.” Magnus mumbled.

“Come on, let’s get down from here before the wolves come looking.” Leo said. He glanced around quickly to see only three wolves remaining in the graveyard. Two were prowling around the tombs, noses to the ground, their growls carrying through the air and drumming their way into Leo’s head. The other one was in a dazed pile on the ground, Charity the statue standing over it triumphantly, holding half of her broken cross.

“Down there?” Magnus asked, glancing at the wolves as well.

“Don’t worry, they won’t get you.” Leo said softly, then as Magnus remained frozen, he cleared his throat. “After all, you’re so scrawny that even if they did catch you, they wouldn’t eat you. Not much of a meal.”

“. . . Right.”

“Exactly, just follow my lead.” Leo clambered down the side of the tomb, careful to pick the easiest route possible for Magnus to follow. Upon reaching the ground, he found Hearth right beside him. He was still holding his dagger and for a moment Leo worried that they’d been wrong in trusting him and now they were going to be stabbed, but Hearth just flipped it around to the hilt was facing Leo.

“No,” Leo said, speaking slowly in hopes that Hearth could read lips. “Magnus needs it more than me.” He pointed towards his friend, half way down the tomb, just to make sure the message got through.

Hearth gave Leo a dubious look but nodded and, when Magnus made it to the ground, offered Magnus the knife. He took it cautiously, clutching the hilt with both hands and looking like he was worried the weapon would explode at any time. He looked up and his face paled even more. “Wolf!”

Leo turned to see another massive grey dog prowling towards them. Hearth clapped his hands to grab their attention and pointed towards the edge of the graveyard, then slowly signed three letters.

“C-A-R.” Magnus spelled out.

“You know sign language?” Leo asked. The growling became louder and Magnus just shook his head, grabbed Leo’s hand and began running. Leo stumbled a few steps before regaining his balance and sprinting as fast as he could away from the wolf, hand in hand with Magnus.

“Good call.” Leo panted as they made a sharp turn and continued on. Magnus was breathing heavily and his face was flushed scarlet.

“Do you need to stop?” Leo asked, because Magnus looked like he was about to collapse. The blond wheezed in a painful breath and shook his head. Their pace was closer to walking than running now.

“Dude, sit down.” Leo insisted, releasing Magnus’ hand in favour of grabbing both his shoulders and forcing him to the ground. Magnus instantly curled up into a ball, hyperventilating. A thousand equally terrible possibilities rushed through Leo’s head. He settled on the most likely. “Is this a panic attack?”

Magnus wheezed and shook his head.

“You sure?”

“Asth- asthma.” The blond huffed, lifting a hand to fan his face, as if that would help him breathe.

“Oh, damn. Do you have a- what are they called? Um . . . breathing thingy.”

Magnus shook his head.

“What? Why not- not the time, right. Okay, uh, what can I do to help?”

Magnus was still struggling to breathe and Leo didn’t have a clue what to do. He’d never been in a situation like this. He glanced around, thanking the gods – and especially his apparent father, Hepatitis – that there were no wolves in the area.

“Okay, try to breathe. Uh, duh. Now, I’m going to help you sit up.” Leo instructed, deciding to treat this like the closest thing he knew how to handle, a panic attack. He put a hand on Magnus’ shoulder and pushing him up so he was leaning against a tomb wall. “Just stay calm, you’re going to be fine. Deep breaths. Want me to count for you? Or talk and distract you? I can do either?”

“C-cou-” Magnus broke off, coughing.

“Count, okay. In, one, two, three, four. Hold, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.” Leo repeated the motion a few times and slowly, Magnus’ breathing began to even out. His face was bright red and shiny with sweat, his chest heaving with every breath.

“You, uh, you can stop c-counting now.” Magnus said, not making eye contact.

“Alright.” Leo said. He realised his hand was still on Magnus’ shoulder and made to move it, but the other boy fell forwards into Leo’s chest. At first, Leo thought Magnus was fainting, but then as the other boy’s arms snaked around his waist Leo realised the other boy was hugging him. Leo froze for a few seconds, not sure how to react. No one had hugged him for a long time. He didn’t really know how to respond. Let alone how to respond to someone as cute as Magnus hugging him.

Leo gingerly lifted one hand and ran it through Magnus’ hair, trying not to let his fingers get caught in the knots. He could hear Magnus sniffling, but chose to ignore it in favour of counting the bricks in the wall of the tomb behind him and not thinking about how awkward it was – why was it awkward – or how Magnus’ face was pressed against his chest because of their awkward position – that was normal for sure – or how Leo was so touch-deprived that he wanted to hug Magnus forever and ever.

Finally, Magnus sniffed and leaned backwards. Leo let his hands fall awkwardly to his lap as the other boy wiped his eyes and avoided eye contact.

“Um, sorry.”

“No, it’s cool. Completely fine. You okay?” It was more than fine. Leo wanted to wrap Magnus up in his arms again and never let go until the other boy felt alright.

“Sorry I didn’t tell you about the asthma thing,” Magnus said. “And not having an inhaler, I forgot it when- when I had to leave home.”

“Don’t be sorry. It never came up.” Leo shrugged.

“And sorry for bolting.”

“It’s what Hearth wanted us to do.”

“And for hugging you.”

“Dude, I’m so touch deprived I’d hug a cactus.” Leo said. “It’s cool. You can hug me whenever you want. You know, like, platonically.”

Magnus chuckled hoarsely. “Thanks man.”

“Yeah. No problem.” Leo said. A few beats of silence spread between then in which Leo was way too aware of the sound of his own heart beating. Suddenly, Magnus stiffened.

“You okay?” Leo asked softly.

Magnus finally met Leo’s gaze, grey eyes wide and afraid. And as if the gods had planned it – thanks Hepatitis – another wolf curled through the graveyard. 

“Leo, we forgot about the wolves.”

Chapter Text

Flutters of panic were still beating at Magnus’ chest like bird wings. His throat felt sore and scratchy, his eyes hot with unshed tears, his head was somewhere between pounding, spinning and completely upside down. He looked down to avoid eye-contact with the boy opposite him and took the time to notice that his hands were shaking. Magnus was a mess and it was way too obviously visible.

Suddenly, Leo leapt to his feet, staring around wildly, “God, you’re right, we have to get out of here.”

Magnus completely, one hundred percent agreed. He just wasn’t sure his legs would cooperate. He felt like they’d been turned to jelly. Leo turned back to Magnus and offered him a hand. He was too tired to think about if it was weird or not, he just grabbed Leo’s hand and let the smaller boy haul him to his feet.

“Thanks.” He muttered.

“Don’t mention it.”

They set off again, slower this time, creeping through the narrow paths between tombstones, pausing and cowering every time a wolf howl met their ears. Well, Magnus was cowering, memories of flickering flames and snarling wolves and the dead corpse of-

“Okay, we’re going to need to climb the wall, I think.” Leo said. They had reached a corner and Leo was poking his head around to stare at what Magnus assumed was the edge of the graveyard.

“Oh. Okay.”

“Are you okay to climb?” Leo asked softly. “We can find another way out if you’d rather.”

“No. I can climb it.” Magnus wasn’t great at climbing and his throat still hurt, but the wolves prowling the graveyard would surely be enough motivation to scale the wall quickly.

“Right, the coast is clear.” Leo said, still in that soft tone that made Magnus feel warm and safe. Together, they darted the short distance between the shelter of the maze of tombstones and the base of the wall. It was tall, standing a little taller than the tombs, with a patchwork of squares of uneven brickwork that provided footholds to climb up.

“You go first, I’ll give you a boost.” Leo said.

“Um, okay?” Magnus said.

Leo locked his fingers together and knelt down to provide Magnus a place to step up.

“Are you sure?”

“We don’t have time to discuss who should nobly sacrifice their life for the other here, hurry up.” Leo insisted. Magnus heaved himself up, scrambling on the uneven surface of the wall while Leo called encouragement up to him. Finally, Magnus reached the top of the wall, pulling himself up safely and panting. Leo had already started scaling the wall and by the time Magnus had caught his breath, the shorter boy was sitting atop the wall beside him.

Magnus risked a look back into the graveyard. Two wolves remained. Charity the statue and Hearth had teamed up to corner one of the wolves. And the other, Magnus realised, had just caught sight of him and Leo on the wall.

“Leo.” Magnus hissed. He thought he might start crying. Or vomit. Or have a heart attack. Or all three, at once.

Leo’s eyes widened, then he turned to scan the street outside. “Okay, where’s the car?”

Magnus stared at the road, trying to find the car that Hearth and Blitz had arrived in. It was reasonable easy, there was only one car covered completely in dust.

“There.” Magnus pointed, then looked back at the wolf. It was slowly but surely prowling towards them, snarling. It was just about tall enough to reach them from the top of the wall. Without Leo even prompting him, Magnus began to climb down the other side of the wall. By the time Magnus reached the ground his legs were trembling and his chest was aching again. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself as Leo jumped the last metre and landed beside him.

Suddenly there was a heavy thud and a wolf snarling in anger.

“If that wolf just ran into the wall like I think it did, it probably has a pretty nasty headache.” Leo mumbled, glancing at Magnus.

“We should get to the car,” Magnus reminded him. He was too terrified to even smile at Leo’s poor attempt at humour.

“Right.”

Leo grabbed Magnus’ hand again and pulled him down the street towards the car. Even though Magnus was pretty certain he could run on his own again, he really didn’t mind. He guessed they’d moved past the stage where it was weird to hold hands. After all, they were running from giant wolves and Leo’s father was apparently a god. There were much weirder things going on.

They reached the car. Leo tugged at the passenger seat door. The car was unlocked and the door flung open.

“Get in,” Leo said, already dashing around to the driver’s side. Magnus climbed into the car, slamming the door shut. There was another thud against the graveyard wall. Magnus pressed his face against the window, staring at the wall. Cracks were forming against the cement. If the wolf threw itself at the wall again, it might break and unleash the thing into the city to kill anyone, and more importantly, kill Magnus and Leo.

Leo flung himself into the driver’s seat, grabbing a pair of keys off the dashboard and jamming them into the ignition. But the car stayed still and silent.

“It’s out of gas.” Leo cursed. “Stay here, I’ll get us a working car.”

Before Magnus could ask if that meant Leo was going to hijack a car, and if he knew how to hijack a car, and why he knew how to hijack a car, Leo was gone, leaving an empty seat and gaping car door beside him. Magnus climbed over into the driver seat and stuck his head out onto the road to watch Leo rushing down the street towards the next closest parked car.

There was another thud and Magnus spun around to see the wall shattering into dust and rubble, the wolf glaring right at him through the debris, blue eyes glowing. Magnus squeaked in fear, retreating back into the car and slamming the door shut, locking it for good measure. As if that could help at all.

There was a crunch and the roof of the car buckled and crumpled like cardboard over the back seats. Small holes opened up in the roof as deadly sharp claws ripped through the metal. The wolf was on the roof of the car and Magnus was trapped like a rabbit. He hoped that at least Leo had seen what was happening and had run far away and was safe. Because Magnus was for sure going to die.

Another loud crunch and the roof above Magnus started to bend under the wolf’s weight. In a moment of crippling clarity, he realised that if he stayed here, he would be crushed. He had to get out of the car.

Magnus flung the door open and threw himself onto the road, wincing as the rough asphalt tore at his skin. He scrambled to his feet, dazed, and turned to look back at the car. The wolf was crouched on the roof of the vehicle, claws gleaming in the sunlight, ghostly blue eyes focused on Magnus. He stumbled backwards across the road. The wolf inched forwards, onto the road, icy eyes fixed on Magnus, fangs bared in a snarl.

His heel hit the curb and he fell backwards, landing with a pained cry on the sidewalk. At the same moment, the wolf pounced forwards, claws outstretched, mouth opening, oh god he was going to die. Magnus was going to die at fourteen years old, without ever getting back to Boston, or finding out where Nico and Blitz had gone, or telling Leo how he felt about him, or learning to drive-

A car engine roared to life and, what had to be moments before the wolf reached Magnus, a massive four wheel drive rammed into the wolf, knocking it off course and onto the road, where it ran it down until the dog turned into dust. Magnus couldn’t even begin to process what had just happened.

The car rolled to a stop and the window slid down. Leo stuck his head out and turned to look at Magnus, a massive grin plastered across his face, “I found us a ride!”

Chapter Text

Nico woke up somewhere unfamiliar. That in itself wasn’t weird, he was used to waking up on street corners or under park benches – or more recently in drainage systems in Boston – with only a vague memory of collapsing after shadow-travel. No, what was weird was that he seemed to be in someone’s home.

He was lying on a sofa, staring up at a roof. He was vaguely aware of the details of the room, a couple of armchairs, a coffee table covered in magazines, a weird looking tanning bed, a small fireplace, a dwarf standing in the doorway eating instant noodles-

Wait, what?

Nico sat up, ignoring how his head spun with exhaustion, and squinted across the room towards the dwarf. He was almost unrecognisable from the scruffy looking, trench-coat wearing monster from before. In fact, Nico had never seen a monster – or dwarf, for that matter – that looked less like a monster.

His hair had been washed and brushed. His trench coat was replaced by a floral patterned button-down, a pair of pleated trousers and thick woollen socks that were a hideously bright shade of yellow and dotted with dark green cacti.

“About time you wake up, kid,” the dwarf said, lowering his bowl of instant noodles.

“How long was I out for?” The fact that Nico wasn’t dead did make him want to trust the dwarf. “Where am I? And who are you? And, where’s my sword?”

“Woah, one question at a time,” the dwarf strode across the room and plopped down on one of the armchairs, managing not to spill any noodles from his extremely full bowl. Gods, Nico was hungry. And were those noodles glittering, or was he still half asleep? “You were out for close to seven hours.”

Not bad, all things considered, and it explained why Nico still felt like death.

“I took you to my apartment,” the dwarf continued, waving a hand at the room as if Nico couldn’t have figured that this was, in fact, the dwarf’s apartment. “You’re lucky it was so quiet out, if there’s one thing worse than having a Greek in Nidavellir, it’s having an unconscious Greek in Nidavellir. Probably looked like I was lugging about a dead body, not good for my reputation, not that I have one round here anyway-”

“And who are you?” Nico pressed.

“The name’s Blitzen,” the dwarf introduced politely, although he was frowning deeply at the interruption, “Blitzen, son of Freya.”

Freya, the Norse god of love, beauty, fertility, gold, war, and death. At least, according to the Mythomagic Norse Mythology expansion pack. Nico really had to stop relying on that for information if he wanted to be taken seriously. He could just imagine someone asking how he knew so much about mythology and him having to admit that he’d memorised every card from that stupid card game.

“But you said you were a dwarf,” Nico blurted out.

“Half dwarf, technically half svartalf” Blitzen corrected around a mouthful of instant noodles, “How about you, kid?”

“Nico di Angelo,” Nico introduced cautiously.

“And your godly parent? I know you’re a Greek, kid, you sure don’t smell like a Norse demigod to me,” Blitzen said.

“Son of Hades,” Nico muttered. His father’s name was bitter and ugly on his tongue.

If Blitzen knew the prejudice against children of Hades, he didn’t let it show in his expression. The dwarf just gulped down his mouthful of noodles and frowned thoughtfully.

“What?” Nico asked, maybe a little harsher than necessary.

“I thought Hades was part of that whole No-Nut November thing Zeus and Poseidon were doing,” Blitzen said, which made no sense on any level. A long silence spread across the apartment, in which Nico looked at the glowing embers in the fireplace and Blitzen busied himself with shoving more noodles into his mouth.

Then it finally dawned on Nico, “Oh, you mean the pact? Not to have any more children?”

Blitzen nodded, looking relieved.

“Long story, don’t worry about it,” Nico said, “And I mean, Percy and Thalia- yeah, don’t worry about it. But, um, what exactly is No-Nut November?”

Blitzen choked on his noodles. His cheeks flushed a violent red as he pulled out an embroidered handkerchief and coughed into it. When the dwarf finally finished choking he waved a hand broadly around the room, as if to wave off the question, “Ahem, s’not important, kid. You’re not exactly up to date on mortal trends, huh?”

Nico shook his head, frowning. Should he be? Well, if it was important, it would have to wait.

“You still haven’t told me where my sword is,” he pointed out, “I need that.”

Blitzen put his noodles carefully on the coffee table, as if he didn’t trust them. They smelt good, especially for instant noodle standards. Maybe Nico was just desperate.

“Dunno kid,” Blitzen said, “I imagine it got lost on the fall.”

“The fall?” Nico echoed, then remembered his plummet through dark stone, hands tight on Blitzen’s trench coat as wind whipped and tugged playfully at his hair, trying to pull him off course. Further off course. “Right, okay, how do I find it?”

“Don’t think you can,” Blitzen shrugged his shoulders, “It’s probably still lost somewhere out there in the ether.”

“What am I going to do without a weapon?” Nico demanded.

“Don’t worry about it, kid,” Blitzen said laxly, “We’re in Nidavellir, we’ll get you another one in no time. Everyone here is a craftsman.”

“And where are you going to get the stygian iron from?” Nico challenged. Stygian iron could only be found and harvested in the Underworld. There was no way that these dwarfs would have it on supply. Nico would’ve felt smug about the shock that made Blitzen’s eyebrows creep up his forehead, except he was desperate. He needed his sword.

Blitzen sighed heavily, “Hel kid, you’re not easy to look after. First you start to disappear, like you’re made of smoke or something, then-”

“Smoke?”

“-you have a sword made of stygian iron. Do you know how hard it is to find that? Hearth is gonna kill me when I get back-”

“What do you mean I turned to smoke?” Nico asked louder. Had he started fading? Here?

“Yeah, your arms went all black and misty, couldn’t touch ‘em,” Blitzen said. “Stuck you under Hearth’s tanning bed, though, that seemed to do the trick.”

Nico glanced sceptically at the tanning bed that was stuffed in the corner of the room.

“As I was saying,” Blitzen cleared his throat and continued, “And all because a decapitated head told us to look after some pasty blond kid!”

“What do you want with Magnus?” Nico demanded, turning to focus on the dwarf again.

“Isn’t it bleeding obvious?” Blitzen asked. “He’s one of us.”

“A . . . dwarf?” Nico asked incredulously. Magnus didn’t seem like the type of person to spend his life underground. He was more like a Disney princess who pranced through the forest, enchanting birds with his singing. Nico was more likely to be a dwarf than Magnus.

Blitzen made an indignant sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a cough. Nico was willing to bet that, if Blitzen had had any more noodles in his mouth, he’d have choked again.

“Him, a dwarf?” Blitzen scoffed. “No, one of us as in he’s not Greek. He’s Norse, di Angelo. Your pal is a son of Frey.”

“He’s your cousin?” Nico asked. This entire situation felt more and more unlikely. But then, Nico’s situation was extremely unlikely. His very existence in the 21^st century was beyond impossible.

“No- well, yes, I suppose so,” Blitzen said, “But that’s not why he’s so important.”

“Well, why is he important?” Nico asked.

“Just is,” Blitzen said. Nico got the feeling that Blitzen himself didn’t know why Magnus was so important. “So we gotta get back to Hearth and them before they get shredded up by a bunch of mangy mutts. And before Hearth ruins the scarf I made him.”

“Right. Of course,” Nico said. They did have to get back to Leo and Magnus. Although the scarf wasn’t so high up on the priority list. More important was getting them to camp, where they’d be safe. Although, if Magus was a Norse demigod . . .

Nico didn’t even want to think about the possibilities that opened up. He decided that worrying about where Norse demigods ended up was a problem for another days.

“So we need to get me a replacement sword and get back to New Orleans,” Nico said.

“In that order?” Blitzen asked, “Because in my professional opinion, Hearth should come first.”

“In my professional opinion,” Nico mocked, “the sooner I get my sword back the less likely we die.”

Blitzen sighed and shook his head, “I suppose the demigod gets to choose. It’s always that way with quests.”

“This isn’t a quest,” Nico argued, “I don’t do quests.”

Blitzen cleared his throat again, “Quest, a long or arduous search for something. Sounds like that’s what we’re doing.”

“The first thing I do when I get my sword back will be to cut out your tongue,” Nico muttered.

“You really made a tempting case for why we should get you a sharp pointy blade,” Blitzen grumbled.

Nico was about to make some snappy remark in return, but he was interrupted by his stomach growling. He winced, had it really been so long since he ate?

Blitzen sighed then, looking as though it were causing him great pain to speak, said, “Listen, kid. I’ll get some stuff ready. This is gonna be a whole ordeal. You finish those noodles or something, you look like you’re about to collapse again.”

Nico was too hungry and tired to argue. As Blitzen stood up and trudged away, muttering about insolent Greeks, Nico pulled the still-steaming bowl towards him. It smelt funny, and on closer inspection did seem to have glitter floating in the water, but Nico wasn’t one to complain. Food was food.

He just hoped that he’d get out of the apartment soon and wouldn’t be stuck with an eternity of eating glittery noodles somewhere underground with a grumpy dwarf who was apparently Magnus’ cousin.

Chapter Text

The sun was low over the horizon and Leo felt as though he’d been superglued to the driver’s seat.

After saving Magnus’ life – that had been pretty cool, if Leo did say so himself – they’d escaped from the graveyard, headed straight for the nearest highway out of New Orleans and found themselves in what Leo thought had to be the worst traffic jam of all time. He’d turned on the radio, but heard no reports of a car crash, so maybe the whole massive-evil-wolves was a New Orleans wide event and everyone was fleeing the apocalypse together. Magnus said that it was probably just regular traffic before resuming a staring contest with himself in the passenger seat window. In the back the deaf dude, Hearth, had fell asleep quicker than Nico had after his weird teleporting trick.

After finally escaping the traffic, and with no more signs of the remaining wolves, they’d sped off down the highway. For the first couple of hours, Leo felt as though someone had injected him with caffeine. He had never really driven a car before, and never so fast, and he couldn’t thinking that he must be doing something wrong. Hell, he didn’t even have the keys, he’d hijacked the thing on impulse. Surely something had to go wrong. It was just par for the course at this point.

But nothing happened except for the sun sinking lower in the sky, frying Leo to a crisp and making his sweaty skin stick to the seat in the process. But slowly he had relaxed into cruising along the open road in a hijacked car, with barely any traffic in sight. He didn’t really know where they were going, but anyway far away from New Orleans seemed pretty good at that point.

Magnus stared out his window at the setting sun, knees hugged to his chest, “I, um, didn’t know you knew how to drive.”

“Me neither. Guess I’m a quick learner,” Leo said. He knew he should’ve been concentrating on the road, but he couldn’t help but glance over at Magnus every couple of seconds, even if it meant veering dangerously close to the edge of the road.

“Lucky,” Magnus said softly, falling quiet again.

There was the rustle of clothing in the back and, despite Magnus’ sharp protest, Leo turned his head to look at Hearth, who had woken up and was gazing about blearily.

“Leo- god, look at the road, you’re going to kill us!” Magnus exclaimed, tugging on the steering wheel.

Hearth began signing rapidly, expression somewhere between confused and pissed off.

“Can’t understand you, dude,” Leo said apologetically, still paying no attention to the road.

“Leo!” Magnus snapped, grabbing Leo’s chin and jerked his head to look back at the road. Leo stilled, glancing at Magnus from the corners of his eyes but Magnus just drew his hands back and looked into the backseat himself. His cheeks were pink, but that was probably from the heat. Of course Leo had managed to pick the one car that didn’t have a working AC.

“Okay, okay, I’ll drive,” Leo said, because he didn’t want to spend too long analysing the touch when it meant nothing. “You talk. Or sign. Communicate.”

“I’m not very good at sign language, I only know the alphabet,” Magnus muttered.

“That’s twenty six signs more than me,” Leo commented.

Magnus didn’t reply and when Let glanced over again, he was signing slowly to Hearth. His eyebrows were drawn together, and his face focused as his hands moved between each letter.

He looked cute when he concentrated, Leo decided, then looked quickly back at the road. Magnus had called him cute, though. In passing. When he was probably hungry and not thinking straight. And had quickly made sure Leo knew that there was nothing behind it, no lingering sentiment or affection.

Would Leo be able to play it off that easily, if he were to blurt out that he thought Magnus was cute too? He’d always been good at pretending. But he didn’t want to pretend with Magnus.

“Leo, you’re drifting towards the wrong side of the road again,” Magnus warned, scowling as he looked back at Leo.

“Right, sorry,” Leo said, correcting his driving. He glanced at Magnus again, but the blond boy was once again engaged in a sign language conversation with Hearth. Leo tapped absently on the steering wheel.

Had he really been thinking about calling Magnus cute? Well, Magnus was cute. That was just . . . a fact, or something. But he couldn’t just say that and play it off. No homo wouldn’t explain away the fact that Magnus was cute, or that Leo felt an involuntary smile spread across his face when he thought about the blond boy, or that-

Leo pressed down hard on the accelerator, trying to focus on driving. Magnus let out a shocked sound and in the back, Hearth fell back hard against the seat.

“Um? What the heck?” Magnus cried. “This is way above the speed limit.”

“I don’t have a licence and I’m driving a stolen car, you should’ve realised I don’t care about the law by now,” Leo grinned across at Magnus, who rolled his eyes and looked out the window again.

The sun was beginning to set, and lilac light filtered through the front windscreen. Cornfields stretched out as far as the eye could see, separated by fences and decorated with lonely scarecrows.

“Hearth says we need to find Blitz and Nico,” Magnus said, staring out at the corn as if he expected a wolf to come hurdling out of it. And yikes, that wasn’t a possibility Leo wanted to entertain.

“Didn’t they go, uh, splat onto the ground back in the graveyard?” Leo asked tactfully.

“No, there were no bodies, duh,” Magnus said. “And Hearth says that they aren’t dead, and they’ll meet us at the rendezvous point.”

“Where is that?” Leo asked uncertainly.

“We didn’t get to that part,” Magnus said, turning to scowl at Leo before looking back out the window, “Before you sped up and interrupted.”

“So we could be going in the exact wrong direction?” Leo asked.

“Hearth doesn’t seem too worried.”

“Does he even know where we’re going?” Leo thought that was a pretty good point, if he did say so himself, but Magnus scoffed as if it were the most stupid argument in the world. The sun was hardly a smear of yellow on the horizon now, and Leo thought it was about time they find a motel or something to stop at. He voiced the idea to Magnus, who ignored him.

Had Leo done something wrong?

Either way, when the cheap neon lights of a motel came into sight down the highway, along with a sign that indicated the nearest town that was apparently nearby yet still beyond the horizon, Leo pulled off the highway.

Between his dyslexia and his exhaustion, Leo couldn’t make out what the name of the motel was, he just hoped there were vacancies.

“Mile-Stepper Inn,” Magnus muttered. “Look at this dump, are you sure it’s a safe place to spend the night?”

He had a point. On closer inspection, the motel didn’t look like much. The building had low stone walls that looked more like a child’s mismatched Lego building than something that had passed any health and safety regulations. The roof was tall and hatched together and made with what looked like wheat. Maybe even the wheat from the surrounding fields.

“It should be fine,” Leo said. Although the roof did look like something that a wolf could easily huff and puff and blow right down. Hopefully said wolves were left far behind in New Orleans.

Leo parked the car in the gravel outside the inn. Up close it didn’t look any more promising. There was a large wooden noticeboard outside the door. It was too dark to make out any of the posters pinned to it, but Leo thought he recognised a tattered piece of paper with the Wifi symbol on it.

“You think this place has free Wifi?” He asked Magnus.

Magnus just flung his door open and stood up, then instantly collapsed with a groan onto the gravel. “Ouch!”

“Dude, what’s wrong?” Leo asked, climbing out his own door and rushing around.

“My legs fell asleep,” Magnus muttered, shoving himself back to his feet.

Hearth slipped gracefully out of the back seat, somehow managing not to trip on his scarf. His hands were shaking and he kept glancing out towards the setting sun. Despite falling asleep in the car, he looked like he hadn’t so much as blinked in a month.

But he still forged ahead towards the inn door, Magnus right behind him. Leo patted the car a couple of times, thankful that nothing had backfired and the car hadn’t exploded, then followed them.

As he pushed through the door into the homely yellow light beyond, a voice boomed, “Welcome travellers, to Mile-Stepper Inn!”

Chapter Text

The lobby of Mile-Stepper Inn, if it could be called a lobby, was a cramped room lit by warm yellow light with no apparent source. It was decorated only with a low wooden desk which closely resembled a fallen log, and a tapestry made of some sort of shimmering fabric that didn’t quite look real. Magnus couldn’t help but question the architectural choices of the inn. It looked more like something out of a Viking movie than an actual place to sleep.

On the other side of the desk stood a man so tall his head was near touching the ceiling, wearing nothing but a sort of kilt and a massive cloak. Pinned to his cloak, near the left shoulder, was a little plastic name tag labelled ‘MEILI’. In one hand he held a wooden staff, in the other a clipboard. Magnus glanced at Hearth, who seemed strangely at ease, and Leo, whose eyes were glazed as if he wasn’t quite seeing things right, then back at the man behind the counter, who was still awaiting response from his greeting.

“Uh, hi,” Magnus said finally. “Nice place you got here.”

“Indeed!” The man agreed cheerfully. “Best inn in several miles!”

It was also the only inn in several miles. Magnus didn’t mention that.

“And,” Meili went on, “run by the best innkeeper! I have been catering to weary travellers like you for hundreds of years.”

“Right, that’s . . . cool,” Magnus said. It was a joke – it had to be, right? No way the inn had been there for hundreds of years – but the man looked completely serious.

“What an interesting group we have today!” Meili announced, bending down to inspect them. “But you do meet the most interesting people on the road, do you not?”

Magnus thought it best to nod politely. Hearth was nodding too, although Leo still looked sort of out of it.

“Now what may I do for you fortunate travellers?” Meili asked.

“We, uh, needed somewhere to stay for the night,” Magnus said. His backpack, slung over his shoulder, was still heavy with the loose change Nico had somehow produced, all the way back at the service station on Long Island Sound. Although it would be slightly embarrassing to have to pay in pennies.

“But of course, anything for the weary traveller!” Meili said. “Two rooms, coming right up, free of charge!”

“We can pay,” Magnus insisted. “Wait, two rooms?”

The idea of being separated, either from Leo or from Hearth, did not sit well with Magnus. He was useless without them, really.

“No need to pay, you can pay me tomorrow with your good company,” Meili announced.

Magnus did not like the sound of that. He wanted to get to the rendezvous point – wherever that was – and meet up with Nico and Blitz as soon as possible. Really, he wanted to go home. Not that he had one anymore.

A wave of despair crept up inside him, making his eyes sting with tears. No home, no family, no mum. It was all gone.

“And of course, you must need two rooms,” Meili continued, “One for you and your Hellene friend, and one for the Alf. You can’t expect him to sleep in the dark, can you?”

Magnus had no idea what Meili was talking about, but Hearth nodded agreeably, so Magnus nodded too. After all, Hearth could take out giant wolves with a candy-cane patterned scarf. If he said the inn was okay, it was probably okay.

Meili shoved his clipboard into Magnus’ face, “I’ll need you to sign this, seeing as you have not claimed guest privileges, it’s for legal reasons, you understand.”

The writing was unreadable. It wasn’t even in English. But still Magnus signed his name, then asked, “What are guest privileges?”

“Don’t worry about those, this covers all of that and more,” Meili said. “Now, let me show you to your rooms. If there are any problems, you can have a full refund!”

“We haven’t even paid,” Magnus protested, but Meili was already bustling through a doorway almost too small for him to fit through and into a corridor beyond. Magnus looked at Hearth, who slowly spelled out I-T-S-F-I-N-E.

“Are you coming?” Meili’s voice echoed back into the lobby.

“If we die, I’m blaming you,” Magnus said, but followed Meili into the corridor. Hearth trotted happily behind him, scarf fluttering around his ankles. Leo followed more slowly, and Magnus could hear him stumbling as he walked.

Magnus wanted to go back and walk with Leo, maybe offer him an arm for support, but he was sure Leo was fine. Magnus was probably being overbearing. Which was stupid, especially since Leo had proven he could take care of himself, even in the face of supernatural danger. Magnus was the only one who had come out of the wolf attack less than okay, and that wasn’t even from any battle injuries. All he’d done was have a stupid asthma attack and trip over his own feet. Leo had been the one to help him breathe again, and had been the one to drive a car over a pouncing wolf. Leo was fine, he could handle himself.

Meili came to a stop by a large wooden door, “For your Alf friend.”

Magnus glanced at Hearth uncertainly.

Hearth spelled out, D-O-N-T-W-O-R-R-Y, a pause and then, S-L-E-E-P. And despite his reluctance to separate, Magnus did trust Hearth. But even as Meili passed Hearth an ornate metal key, Magnus stepped over to Leo’s side and hissed, “If this was a horror movie, this would be the part where things start to go wrong.”

Leo blinked at him disjointedly, “Why?”

“Dude, are you okay?” Magnus asked.

“Just tired,” Leo replied airily, “Why?”

Leo was definitely not ‘just tired’. There was something weird about this inn, and even if Hearth couldn’t sense it, Magnus could. The wooden door creaked open and sunlight spilled into the corridor. Actual, authentic sunlight. Magnus craned his neck to peer into the room, but the light was much too intense and he found himself blinded. Hearth, still seeming to think there was nothing wrong, waved a cheerful goodbye and disappeared into the sunlight room, letting the door close behind him with a heavy click.

“Um, why was is daytime in there?” Magnus asked.

Meili was already continuing down the corridor, but he called back, “I pride myself on good service, including rooms specially designed to cater to Alfs. That is not something every inn will provide, no sir!”

Magnus didn’t even bother glancing at Leo – the other boy would undoubtedly not see the problem – so he just continued down the corridor after Meili, hoping that the next stop was not a creepy murder basement.

It wasn’t. Magnus thought he could collapse from relief when he was handed an ornate key and Meili gestured grandiosely to a room with a low, sloped ceiling.

“Cool place,” Leo said, wandering into the room and examining the wall. “Very authentic dry stone walling. Right out of tenth century Europe.”

“Don’t mind him,” Magnus said anxiously. “He’s tired.”

Meili just smiled and shrugged his broad shoulders, “Your friend is merely susceptible to Glamour. Very common for the untrained eyes. And he is quite correct about the walls, I’m so glad someone has taken the time to notice.”

Magnus again had no idea what Meili was talking about, but he thought it best to nod. “Um, well, it’s getting late, so . . .”

“Ah, of course!” Meili said, “I shall leave you to your sleep. You’ll come and have breakfast in the morning, of course? The dining hall is at the end of the hallway, you can’t miss it. It’s great fun!”

Magnus wasn’t exactly sure what Meili’s idea of ‘great fun’ was, but he was certain it didn’t align with his own. That was a problem for future-Magnus, for now he was content to smile and agree and disappear into the room as quickly as possible.

It was only after the door swung closed and Meili’s footsteps stomped off that Magnus realised the bedroom had only one bed.

Chapter Text

Nico had been ready to leave for what felt like hours. After eating the instant noodles and stealing some dubious looking painkiller from Blitzen’s kitchen, he’d felt ready to conquer the world. Or at least, not collapse the moment he left the apartment.

Blitz, however, was having some difficultly packing.

“How am I supposed to fit everything?” He was complaining.

“You don’t need two Hawaiian shirts,” Nico pointed out, nodding to the garments in Blitz’s hands. One was bright red and patterned with parrots, the other was an equally hideous blue, with fish and turtles on it. “I think one is too many. There’s never an excuse to wear a Hawaiian shirt.”

Blitz sighed and regretfully put the shirts on the bed, “I think that’s everything, then.”

At his feet were two large duffle bags, full to bursting with clothes, food and other supplies, but thankfully no decapitated head.

“About time.”

“Just one more thing,” Blitzen declared.

The last time he’d said that he had to do ‘one more thing’, he’d spent ten minutes puzzling over two identical pairs of hiking boots to see which matched his clothes more. If Nico had to spend even one more minute looking at clothes, he would kill Blitz, sword or no sword.

Blitzen apparently recognised the look on Nico’s face because he added quickly, “This is important, I promise.”

“Fine,” Nico allowed.

Blitzen pointed at Nico, as if to distinguish him from the other scrawny, Greek demigods in the room. “You need a makeover.”

That was it. Nico was going to commit homicide. “I do not need-”

“Listen, kid,” Blitz interrupted, “You stink of Underworld and Greek demigods. Anyone who walks within five feet of you is gonna recognise you’re not from these parts and I don’t want even more trouble than I already have. I just gotta disguise you as one of us, just ‘til we get outta here, capiche?”

“No, that’s not capiche,” Nico spat, crossing his arms, “You’re not giving me a makeover.”

“It’s that, or I stuff you in a duffle bag and carry you out,” Blitz said. Annoyingly, he was not backing down, even under Nico’s harshest glare.

“I’m not getting a makeover. It’s not happening,” Nico growled.

Half an hour later, Blitzen had given Nico a makeover. He’d been transformed him into a dwarf. Sort of. His hair had been brushed and groomed and soaked in sprays and shampoos that apparently smelt of dwarf, his usual black attire had been traded for a plaid shirt – at least it was just black and blue – suit pants and boots. The boots were actually okay, except that they didn’t fit and had heels that made it hard to walk in.

“You’re still too short,” Blitzen had critiqued, stuffing Nico’s regular clothes into one of the duffel bags.

“Aren’t dwarves meant to be short?” Nico said bitterly.

Blitzen talked right over him, “And you still stink of Greek demigod, but a bit of Glamour will fix that. You’ll pass, more or less.”

“Oh, joy,” Nico muttered.

“Don’t get snappy with me,” Blitzen said, “I’m saving your butt here, you could at least be grateful.”

“I’ll be grateful when I’m dead,” Nico crossed his arms and scowled. Blitzen gave Nico a grave look, and Nico suddenly remembered that the chances of death were a lot higher than anyone wanted. Especially since Nico didn’t have a sword anymore.

“You won’t pass as a dwarf if you keep scowling, kid,” Blitzen said imperiously. “It’s a dead giveaway.”

Nico scowled even more. Blitzen just passed him a duffle bag, shouldered one himself, and ushered Nico out into Nidavellir. Nico had seen only a few bleary seconds of Nidavellir before he’d collapsed, but he’d thought it had been reasonably deserted. Now it was anything but. Leaving the apartment, Nico almost lost sight of Blitz through the crowd. There were dwarves everywhere, filling up every shopfront and window and the entire street. Nico felt more than a little pissed that he was, in fact, the shortest person he could see.

He caught sight of Blitz’s terrible fashion sense through a gap in the crowd and shoved through the gap between to dwarves, making one yelp in outrage as he stepped on their foot. There wasn’t time for apologies, because Blitzen wasn’t stopping to wait for him. Nico weaved through the crowd, just barely dodging people and doing his best to avoid eye contact. If Blitzen’s plan was to not attract attention, Nico would have thought that barging through the streets in the opposite direction of everyone else was not a great way to do it.

Nico thought correctly. He’d barely made it twenty metres from the door when someone grabbed the cuff of his collar and lifted him up of his feet. Gods, he hated being short.

“Found it, boss,” whoever was holding Nico said. The passerbys had stopped and formed a circle to watch, which was great. Nico tried to peer over their heads and find Blitzen, but he couldn’t see him anywhere.

The crowd parted to make way for the oldest dwarf Nico had seen so far to shuffle forwards, leaning heavily on gold-plated walker. The dwarf looked like he might blow away in a breath of wind. He barely had enough hair on his chin to be called a beard, and his scalp was in even worse shape. The dwarf stopped when he was almost face to face with Nico, wrinkled face wrinkling further in disgust.

You don’t look so hot yourself, Nico wanted to say.

“Well, well, well,” the ancient dwarf croaked, “What is this thing doing in Nidavellir?”

Chapter Text

Leo surveyed the bedroom, taking in the shoddy wooden cupboard, the lamp on the bedside table and the single bed. It was simple, but considering it was free, it was more than enough. Leo was used to ‘free’ meaning the floor, or a boiler room, or more often the street. Free meaning an entire bed? That was luxury.

“I’m worried,” Magnus said, glancing at the bed, then at the door, then at the bed again. Did Magnus not like sleeping? Maybe he thought there would be bedbugs? Maybe if they complained and said there were bedbugs, they could get a room upgrade?

“About paying?” Leo asked reasonably. “We have money. And isn’t it free anyway?”

Magnus gave Leo a harsh look, as though paying was the last thing on his mind, “About this whole thing. It’s . . . weird.”

“Meili is just being generous. S’really nice of him, y’know,” Leo said, waving a hand around the room. “Look at this place, there aren’t even any leaks in the ceiling.”

Magnus gave him another Look. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious right now.”

Leo pondered it for a moment, “Well, I suppose we can’t tell if there are any leaks if it’s not raining.”

Magnus huffed out a sigh, maybe in frustration, then laughed, “I guess so?”

Leo nodded, glad he could finally get Magnus to agree on something. And he made Magnus laugh. Magnus had a cute laugh. Magnus was cute. The word ‘Magnus’ didn’t sound like a word any more.

While Leo had been thinking, Magnus had walked across the room to eye the bed suspiciously. Leo couldn’t tell if he was supposed to notice something wrong with it. It seemed like a normal bed in a normal inn to him. Magnus pulled another cute expression, as if he was trying to figure something out, then turned to Leo.

“I can sleep on the floor,” he offered.

“Huh? Why? There’s a bed literally right there. Do you know how good it feels to sleep on a bed? I do. I slept on a bed once,” Leo said, then realised he was rambling. Was he being annoying again? Magnus didn’t look annoyed.

“Once?” Magnus grinned, then his expression sobered again, “No, no. I mean, there’s one bed, and two of us. So I can sleep on the floor, or we can take turns, or- I don’t know. You’re looking at me like I’m being weird.”

“You are.”

“Well, what’s your solution then?” Magnus asked, cheeks pink.

Solution to what? Was that a trick question? Leo couldn’t remember there being a problem to solve. Magnus was smiling again, although his face was still flushed. He looked like a strawberry. Leo liked strawberries. He was getting distracted. He was supposed to be solving a problem. Leo squinted his eyes at Magnus, trying to find the problem.

“Oh!” He realised, grinning, “You’re still wearing your flower crown. You can’t sleep with that on.”

Magnus frowned and reached up to touch his head. He was still wearing the flower crown, Leo was proud that his handiwork had stayed in place for so long. Magnus pulled it off his head and stared at it, then looked back up at Leo.

“Well, yeah, seems like I am,” Magnus admitted.

Score.

Then Magnus continued, “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”

Not score.

Leo frowned, “Then what is the problem?”

“One bed. Two people.” Magnus was speaking slowly, as if Leo was stupid.

“I’m confused.” Maybe Leo was stupid?

“I literally don’t think I could make this any clearer,” Magnus huffed, tossing the flower crown onto the bedside table. As it landed, the flowers began to dry out and wilt.

“Weird,” Leo murmured, mostly to himself. Thinking about it, Magnus had been wearing the crown for hours, the flowers should’ve begun to wilt before now, and shouldn’t’ve withered so quickly the moment they left Magnus’ fingers. Now that was a puzzle Leo would be interested in solving. Was Magnus magic? Ha. Magic Magnus.

“I feel like we’re having two different conversations here,” Magnus said.

“I feel the same way,” Leo said, “That’s wild!”

“See this is what I’m talking about,” Magnus continued, “I don’t know what Meili is up to, or what he’s talking about when he said Glamour, or whatever, but you’re acting weird and I don’t like it. I just- I need you, you know?”

Leo didn’t know why Magnus needed him, exactly, but he realised Magnus was upset, and that didn’t sit well with him. Leo crossed the room hesitantly, then paused, not exactly sure how to help. He didn’t need to figure it out, because suddenly Magnus flung his arms around Leo’s shoulders and Leo was hugging him back.

“This is nice,” Leo said, because what else was he supposed to say? And it was nice. Magnus was tall and scrawny, but Leo hadn’t been hugged in a long time. He didn’t want to let go, and he didn’t want Magnus to let go. Magnus didn’t, he kept his arms wrapped tight around Leo, holding on as if Leo would disappear when the hug ended.

But then Magnus pulled away, and cleared his throat, face redder than ever.

“I- I guess we could share the bed?” Magnus said hesitantly.

Leo nodded, because that was what he had been assuming would happen the whole time. He looked again at the wilted flower crown on the table, then thought about the graveyard in New Orleans. Apparently his father was a god. Was it possible Magnus’ was too? That was a problem for another day. Tomorrow probably.

The two boys climbed into bed, backs pressed together and legs tangled. The bed was lumpy, but warm and strangely comfortable. Leo wasn’t sure if Magnus was pretending he wasn’t sharing a bed but Leo had already given up on that. Sharing a bed was nice. It was nice, having someone there with you. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t do it more often. Leo drifted off to sleep realising that Magnus smelt of wildflowers.

Chapter Text

Magnus woke to the sound of a gong. It was so loud that thinking was difficult, and clear as day although it couldn’t possibly be nearby. Magnus would’ve noticed a massive gong in the lobby or the corridor. The gong rung – rung? Was that the right word? – again, reverberating through Magnus’ skull. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, trying to shake off the comfortable warmth of sleep. He didn’t really want to wake up, but the gong wasn’t giving him much choice.

Near his shoulder, Leo grumbled and rubbed his face into Magnus’ shirt. Magnus’ mind catapulted into action as memories of last night came flooding back. Of course. He was sharing a bed with Leo. And now Leo was clinging onto Magnus’ right arm, still mostly unconscious.

“Leo,” Magnus hissed under the still-ringing gong. “Leo, wake up.”

Leo didn’t move. Magnus reached awkwardly over to nudge Leo slightly. Nothing.

“C’mon, Leo,” Magnus coaxed, “Please wake up.”

Still nothing.

Drastic times called for drastic measures. Magnus shoved Leo as hard as he could. The blankets went flying as Leo rolled right off the bed and onto the floor with a yelp. Magnus snickered, then leaned off the bed to check he hadn’t actually given Leo a concussion. Leo was lying on his back on the floor, eyes wide and expression startled. His hair was messier than usual, sticking out in a frazzled mess rather than his usual candlelight curls.

“What the heck, Magnus?” He demanded, voice hoarse. “I was sleeping.”

“Uh, yeah, that was the problem,” Magnus agreed. “Think we should find out what that gong’s for?”

Leo was silent for a moment, listening to the ringing, then he shrugged, “Probably breakfast or something.”

Somehow, Magnus doubted it. Plus, Leo hadn’t exactly been in his right state of mind recently.

“Yeah, maybe,” Magnus decided to agree for now.

Leo stuck his hand up towards Magnus and pouted, looking downright adorable, “Help me up? Pleeeeease?”

Magnus nodded, because how could he say no when Leo looks so cute? He grabbed Leo’s hand and that was his first mistake of the day, because Leo tugged him, hard, and Magnus came crashing down onto Leo’s chest. Leo burst out laughing as Magnus squirmed away and leapt to his feet, face flushed.

“What was that for?” He demanded.

“You pushed me off the bed!” Leo said. “This is karma!”

“Whatever,” Magnus muttered, brushing imaginary dust off his t-shirt. He was secretly pleased that Leo was acting more like himself again. “We should go find out what that gong is all about.”

Leo climbed to his feet and tugged his hand through his hair, “I hope there are cocoa pops. I haven’t had breakfast in, like, weeks.”

Magnus smiled, but he knew it wasn’t a joke. He himself wasn’t sure when he’d last had breakfast. Magnus grabbed his backpack from where it slumped at the foot of the bed, slung it over his shoulder and followed Leo out into the hallway. It was empty, which was probably a bad sign.

“It’s coming from that way,” Leo said, pointing in the opposite direction to the lobby he and Magnus had entered through. At the end of the corridor was a big wooden door, engraved with strange symbols and a fantastical animals. That was definitely a bad sign, so naturally the two of them walked towards the door.

“This place is cool,” Leo said as they reached the door, “Think of the craftsmanship that had to go into this door.”

Magnus was more preoccupied thinking of all the dangerous, terrible things that were waiting on the other side of the door.

“Can I hold your hand?” Magnus blurted, before realising what he had said. His felt his chest tighten and breathing was suddenly a lot harder as Leo turned to look curiously at him, then down at their hands. “Just- I’m really freaked out and I thought maybe it . . . I don’t know. Sorry. Forget I asked.”

“Sure,” Leo said, like it was no big deal. He reached out and grabbed Magnus’ hand. Leo’s hand was warm. Magnus didn’t want him to let go, ever. Then the two of them pushed open the wooden door and stepped into the room beyond.

It was a cafeteria. Magnus almost tripped over his own feet in his surprise. Unlike the rest of the inn, which was old fashion to the point of being suspicious, this room was modern and massive, with a tiled floor and dry plaster walls. It was full of long plastic tables, seating the strangest assortment of people Magnus had ever seen.

Schoolchildren sat side by side with businessmen, one table was occupied by a group of the ugliest . . . babies? . . . Magnus had ever seen, yet another table seated a man who seemed to be cosplaying Jesus, talking to what looked to be a demon of sorts. Hearthstone sat on a far table by himself, clutching a mug of coffee and hunching in on himself, eyeing the other occupants of the room.

On the closest wall, a buffet-style assortment of breakfast foods was tended to by Meili himself. He beamed and waved as Magnus and Leo entered. Leo waved back and said, “See? Breakfast. This is totally normal, you’re just being weird.”

“Sure . . .” Magnus murmured, leading Leo carefully around the edge of the room to the buffet.

“Greetings travellers!” Meili said cheerfully. “I trust you are well-rested?”

“Yeah,” Leo said enthusiastically, “Great bed- oh are those pancakes?”

“They are indeed!” Meili said, “Mile-Stepper Inn prides itself on its pancakes. We have the best breakfast service in miles. Not to mention, the best after-breakfast service!”

“After-breakfast service?” Magnus asked nervously.

“Come on, Magnus,” Leo said, tugging on Magnus’ hand, “I want pancakes.”

“Yes, you will want to be well energised for our after-breakfast activities,” Meili agreed.

“We were actually planning on leaving soon . . .” Magnus muttered.

“It takes no time!” Meili said, “You’ll see. Your alf companion has assured me he is looking forwards to these activities greatly.”

Magnus glanced over at Hearth, who looked like the only thing he was looking forwards to greatly was death.

“Right, well, I guess breakfast can’t hurt,” Magnus said. Leo cheered and began piling his plate high with pancakes.

“Excellent!” Meili said, clapping his hands once. “And you mustn’t forget your complimentary mead. It’s good stuff, straight from Asgard. Not every day you get to drink mead of that quality. They say it sharpens your mind.”

Magnus’ stomach was churning from his nerves, so just opted for buttered toast. He could always steal some of Leo’s pancakes if his appetite returned. The two picked up their mugs of complimentary mead and made their way to Hearth’s table. Magnus noticed that the majority of the other people in the room did seem to be enjoying pancakes and mead, no one seeming at all alarmed by the weirdness of the place. Hearthstone nodded as the two sat down.

“So,” Magnus said, “Is it just me, or is this all still weird?”

Leo shrugged, mouth too full of pancakes to answer. Hearth signed, S-A-F-E. A pause, a half shrug, then he added, I-S-H.

Safe-ish wasn’t safe enough for Magnus’ liking. “What does Meili mean when he says ‘after-breakfast activities’? Can’t we just . . . keep driving? We have to meet up with Nico and Blitzen, don’t we?”

Hearth signed, S-I-G-N-E-D-P-A-P-E-R.

“What, the paper I signed last night?” Magnus asked, “You’re saying I signed up for this?”

Hearth nodded.

“We can’t get out of it?”

Hearth shook his head.

Magnus scowled at his half-eaten toast. Leo nudged Magnus and said, “You should try the mead. It’s seriously good.”

“Why are neither of you concerned right now?” Magnus demanded.

Hearth pointed at Leo and signed, G-L-A-M-O-U-R.

“Yeah, uh, Meili mentioned that. What is it?” Magnus needed more answers than Hearth was giving him. He really needed to find a quicker way to communicate than spelling out words. If they ever got out of this crazy inn, Magnus was going to properly learn sign language from Hearthstone.

H-I-D-E-S-T-R-U-T-H, Hearth signed.

“Cool, so one third of our team is incapacitated,” Magnus muttered. Hearth pointed at Magnus’ mead. Magnus shook his head, “Now isn’t the time for drinking, as much as it feels like it.”

Hearth pointed again, more fiercely, then pointed to his temple, then spelled out, D-R-I-N-K.

“Okay, okay, I’ll try it,” Magnus said. He lifted the mug to his mouth and had swallowed only one mouthful when Meili’s voice rung out across the cafeteria.

“Now that we’ve all finished eating,” Meili boomed, “I invite you all to our after-breakfast activities, which I assure you are the best in miles. Believe me, what you’re about to experience will be the time of your life!”

Chapter Text

Nico squirmed against the hand holding him up by his collar. Why did these sorts of things always happen to him? The ancient dwarf in front of him jabbed a finger into Nico’s chest, “Well? Where did you come from?”

“Hades,” Nico spat. Technically not a lie. “They have a special place reserved for you, by the way, so why don’t you hurry on down already?”

The onlooking crowd buzzed with anticipation. Nico didn’t care what sort of status this dwarf had, he was kidding himself if he thought Nico would grovel. Nico didn’t even grovel for gods anymore. That was probably the reason these sorts of things always happened to him.

“Has a mouth on it, this one does,” the old dwarf croaked. “I advise you talk before we make you talk.”

Nico rolled his eyes and scanned the crowd for Blitz. Nothing. What else was Nico expecting? This was what he got for trusting someone else to be somewhat competent at surviving.

Briefly, he contemplated shadow-travelling away. This place was dark and shadowy enough for it. But there was no way to know where he’d end up, or how badly he’d fade, or how long he’d be unconscious for. It was much less dangerous to let this scene play out. After all, by now he would usually already have several swords pointed his way.

“No?” The old dwarf raised a feathery eyebrow. “Very well. Take him to The Dungeon. We’ll get some answers from you yet, and see just what the gods have to say about this.”

That went from one to a hundred real fast. The gods, no matter what mythology they came from, would have nothing good to say about Nico. Gods rarely had anything good to say about anything. Another pause, but Nico was in too deep to start talking now.

“Go on!” The old dwarf’s teeth clacked together so loudly that Nico thought his jaw might have snapped. “Take him away before I do so myself, with help from my expertly crafted Granny Shuffler, crafted by my private assistant Nurse Bambi.”

Okay, weird tangent. Nico glanced down at the gold-plated walker under the dwarf’s spiny fingers. It looked perfectly normal and not any more likely to be able to take Nico down to ‘The Dungeon’ than any other walker, or young and healthy dwarf.

Maybe it was a weird dwarf thing. Nico would have to ask Blitzen about it. If he ever saw Blitz again.

The hand holding Nico up released him and he fell awkwardly towards the cobblestone below, stumbling as he tried not to trip. One of the old dwarf’s two bodyguards herded him away down the street, and Nico followed obediently. After all, if things went bad, he could always shadow-travel away again. The old dwarf was swallowed up by the crowd again as Nico and the dwarf continued to march away down the street.

Nico looked around, and really observed everything, for the first time. It was familiar, in a sort of surreal way. Like the Upside Down World.

“It this place . . . like Boston?” Nico asked recklessly, “Or is it just me?”

“Junior’s right,” the bodyguard said gruffly, “You got a mouth on you, huh?”

“Most people do.”

The guard may have snickered. They walked silently for a few moments, and Nico could almost forget that he was being escorted to dungeons of some kind.

“Yes,” the guard said finally. “It’s like Boston. Or, moreover, Boston is like Nidavellir.”

The guard stopped talking abruptly, and Nico got the impression he wasn’t going to say more. Most mythological creatures, and even demigods – yes, alright, Nico included – tended towards being vague and mysterious, as if that could cover up that the gods were actually pretty terrible most of the time. And not even terrible in an awesome way. Just regular old terrible.

“That’s cool,” Nico said, half a plan forming in his mind. Maybe he could talk his way out of this situation. Even though talking was not his strong point. After all, last time he’d tried to talk his way into getting what he wanted, Hades had almost turned him into a pile of ash in Persephone’s garden while said goddess watched on. Still, it was worth a shot, “Do you know a dwarf called Blitz?”

“Blitzen, son of Freya,” the guard gave a long suffering sight, “He and I are, unfortunately, acquainted.”

Nico suddenly got the distinct feeling that Blitzen was not popular. Honestly, Nico could see why. If Blitz hadn’t borderline kidnapped Nico, then abandoned him, he wouldn’t be in this situation.

“Blitz is kinda the reason I’m in this mess. Uh, I’m not calling Nidavellir a mess. It’s lovely and dark. Like the Underworld,” Nico saw the guard’s expression grow grim, “Or not like the Underworld. Much better than there, trust me, I’ve been. This place has, uh, much better acoustics? It’s chiselled out way better?”

That seemed to make the guard happy enough. He smiled proudly, “Indeed, dwarves take great pride in our work, unlike Hellene.”

Nico was a little tired of everyone assuming he was like his father. As far as Nico knew, he only inherited the spooky powers, not the punch-able face or bad parenting skills.

“Listen, I’m no fan of the gods either,” Nico said, “So can you at least tell me where we’re going?”

“The Dungeon, crafted by Grudmir, son of Asta, is used to hold misbehavers and delinquents,” the guard said.

“For how long?”

“Long enough.”

Nico didn’t get the chance to ask any more question because they made an abrupt right turn and were met with the building that was very obviously The Dungeon. It was low lying and inconspicuous at first, but the massive sign over the door that proclaimed ‘THE DUNGEON (CRAFTED BY GRUDMIR, DAUGHTER OF ASTA)’ was unmistakable.

Nico was ushered inside and the door slammed behind him with the sound of a heavy lock clicking into place. He found himself in a dim waiting room that was crowded with an array of impractical and extremely unique seats, most of which looked likely to explode if touched. In the corners were large pots full of mushrooms, which did nothing but made the room smell musty and old.

Against the far wall was a large, ornate desk with a sign saying ‘RING BELL (CRAFTED BY BRENDA, DAUGHTER OF HERTHA) FOR ASSISTANCE AND YOU WILL BE JAILED SHORTLY’. The sign also contained an arrow pointing to what could charitably be described as a bell and accurately described as the result of someone combining a phonograph, a harpsicord and a full drum kit together and hitting it several times with a sledgehammer.

Nico several deep breaths and, seemingly with no other option, walked up to the desk and rung the bell.

Chapter Text

“Hnefatafl?” Magnus asked, nose scrunching adorably.

“Bless you,” Leo said absently, watching Meili bark instructions and push tables together. He wasn’t quite sure what after breakfast activity they were about to participate in, or if it was really normal for a motel, but he was excited nonetheless. Your first proper meal in weeks tends to do that to you.

“I didn’t sneeze,” Magnus muttered, "Please just- take this seriously, okay?"

“Okay. So what’s ne-falafel?” Leo asked, trying and probably failing to copy whatever Magnus had said.

“It’s pronounced hnefatafl, with a silent 'h'.” Magnus said, squinting at Hearthstone’s rapid signing. “I think.”

“Indeed!” Meili roared over the crowd, striding towards the three, “At Mile-Stepper Inn we believe there’s nothing better than bed, breakfast and board games. We shall engage in a friendly game of hnefatafl-to-the-death!”

“Uh,” Magnus squeaked, “I take issue with the to-the-death part?”

Leo thought there seemed to be something wrong with that too, but he couldn’t quite place what.

Meili waved a hand dismissively, “Do not fret, Halfling, I am sure you will an unbeatable hnefatafl player!”

“So it’s a board game?” Leo asked eagerly, cracking his knuckles, “Excellent. Unless it’s like monopoly. I hate monopoly. Mouse trap is good though.”

Leo had always been good at board games, especially the strategy ones. At one boarding school or another he had even been part of the chess club. He’d been really good, when he could sit still enough to concentrate.

“Screw you, monopoly is great!” Magnus said. “Nothing better than a good game of monopoly to test the strength of your relationship.”

“Or a game of hnefatafl-to-the-death?” Leo asked playfully, jabbing Magnus in the ribs.

Magnus swatted his hand away and rolled his eyes. “I’ll hnefatafl you to death if you don’t shut up. I- I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m sorry.”

“Dude, don’t be,” Leo slung an arm around Magnus, “You’re great.”

Meili cleared his throat again, and climbed up onto the table in front of Leo and Magnus to address the room at large, “Alright everyone! Could we please separate into two groups, those experienced with hnefatafl-to-the-death and those who are first-timers. Come on, move it! A quick death is a good death!”

Hearth waved Leo and Magnus goodbye and went to stand on one side of the room. Leo would not have taken him as the type to engage in hnefatafl-to-the-death all that often, but then again after single-handedly taking down those wolves with just a scarf, Hearthstone was not to be underestimated.

“I guess we’re on our own,” Leo said, offering Magnus a hand as they stood up. They walked to the other group, which was thankfully smaller and consisted mostly of less intimidating company. Leo squinted at the person next to Hearth, who had some very convincing full sized demon horns. Freaky.

“We begin with beginners,” Meili announced, eliciting grumbles and glares from the other side of the room. “Silence! If you cannot wait your turn you will be forbidden from participating! Now, since you are all new to the game, you are permitted to choose partners.”

Leo squeezed Magnus’ hand and felt Magnus’ shoulders slump in relief.

“You’d better be as good as board games as you claim.”

Leo scoffed, “Don’t worry, if I’m anywhere as good at this board game as I am at cooking falafel then-”

“You can cook falafel?”

Leo could swear there were actual stars in Magnus’ eyes. Who knew the way to a guy’s heart really was through his stomach?

“Excellent,” Meili interrupted, “Now that you have your partners, I invite you all to find your opponents and-” Meili waved his hand towards the tables, upon which boards of what had to be hnefataflt appeared, “-take your seats.”

Leo looked around, searching for the least intimidating pair he could find, then found himself accidently making eye contact with a man in his late twenties who grinned and beckoned.

“I think we have our opponents,” Leo said, although his stomach was slowly sinking, particularly because said man’s partner appeared to be a lady whose legs had been replaced with snake tails. That definitely wasn’t normal, although Leo still couldn’t decide why.

“That’s not good,” Magnus said, although he walked hand in hand with Leo to sit opposite the couple.

The man pretended to brush dust off his jogging shorts then extended a hand for Leo to shake, “So nice to meet you Leo, I’ve heard great things about you!”

Leo shook the man’s hand, “Please don’t turn me in to the police. Foster care sucks.”

The man laughed, as if the idea were ridiculous, then turned to Magnus, “And you must be the elusive Magnus Chase.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Magnus said dumbly. Leo wondered if there was something about the man’s appearance he was missing. He really just looked like a normal guy in jogging clothes. He didn’t even have, like, a bad vibe or anything.

“First time playing hnefatafl?” The man asked kindly, ignoring Magnus’ staring, “Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be a beginner?” Leo asked.

“Smart man, like your father. Can’t get anything past you, can I?” The man chuckled. Leo noted that he didn’t answer the question. “You can be the bronze team.”

Leo looked down at the board and noted the unusual set up. The bronze team, situated at the centre of the board, consisted of a diamond-shaped group of pointy pieces with a larger one in the middle. Resting against all four sides of the board were members of the black team.

“Your aim is to get the king – the centrepiece – to one of the corners. Our goal is to stop you,” the man continued cheerfully, “Every piece moves like a castle piece from chess, and to eliminate an enemy piece you simply trap it between two of your pieces. Would you like to go first?”

Leo looked over to check with Magnus, who looked like his head was reeling from all the information, then back to the man and nodded, “Yes please.”

The snake lady smiled with sharp teeth.

The man rubbed his hands together eagerly, “Excellent. Now let’s play hnefatafl-to-the-death."

Chapter Text

Magnus did not understand how to play hnefatafl. Not that he needed to. It was as if something had clicked in Leo’s brain. He maneuvered pieces across the board expertly, and almost quicker than Magnus could keep track of. He matched their opponent’s pace easily, and even took part in what Magnus guessed could be described as witty banter.

“Are you sure this is your first time?” The man asked curiously, as Leo trapped one of his pieces.

Leo nodded, then winced as the man set a black piece down beside the king. “I had a knack for chess.”

Magnus eyed the snake lady suspiciously. She didn’t seem at all interested in hnefatafl, and Magnus was beginning to worry that she might instead favour the latter portion of hnefatafl-to-the-death. He looked around quickly and saw Hearthstone on the other side of the room, engaged in a game with what looked to be a baby if it was dipped in neon green radioactive acid.

“I see,” The man said, “And how old are you, Leo?”

Leo paused, one of his pieces clenched between his fingers, “Why?”

The man smiled tightly, “There are many forces at play here, Leo, promises that should not be broken. I quite suspect you to be older than thirteen, but you’re rather short in stature, so-”

“Fifteen,” Leo put his piece down. It made a resounding thump and the man sighed heavily, removing one of his pawns from the board. “You know my father?”

“I do,” the man said.

“What’s he like?” Leo’s voice had grown quiet, his movements slower.

The man hesitated, “It’s not my place to say, Leo. But have no doubt you will meet him eventually.”

Leo stared at the man harshly. Magnus thought, if that stare was turned on him, he would melt under its intensity.

“I have a bad feeling,” the man seemed to be choosing his words carefully, “That Mother has been interfering with all this.”

“Oh, cool, foreboding,” Magnus interrupted, as cheerfully as he could, and before Leo could glare holes into the table, “Is it our turn? I’m really getting in to the whole . . . hnefatafl-to-the-death thing.”

“It’s his turn,” Leo said, softening at the sound of Magnus’ voice. Magnus made a mental note to talk to Leo later, when death was off the table, literary and figuratively.

“So what about me?” Magnus asked, since him talking seemed to work in helping Leo chill out, “Has anyone been tampering in my personal life? Do you know who sent all those wolves?”

He suppressed a shudder at the word. He’d seen enough wolves to last him a life time.

The man made his move and quirked an eyebrow at Magnus, looking him up and down before answering, “No. No, I don’t. Although I rather suspect you’ll find your answers sooner than you hope.”

“Nice to know you’re being messed with as well,” Leo muttered to Magnus, sliding a bronze piece all the way across the board. “I think we’re close to winning this thing, by the way.”

“How does the to-the-death part work?” Magnus asked, although he didn’t really want to know. “Is it determined by who wins hnefatafl, or is it a separate battle? Do we get weapons or is it, like, a fist fight?”

“One war at a time, Magnus,” the man said warningly, “Don’t be too impatient to rush into battle. It could get you killed one day. In fact, I rather suspect it does.”

Magnus sat, stunned into silence, and watched the game for a few moments. Leo’s king piece got cut off, resulting in him spree killing two of the man’s pieces. The man looked back up to Leo and Magnus.

“I’m afraid I’ve upset you both, haven’t I?” He said sadly, “I promise, it wasn’t my intent. It seems I’m better at creating problems for half-bloods than solving them. Rather unfortunate, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” Leo said, when Magnus continued to stare at the table. A couple of months ago a threat like that would have been just that. A threat. Now, after having his apartment destroyed, his mother killed, and his life turned upside down, the threat seemed significantly less empty. Who knew what kind of primordial forces may be out there, thirsting for his blood? He couldn’t just let that type of comment slide.

“What do you mean, could get me killed?” Magnus burst out, unable to contain himself any longer.

The man trapped Leo’s forth last piece, causing Leo to spit out several colourful curses and hit the table with his fist.

“Don't let it worry you,” the man waved a hand breezily through the air, “It probably won’t happen for years.”

“Don’t let it worry you?” Magnus echoed incredulously, “You tell me I might die then say don’t let it worry you? How can I not worry about that?”

Leo was nodding along in agreement as he positioned his king to move to a corner square and win the game.

“If you think about it, you could die at any point in time,” the man said quickly, scanning the board for a way to block Leo off. “A freak car crash resulting a detour to the afterlife example – congratulations on hijacking that one in the parking lot, Leo, very well done, I almost wish you were one of mine – or in a friendly game of hnefatafl-to-the-death, or from a chunk of molten tar thrown at you by a giant. You just never know with mortals.”

Magnus got one thing out of that, and it was not comfort. It was the fact that this man was not mortal. Which really shouldn’t’ve been such a shock since apparently Leo’s dad was a god, but really no teenager expected to go have an idle chat with a supernatural entity, especially not one that told you you were going to die soon.

The man had his turn, then started, hand flying to the pocket of his jogging shorts. He pulled out a phone and squinted at the screen.

“I have to take this, sorry,” the man said, “But you’ll win this turn anyhow. Wonderful chatting with you both. Zeus will be very pleased to finally locate you both. Now, if only we could find Nico di Angelo as well, but being in a different world makes it very difficult to visit him during my lunch break . . .”

“It’s not lunch?” Leo whispered as the man stood and took several steps away, turning his back on the conversation.

“It’s lunch somewhere,” Magnus pointed out, although he was more interested by the man’s phone, which seemed to have had its antennae replaced by snakes. “Hey, Leo-”

“We won!” Leo interrupted, punching the air in excitement as their king piece settled into a corner.

The snake lady steepled her fingers, grinning very wide for someone who had just lost their first game of hnefatafl.

“Magnus Chase,” she hissed, “You were so very eager to discover how the to-the-death part of hnefatafl-to-the-death operates. Would you like a first-hand demonstration?”

And without waiting for an answer, she lunged across the table towards him.

Chapter Text

The bell let out a long, guttural scraping sound. Had Nico broken it? He stepped back and shoved his hands in his jacket pocket, staring around the empty room and trying not to look guilty. Maybe he could blame it on the potted mushrooms.

Muffled steps met his ears and, moments later, a door behind the desk swung open to reveal a stout woman in a jailor outfit, complete with keys jingling at her hip. The little name tag on her shirt labelled her as Brenda. She huffed at him, eyes narrowed in a squint, “What did you do to get yerself thrown in here, eh?”

“Uh, mostly exist,” Nico said.

“Got a mouth on you, huh?” She muttered, plonking down in her desk chair and pulling out a clipboard. “Why don’t you use it to tell me what you did so we can get you sorted in a cell?”

“For how long?” Nico asked, sighing. Sitting and waiting in a cell when Magnus and Leo were probably in the process of dying painfully over something stupid was a less than ideal scenario, but Nico couldn't see much he could do to change it.

“That ain’t an answer to my question,” Brenda scoffed, tapping a pencil against her clipboard. “C’mon, this don’t gotta be harder for you than it already is.”

“I honestly don’t know,” Nico sighed and scowled at the bell to avoid making eye contact. “I somehow end up in Nidavellir and then the moment I try and get out again, some old dwarf picks on me for being Greek and sends me here.”

“Junior,” Brenda spit through gritted teeth, “That old windpipe is always sendin' youngsters my way. Forget about actual troublemakers, no it’s all about the kids who don’t grovel when they see him- did you say Greek?”

Nico nodded, “Greek demigod. Son of Hades. Trust me, I don’t want to be here any more than you do.”

“Well that complicates things for sure,” Brenda scribbled messily on her clipboard. Nico half suspected they were doodles, not words. “Don’t think we’ve had a Hellene in Nidavellir for, what, decades? Always have to go call up the big guns to get them out.”

“I can probably leave just fine on my own,” Nico volunteered, “I was with this dwarf called Blitzen, and we were actually on our way out.”

Brenda gave a long-suffering sigh when Nico mentioned Blitzen’s name. It would figure that Nico managed to befriend the least popular dwarf in the Nine Worlds. However, if Blitzen had done something to offend every dwarf in existence, Brenda said nothing of it.

“Weapons?”

“Not anymore,” Nico said regretfully. He really had to get a new sword. Maybe before he went to rescue Magnus and Leo. After all, how could he rescue them if he couldn’t kill the monsters killing them?

Brenda gave him a harsh look, “A demigod with no weapons?”

“Lost my sword,” he shrugged, then made a show of turning his pockets inside out when her glare didn’t let up. “Not sure what you expect me to be stabbing when I’m in locked in a jail cell anyway.”

Brenda drew herself up, “A well-crafted weapon is more than a tool for stabbin' and killin'! Take my own dagger, Shifty Blade, crafted by myself, Brenda, daughter of Hertha! Not only can it be used as a dagger, it's magically enchanted to detect ill-intent upon drawin' blood. That way, ya always know whether to go in for the kill or not.”

“Personally I only tend to ‘go in for the kill’ when a monster attacks me first,” Nico said, although he thought that Shifty Blade sounded pretty cool, stupid name aside. Imagine how easy it would be to tell if someone was plotting to overthrow the world in a mass Titan rebellion if just drawing blood indicated evil.

The jailor threw down her clipboard and pacer, then gestured to the open door behind her and said, “Well, c’mon, let’s get you waitin’ in a cell until we can call Hermes in. Busy guy like him, might take years . . . I’ll be cursed if I have ta babysit a Hellene for years.”

“I can just be on my way,” Nico offered, even as he began following Brenda down a dingy hallway lined with mostly empty holding cells, “It’s really no trouble.”

“Ha, I’ve heard that one before,” she muttered, unhooking the ring of keys from her belt and flicking through them roughly. It took her three tries to find the right key to unlock the cell they stood in front of, then she gestured roughly inside.

It wasn’t the worst cell Nico had ever seen. Sure, it was dark, and there was mould in the corner, but the bed looked nice enough and the toilet and shower were even separated from the corridor by a thin white wall. The bars were too thin for him to squeeze through, Nico noted with a hint of disappointment. If he wanted to escape, he’d have to shadow-travel. He entered the cell, overall unfazed.

The door grated shut behind him, and Brenda locked him in. She dawdled outside the cell for a moment, “Listen kid, I’m sorry. But it’s safer to have you waitin' in here than raomin' about out there.”

Nico rolled his eyes. He had fought in wars, he was pretty sure he could survive some grumpy old dwarves, sword or no sword. Then the low, grating sound of the bell echoed down the passageway, sounding even worse from further away than it did up close.

Brenda sighed heavily and bustled away, yelling, “Alright, alright, hold your horses, I’m comin'!”

Nico plonked down on the bed and tried to listen to the conversation coming from down the corridor. He could make out two voices, probably arguing, but the exact words were too muffled to be made out.

Then he heard Brenda stomping back down the hall, followed by another set of footsteps. “A complete misunderstanding, I promise, I wasn’t trying to break in to-”

Was Nico going senile or was that Blitzen’s voice?

Speak of the devil – who hopefully wasn’t really real, but after the week Nico had had it wouldn’t be that farfetched – and he doth appear. Nico watched as Brenda frog-marched Blitzen, who was still going on about breaking and entering, into the cell opposite and locked him in.

As she trundled away once more, Blitzen’s gaze finally fell on Nico and his eyes nearly bulged out of his skull. “You disappear for five minutes and manage to get yourself locked up?”

Nico could say the same about Blitzen, but he was better than that. So he just lifted one hand in a lacklustre wave and said, “Hi.”

Chapter Text

Leo was no longer enjoying hnefatafl-to-the-death. When he started playing, it was as though something had clicked. Even as he had been carefully strategizing and moving figures around the board, he’d been coming to several unpleasant realisations of the reality of their situation. This was not, in fact, a normal inn and was probably full of weird and dangerous creatures like snake ladies and wolves. And the to-the-death part was probably as literal as the name made it out to be.

Even so, he’d enjoyed himself when he had been facing off against the man in jogging gear, whose murderous intent had been about as large as Leo’s own. Unfortunately, the man's partner was much more bloodthirsty and apparently a very sore loser.

The snake lady lunged over the table, mouth opening to reveal vampire-like fangs and sending the hnefatafl board flying. Magnus tried to stand, but tripped backwards over his seat and sprawled across the linoleum floor, surrounded by bronze and black pieces.

Meili’s voice roared over the commotion, “And we have our first fight to the death of the morning, folks! Leo and Magnus may have had the upper hand in the first half of their hnefatafl-to-the-death game, but Scythian Dracaena are no easy opponents in battle, I assure you-”

Leo tuned Meili out as the Scythian Dra- snake lady pinned Magnus to the floor. Leo, as anyone would when their adorable best friend slash crush was being attacked by a bloodthirsty snake lady, did the first thing that came to his mind and tackled the snake lady. The two rolled across the floor until hitting another table still preoccupied with their own game of hnefatafl, then struggled for the upper hand.

“Magnus!” Leo yelped as the snake lady raked her nails down his arm, “A little help over here?”

He kicked out as hard has he could and, after his foot made contact with the snake lady’s stomach, he heard her hiss in pain. Or maybe anger. Or maybe just because she was a snake. Regardless, he closed his eyes and kept kicking, ignoring the blood dripping from the wounds in his arms.

Suddenly the claws in his skin loosened, then disappeared completely. Leo looked up to see Magnus standing over him, repeatedly hitting the snake lady over the head with a hnefatafl board. Judging by the way Magnus wielded the board, it was heavier than it looked. Probably metal, to match the celestial bronze and stygian iron playing pieces, although Leo wasn’t quite sure how he knew that.

Didn’t matter, he decided, giving one last kick and sending the snake lady rolling off him and onto the ground, where she struggled under the repeated weight of Magnus’ hnefatafl board. He needed a way to kill her, fast. As he stood, head a little woozy, he found his eyes catching on a small pile of glittering bronze pieces on the table.

“Can I borrow this?” He asked one of the girls sitting at the table, then didn’t wait for a response, “Awesome, thanks.”

Armed with a playing piece no longer than his finger, he leapt back into battle, holding the pointy end of the piece and driving it into the snake lady’s throat. She stilled, dust gathering like blood on her neck. Magnus dropped the board and stared at the lady.

“Is she . . . dead?” He asked dumbly.

Leo looked to Meili, as if the innkeeper could somehow tell better than either of them. Meili was still watching them eagerly. Then Magnus let out a muffled shriek and, seconds later, a pair of fangs sunk into Leo’s neck.

He had imagined being bitten by a vampire before – shut up, okay! – but he had never imagined it to be quite this painful. It felt more like he was being eaten alive than he was undergoing some magical transformation to turn him into the creepiest, palest, sparkliest version of himself. No wonder no one was writing romance novels about snake people.

Magnus screamed, and Leo stared up at him, frozen in shock. Or maybe from the venom that was starting to numb the pain. Magnus was pale, and close to hyperventilating, and Leo absurdly hoped that his asthma wasn’t kicking in again, because there was no way he could help Magnus through an attack while there was a snake lady stuck in his throat.

And then he felt a weird sort of anger bubbling up in his stomach. He didn’t want this snake lady biting him. Especially not on his neck. He didn’t want anyone biting his neck, except maybe M-

Okay that was a thought for another day.

Anyway, he was angry. He had killed the snake lady. He had stabbed her in the throat and won hnefatafl-to-the-death. It wasn’t fair that she got to kill him. The more he thought about it, and about how he didn’t want to be in this situation, the more weirdly angry he felt.

The heat in his stomach had spread throughout his whole body, only needing a spark to set it off. And that spark came in the form of Meili yelling, “In a surprising turn of events, it seems that our dynamic demigod duo has bested by the Scythian Dracaena!”

It was totally unfair of Meili to trick Leo’s brain into thinking everything was okay, and then trying to gain entertainment from his death.

Leo’s anger ignited, and Leo ignited alongside it. He saw flames erupt along his arms and, without really thinking about what he was doing, he reached up and grabbed the snake lady by the neck, watching as she released him to hiss in anguish, then turned to dust in his hands. The dust slowly began to disappear and the fire went out as quickly as it had started.

Leo sat on the linoleum floor of the dining room of Mile-Stepper in, staring at his hands in shock and terror, as the rest of the room gazed at him silently.

Then the man in jogging clothes broke the silence with a slow clap, “Most impressive, Leo! I haven’t seen a son of Hephaestus with pyrokinesis in decades. You’ve won our game of hnefatafl-to-the-death most admirably.”

“Uh . . . thanks?” Leo said dumbly, watching the last of the flames burn out around his fingernails.

“I really must get going,” the man said, turning to face Meili, “From one god of travel to another, thank you for letting me know where these two were.”

Meili nodded in return, “Of course, Hermes. Best of luck in finding the third.”

"I'm sure he'll turn up somewhere. Children of the Big Three have a way of getting into trouble," Hermes winked, then vanished into thin air.

Leo heard footsteps, and turned to see Hearthstone strolling towards them, leaving behind a disgruntled opponent. Hearth offered Leo a hand, seemingly not afraid that he may burst into flames again at any moment, which Leo gladly accepted.

“Yeah, let’s go,” he said dazedly, “I’ve played enough hnefatafl for a lifetime.”

“And,” Magnus said significantly, falling into step beside Leo and shooting Hearth a dirty look, “You have some explaining to do.”

Chapter Text

Magnus sat beside Hearthstone in the back seat of the car, listening to Leo singing along to the radio in off-key Spanish as he drove. Strangely, Magnus found it more endearing than annoying. Then again, he had plenty of other things to be annoyed over, for example almost dying multiple times, or Nico and Blitzen still being missing, or the fact that he hadn't eaten much for breakfast and was now really hungry.

He put all that aside, however, in favour of conversing with Hearthstone and, after a few painful hours of clumsy sign language, Magnus thought he had managed to get the story as straight as it could be and he relayed it to Leo as such, who had stopped singing in favour of scowling out at the road ahead, hands clenched tight on the steering wheel.

“So you’re saying,” Leo said incredulously, “That a decapitated head that is also a god told Hearth, who is also an elf, to find you and keep you safe? Because first of all, good job of that.”

Magnus snickered, “Yeah, apparently you and Nico complicated things.”

“Right, because you’re a Norse demigod and we’re Greek demigods? I cannot believe you just glossed over the fact that we’re literally half god, Magnus,” Leo gesticulated wildly as he spoke, causing the car to veer dangerously close to the edge of the highway.

“I mean, we already found out your father was Heph-something or rather, remember? Besides, I thought you would be more interested in how we ended up at a magical inn owned by the Norse god of travel, as that was what was actually happening, and was therefore relevant,” Magnus pointed out.

He thought he’d done a good job at storytelling, but Leo’s need to re-establish everything and his constant questioning said otherwise. Hearth seemed happy to leave Magnus to explain he could, because after explaining everything in the vaguest was possible, he had fallen asleep and was currently slumped against the backseat window, ignorant to Magnus’ bad narration and Leo’s bad driving.

“I mean, I guess?” Leo said, “But still!”

“Hearth doesn’t know all that much about Greek gods,” Magnus said, feeling defensive over his friend, “I don’t think he’s had to deal with any other than you, and you’ve made a terrible first impression.”

Leo scoffed, “I make a great first impression to everyone. If Hearth was your father and you had brought me home to meet your parents, he would be impressed by how great an impression I leave! He would tell you that you had his blessing to marry me and we'd have a small wedding in a rustic church and a lovely honeymoon by the sea and live happily ever after in a small cottage with six kids and a dog.”

“You certainly leave an impression,” Magnus commented dryly, wondering how much time Leo had spent planning out that little fictional life, and if he really meant it, and what would he name his six kids and dogs? It didn't matter, Magnus decided, because he already agreed that Leo was pretty great, although it would be pretty weird if Hearth was his father (the less said about the rest of Leo's scenario the better). No less weird than if a god was his father, which was apparently the case.

“You and your mediocre insults distracted me,” Leo said, “My point is, gods exist and that’s pretty whack so I’m going to go and scream for twelve hours straight then re-evaluate my perspective of reality.”

“Don't scream, Hearth is still sleeping." Magnus warned. He and Leo sat in silence for a few moments, before Magnus added, "I still think it’s weird that Hermes came to visit us. Like, that’s a Greek god. Maybe you're important too? Or maybe we’re not supposed to know about each other and they’re trying to fix our mistake?”

“Or maybe the gods are actually good parents once you figure out they exist?” Leo suggested, “Maybe they really want to make sure you’re okay and you don’t die horribly.”

Magnus doubted that. After all, Hermes had visited them and then instantly challenged them to hnefatafl-to-the-death, which sort of offset any non-murderous intention he may otherwise have had.

“We can ask Nico when we get back to Boston,” Leo said determinedly, “That’s where Hearth said the rendezvous spot is, right? We’ll interrogate him all professional-like. I call good cop! Actually, no, I can’t imagine you as bad cop. You get to be good cop.”

Magnus chuckled, “Sure, plus with that fire-thing you’ve got, you’re pretty intimidating.”

Leo fell silent, focused on the road. The regret hit instant and heavy, like a snake lady lunging across the table to murder him, but the snake lady was Magnus’ own stupid mouth. He should have realised Leo wouldn’t want to talk about it. After all, he had seen the pure terror on Leo’s face when his arms caught fire.

Magnus had assumed it was just the shock of finding out you were flamable, but if Leo was still troubled about it, maybe there was still a part of the story that Magnus hadn’t heard.

“Sorry,” Magnus murmured, “You don’t have to talk about it.”

Silence spread over the car. They drove on. Magnus stared out the window as cornfields turned to forests and the sun sunk slowly towards the horizon.

“Where do we stop tonight?” Magnus asked eventually. “I refuse to go to another inn. I still can’t believe I signed that stupid contract. I can’t believe Hearth didn’t warn us about, like, anything!”

“I can’t believe I didn’t see anything wrong with the situation,” Leo said, shaking his head in disbelief, “I was totally cool with all of that, and now I’m totally not cool with any of it.”

“It’s that stuff,” Magnus said, “Glamour, I think. Hearth says it messes with mortals and untrained demigods. Maybe being a Greek demigod makes you more susceptible to it? I doubt anyone’s ever tested it before.”

Leo nodded, still looking miffed, “Good thing I drunk that mind-sharpening mead. Can you imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t?”

Magnus could, although he wished otherwise. They lapsed into silence again until Leo started flicking through the different radio stations, occasionally singing along to a chorus or opening lyric before changing channels.

Around five pm, Magnus shook Hearth awake and asked again, “Any idea where we stop tonight?”

He tried his best to sign as he spoke. He thought his sign language was slowly getting better as he spoke with Hearth, and instead of spelling everything out he could use the signs for some common words now. That was for sure an improvement.

Hearth made a pinching motion, then bought his right hand down to his left sharply. No stop.

“Don’t you need to leave though? It’s almost night.” Magnus was pretty sure Hearth had mentioned something about elves not liking the dark. Plus, Leo had been driving for a long time. Surely he needed a break.

Hearth smiled at him and signed, Shortcut.

Magnus didn’t like the sound of that, because if Hearthstone’s idea of a safe place for the night was the Mile-Stepper Inn, his idea of a shortcut was probably something just as convoluted. He didn’t get a chance to ask, though, as Hearth turned away from him, rummaging through his pockets and pulling out a drawstring bag and tipping its contents – a pile of small, round stones, into his other hand.

Hearth picked through the stones and selected one, Magnus secretly suspected it was at random, before depositing the rest back into his bag and showing the chosen pebble to Magnus. It had a roughly carved ‘R’ on it.

“How does that help?” Magnus asked.

Hearth answered by rolling down the window, leaning out and throwing the stone down the road. Where it hit the ground, a swirling vortex opened up. Leo, who had seemingly been oblivious to what had just happened, yelped in alarm and slammed on the breaks. But he was too late, and the car screeched headfirst into the portal.

Chapter Text

Nico had decided he didn’t really like prison. Or maybe it was just because Blitz had been lecturing him non-stop since his arrival about running off and being irresponsible as if everything was Nico’s fault. Again.

Although from what Nico had gathered, Blitz himself had been arrested for attempting to break and enter into a high-end restaurant that apparently contained a path to the World Tree, which he somehow successfully managed, only to realise Nico wasn’t there and get himself caught by Ratatosk on his way back. Nico was secretly glad he had purchased the Mythomagic Norse Expansion Pack because otherwise he would have no idea what half of the things Blitz referenced were.

He sat cross-legged on the cell bed and pretended to listen to Blitzen, when really he was thinking about how to escape. He only had enough energy for one jump using his shadow-travel, but even after escaping he and Blitzen would still need to get out of Nidavellir. If only Blitzen would focus on how to solve the problem at hand instead of lament how it had happened.

“-great galumphing gods, I always knew demigods were reckless,” Blitzen lectured, hands propped on his hips like a disappointed mother, “but it wasn’t until meeting you that I really understood exactly what that meant! Do you even an ounce of self-preservation? Is even a single bone in your body concerned about whether we end up in Hel?”

Nico privately thought Leo and Magnus were more likely to end up in the Underworld, what with how inexperienced they were with the whole . . . being a demigod thing. It seemed that, despite Camp Half-Blood’s best efforts, no demigods ever actually got to experience a safe introduction to their unfortunate reality. The Fates seemed to favour just throwing some monster at unarmed kids and hoping for the best. And who’d’ve guessed, it usually didn’t work out well.

“It would be a good thing if we were in the Underworld,” Nico pointed out when Blitz paused to breathe. “I’m the son of Hades, remember? Now do you have any, uh, convenient dwarf magic you could use to get us out of here?”

“Convenient dwarf magic?” Blitz huffed, as if it was an unreasonable or offensive request. Seeing as the gods were real and multiple different worlds existed, Nico didn’t think it was too much to hope for. Then Blitz sighed and shook his head, “If only Hearth were here.”

“I have the energy for one more jump via shadow-travel,” Nico said, “Which is what got us into Nidavellir in the first place, so chances are it’ll get us back to Earth-”

“Midgard.”

“-whatever. If you get us out of these cells, I’ll get us out of this world. No need for magic trees.”

Blitzen seemed sceptical, but Nico assumed he was desperate, because he nodded, “I’ll try and come up with something, kid. Any other spooky powers I should know about?”

“I can manipulate the earth a bit. Like, enough to magically unearth buried coins, or put a big rock between myself and an angry titan on a rampage,” Nico offered, although he doubted they would be able to bribe their way out of jail in this situation.

“Geokinesis, us dwarves can do a bit of that too, you know,” Blitz said proudly, then a thoughtfully expression crossed his face. “Though we can’t mould metal.”

Good to know Nico mightn’t have to do everything by himself for once, “But I don’t know if I have enough energy, and if not, I blame those weird glittery noodles you gave me.”

Blitzen frowned heavily, perhaps offended by the slight to his ability to prepare instant noodles, then sat down heavily on his bed and began tugging on the laces of his boots. Nico bit back a comment about how now wasn’t the time for Blitz to make himself at home because the dwarf had a sly look in his eyes that Nico thought meant he had maybe even the smallest hint of an escape plan.

Blitz tugged off his boots, then his cactus-print socks, which he wadded up into a ball before addressing Nico again. “Want to find out how far your metal manipulation goes, kid?”

Nico didn’t think he had much of a choice. Blitzen hurled his socks across to Nico’s cell, where they clanked against the floor. Nico gave the footwear a suspicious look and made no move to pick them up. They probably smelt of dwarf.

“Go on, kid, that’s chainmail there. If you could morph it into a key, we might be able to get out of this place,” Blitz explained emphatically.

“Operative word ‘if’,” Nico said, with much less optimism. “Also why are your socks made of chainmail?”

“I’ve read your myth of the great Achilles,” Blitzen said. “Hearth always tells me it was a metaphor, but deep down we both know the moral is to have footwear impervious to poison arrows.”

“I think I might have to side of Hearth for this one,” Nico admitted, finally working up the courage to pick up the socks which smelt more of metal than of feet. Thank the gods. All of them. Even Persephone. “Although it’s good to know someone’s bumbling stupidity was actually helpful for once.”

Nico walked over to the metal bars and examined the lock. It seemed simple enough, but Nico wasn’t about to trust it. “You’re sure that if I mould your socks into a key, this thing won’t explode because it isn’t a key crafted by . . . I don’t know, Fafnir son of Hreiomar or something?”

Blitzen gave Nico a weird look, “Of course it won’t explode.”

“Alright, alright,” Nico huffed, “This place is weird about objects, I just wanted to check I wouldn’t inadvertently get us killed.”

He still wasn’t a hundred percent convinced it was safe, but he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

Nico closed his eyes and pictured the shape of the chainmail socks, imagined it melting together and moulding itself out into the shape of a large, ornate key. He felt the metal, cool and smooth, shift and twist like running water between his fingers. When he opened his eyes again, a roughly-hewn key rested in his palm.

The ground shifted under his feet, but Nico ignored it in favour of trying the key. The lock clicked and the cell door swung open. Nico heard a high-pitched ringing in his ears, but payed it little mind. He quickly freed Blitzen and returned the sock-keys to the dwarf.

“Can you hear that?” Blitzen asked.

“I thought I was getting a headache,” Nico replied, rubbing his temples.

“Nope, that’s definitely the sound of an alarm,” Blitzen paused for a long moment, forehead scrunching, then said, “Or the sound of something that’s about to explode.”

“You said nothing would explode!”

“Listen, I’ve never broken out of jail before, kid. How am I supposed to know if something’s rigged to explode if we don’t use the right key?” Blitzen looked like for half a moment as if he was going to keep ranting, then he dragged a hand down his face and said, “Okay, kid, time to test out how well you can teleport.”

If Nico had still been holding Blitzen’s sock-key he would have thrown it at the dwarf’s head. “I just said I can’t shadow-travel-”

“Well, unless you wanna go kaboom when this thing detonates, which will probably be sooner rather than later-”

At the end of the corridor a door slammed open and Brenda, daughter of Hertha, stormed into the hallway, brow set.

“BLITZEN!” She roared.

Between possible death via shadow-travel or death via explosions and angry dwarf lady, Nico knew which option he’d prefer. He lunged towards Blitzen, grabbed the dwarf by the forearm and muttered, “I hope you don’t get travel sick.”

Nico thought he could hear the echo of an explosion moments before the darkness swallowed them whole.

Chapter Text

If Leo were to compose a list of place that he never wanted to visit, any and every boarding school in America would have come in at first place as only a fraction less preferable to hell. And so, in some ways, Leo was lucky, because he was not currently in a boarding school. He was, however, in hell. Figuratively. Maybe literally.

The moment they passed through the portal, the car’s engine cut out and started smoking. Leo cursed and slammed his foot on the accelerator as if hoping it would somehow send them shooting back through the now-shrinking vortex, with no results.

“Leo!” Magnus yelped form the backseat. “I think Hearth is dying.”

Leo twisted around in his seat to see Hearth slumped against his seat, face pale and eyes lidded, hands shaking as he attempted to spell out a message. Leo thought he saw three signs repeating, once, twice, then Hearth’s hands fell limp and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Magnus lunged forwards and put his head against Hearth’s chest, eyes wide as he listened for a heartbeat. “He’s alive.”

“Probably fainted from fear,” Leo said shakily. “I’ll see if I can get the car up and running.”

“It wasn’t fear,” Magnus muttered. “He knew what he was doing when he opened that portal. He wasn’t scared at all.”

“He opened that portal?” Leo said. “Jeez, warn a guy next time! I thought we were about to be sucked into Hell or something.”

“Yeah, about that . . .” Magnus sighed heavily and mimicked Hearth’s signing, “H-E-L. Which, if my knowledge of mythology is up to scratch, means we’re in Helheim.”

Okay, so Leo was in hell, both figuratively and literally. He climbed out of the car and opened the bonnet. Despite the smoke billowing from the engine, nothing looked out of place. The engine had just . . . died.

Leo took a deep breath of damp air and took in their surroundings. They appeared to be on an icy road that stretched off forever in both directions. To either side of them, dark cliffs stretched up impossible far towards a fog-shrouded sky. He doubted he could climb them at the best of times, and having an unconscious elf and no mountaineering supplies was a far cry from the best of times.

Leo pulled open the back door to the car and said, “So, the car is officially out of order, but I have good news and bad news. Good news, we have some options! Bad news, they’re limited.”

Magnus looked up from where he was attempting to shake Hearth awake, expression muted. “What are our options?”

“Stay here and pray help comes, try out more of Hearth’s fancy vortex rocks, or go looking for help,” Leo ticks the options off on his fingers, pauses, then adds, “Also, more good news, there’s only one road. And more bad news, I have no idea where it goes but if we’re in Hel it’s probably bad.”

“There’s no way we can fix the car?” Magnus asked.

“Thing is, it’s not broken. It just won’t start. Plus, it’s not like I have a spare tool kit lying around. We aren’t getting any further in this thing.”

“Just our luck, hey?” Magnus sighed, “I guess we’d better start walking.”

They managed to prop Hearthstone up between them, although his legs dragged on the ground – Magnus argued it was because he and Leo were too short, but Leo insisted it was because Hearth was too tall – and started off down the road. Leo was honestly a little sad to say goodbye to the hijacked car. He hoped its original owner wasn’t missing it too much, because there was no way in Hel to return it.

Helheim was the opposite of what Leo assumed Hell would be. It was cold and dim and, even though the road was well paved, each step was like trekking through mud.

“You think there’s a way out at the end of this road?” Leo asked, although he didn’t really want to consider the answer. “What if it just goes on forever?”

“It can’t,” Magnus was breathless, cheeks pink and hair sticking to his forehead from sweat, even though they hadn’t been walking for that long. Leo had finally met someone scrawnier than him. Not that he minded. Magnus made scrawny look cute.

“Why not?” Leo asked, although he was only half paying attention and couldn’t quite remember what he’d asked in the first place.

“Because,” Magnus huffed, “If the gods are real, there has to be a god of Helheim. And if there’s a god of Helheim, they have to live somewhere in Helheim. If I was the god of the afterlife-”

“Which you’re not,” Leo said, because Magnus was pretty much the opposite of a god of death. Leo had never felt more alive than in the days he’d spent with Magnus.

“Which I’m not,” Magnus conceded. “But if I was, I’d live at the end of this very long road, as opposed to somewhere out in the great, featureless unknown.”

That was pretty sound reasoning. However, Magnus was probably a lot smarter than most gods. Still, Leo wasn’t going to play devil’s advocate when there was probably a god of Helheim who was just that. Besides, he wanted to find something just as much as Magnus did.

“The problem is,” Magnus continued, now frowning at the horizon, “We maybe don’t want to run into the god of Helheim, because I’m not sure how friendly a god of death would be.”

That was another good point that Leo unfortunately hadn’t considered when they’d decided to start walking. He glanced back over their shoulder, but the car had faded away into the fog. It was anyone’s guess how far they’d travelled.

Leo turned to stare at the horizon ahead again, lifting a hand up to shelter his eyes from an imaginary sun. In the far distance, blending in with the winding road and rolling fog, was a large, dark smear, consuming everything ahead of them in darkness. “I think I see something.”

“That has to mean we’re going somewhere!” Magnus said optimistically, peering off in the direction Leo was looking. “What do you think it is?”

“A really big blanket,” Leo joked, although with everything he had seen recently it would hardly be unbelievable. “Uh, a massive witch’s cauldron, maybe.”

“I think I can see it,” Magnus muttered. “I think it’s a valley.”

“I like my ideas better.”

Magnus shifted Hearth so his weight rested more comfortably between them, still looking grimly into the distance. “Only one way to find out.”

“Well now you’ve said that I know it can’t be anything good,” Leo muttered. “I’ve read books and watched shows. You never go towards the dark and foreboding shape on the horizon.”

“We’re already literally in Hell,” Magnus pointed out. “I don’t see how things could get worse.”

Magnus really needed to stop being so right about everything. It was very inconsiderate towards Leo’s need to not be killed painfully and horribly.

“I don’t suppose you think Hearth would agree with me?” Leo asked, in a last-ditch attempt to try and end up somewhere nice, full of sunshine and kittens, where no one wanted to kill them.

“The same Hearth who thinks it’s a good idea to take down massive wolves with only a hand-knitted scarf?” Magnus asked. “The same Hearth who thinks a safe place to spend the night is the same place that signs away your rights and forces you to play hnefatafl-to-the-death? The same Hearth that thinks Helheim is a good shortcut? Yeah right, he’d probably charge forwards at top speed.”

And so, naturally, because it was what Hearthstone would have wanted, they continued on towards the dark and forbidding shape on the horizon.

Chapter Text

Magnus was not having a fun time in Hel. Maybe that was to be expected. After all, an asthmatic dragging an unconscious elf down an endless road towards potential suffering didn’t exactly sound like fun. But Magnus had thought he would at least enjoy spending time with Leo.

He would have been enjoying it, if not for the heavy feeling that settled like stones in his stomach. He had no idea how Leo continued to joke and smile – albeit in a subdued sort of way – when he could barely focus on putting one step in front of the next. Especially since each step made the dull throbbing in the base of his skull ache with more intensity.

At least they knew they were going in the right direction, he reminded himself. The dark smear across the horizon had to mean they were reaching something significant, although it was probably nothing good.

As they drew closer, the shape distinguished itself as a valley, just like Magnus had thought. The road they were walking down had grown icy underfoot, twisting away down the cliffs until it was swallowed by the blackness ahead. It was so cold that standing at the rim of the valley, Magnus’ teeth were chattering.

Magnus was half tempted to ask Leo to do his weird fire trick again, but he didn’t want to push Leo, especially considering how the other boy had completely shut down at the mention of it.

“Into the scary black pit?” Leo asked, trying to smile.

Magnus nodded solemnly. “Into the scary black pit.”

Magnus continued to focus on moving one foot at a time, now mostly because one wrong step would result in the trio tumbling down into the darkness forever. His headache slowly faded away, replaced by an indistinct static in his ears, like thousands of voices vying to be heard, all speaking in whispers.

It felt like he’d walked forever, but the further they went, the less Magnus noticed the cold and dark. The area around them remained illuminated in an ethereal golden glow, and warmth seeped all the way through Magnus to his fingertips.

“Leo?” Magnus asked when it seemed that they’d finally found the bottom of the cliff. “Are you doing this?”

He looked over to see Leo staring at him, slack-jawed like a kid in a candy store.

“It’s not me,” Leo whispered. His breath ghosted in the air between them. “Magnus, you’re glowing!”

Magnus blinked, warmth creeping up to his face. “Uh, thanks-”

“No, I mean- yeah, that too- but you’re literally glowing,” Leo amended, waving his free hand around as he spoke.

Magnus looked down at himself. At first he couldn’t see what Leo was talking about. Then, as he squinted his eyes just a bit, he could make out a soft golden light radiating off of him.

“I- I am glowing,” Magnus stuttered, sweeping his arm through the darkness ahead of them and spilling light across the icy ground, then turned to look at Leo again. Leo was grinning ear to ear at Magnus, as if he was the most mystical and amazing thing he’d ever seen. Despite the tightness in his chest Magnus felt a smile creeping onto his face.

“You’re like a real life Disney princess,” Leo murmured.

“I guess that makes you my prince in shining armour,” Magnus quipped back.

Leo shook his head, grinning ear to ear, “No way. I’m more like the well-meaning thief who steals out of necessity and is slowly revealed to have a heart of gold over the course of the story which, along with my witty banter, causes the princess to fall hopelessly in love with me.”

“You’ve thought about this too much.”

“Yeah,” Leo agreed breathlessly.

Between them, Hearthstone grunted and twitched, eyelids fluttering.

Magnus cleared his throat. “We should keep going. We have to find a way out of here.”

“Right,” Leo agreed. “Yeah. Duh.”

They kept walking, focusing now on the slippery path underfoot. Leave it to Hel to have a road made out of ice, or something equally inconvenient.

The silence began to well up between them, filling the space with coldness. Magnus wished he didn’t have to drag Hearth around, so he could instead hold Leo’s hand. Because Leo was warm. Not because of anything else.

Okay, maybe just a little bit because of something else. But Helheim wasn’t the place to think about it.

The static whispers in Magnus’ ears grew louder the further forwards they walked. Something flickered in the corner of his eye, but when he spun around, nothing was there.

“Magnus?” Leo asked softly. “Are you okay? Do you need to rest for a bit?”

“I’m fine,” Magnus didn’t want to slow them down, especially not over something stupid. “I just . . . did you see that?”

“What?”

“I don’t know, I thought I saw something in the corner of my eye, but when I looked there was nothing,” Magnus shrugged half-heartedly. “It was probably nothing.”

“I don’t think anything is ‘probably nothing’ anymore,” Leo said. “I mean, meeting Nico, the graveyard, Milestepper Inn. We’ve been through a lot of things that were ‘probably nothing’ until they turned out to be something really weird and dangerous.”

“Yeah,” Magnus agreed reluctantly, “Yeah, that's true.”

“Tell me if you see any more weird flickering things, okay?”

Magnus nodded, although he hoped Leo wasn’t right and that, for once, it really was nothing. Although, no sooner had they started off again when Magnus saw another flickering shape out of the corner of his eye. Just like the last, it vanished almost as soon as it appeared.

The path twisted sharply around a tall boulder, then dropped away sharply. Magnus swung an arm out to stop Leo walking any further and they stumbled back from the edge, dragging Hearth with them. Magnus’ foot caught on a dip on the road and he slipped, tumbling down onto the ground and bringing down Hearth and Leo with him.

“Are you okay?” Leo asked, gasping.

Magnus nodded, crawling forwards on his hands and knees until he reached the place where the ground gave way. Even before he could see what lay at the bottom of the small drop, he could hear the slow gurgling of water.

Water spread endlessly outwards ahead of them, far out of the golden light Magnus’ weird glowing provided. There was no boat, and Magnus would rather cut of his left arm than even think about trying to swim across.

“Uh, Leo?” He called softly. “I think we’ve reached a bit of a road block.”

Chapter Text

Nico hated sleeping. No matter how good he got at dream manipulation, it was still close to impossible to escape at least some form of torture at the hands of his subconscious. The knowledge that it was all a dream didn’t make his current reality sting any less.

The unfortunately familiar Fields of Asphodel began to form from mist around Nico. He turned slowly, hand on his belt where his sword would be, although he knew he wouldn’t use it even if he hadn’t lost it. He doubted it would work, although he would never test whether it did because even in his worst nightmares he could never intentionally hurt the people who haunted his mind.

Speaking of, two figures leered up out of the ashen ground, staring down at him as though he was less than the dirt under their shoes.

“Look at the mess you’ve gotten yourself in to,” the nightmarish recreation of Nico’s sister spoke first, shaking her head in mock disappointment.

“Accepting help from monsters?” Not-Percy agreed, shaking his head in disgust.

“Actually, Blitzen is a dwarf,” Nico corrected, before he could stop himself. “It’s different. Much more like how Greek demigods befriend and work with satyrs. But, also, not really, because I’ve never been put in jail by a satyr.”

Nico really needed to learn when to stop talking.

“You’re stupid if you think they’re at all alike,” Not-Percy sneered, “You can’t trust monsters. You can’t trust anything. You know you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“It’s worked out for me so far,” Nico muttered, biting the inside of his cheek to stop himself talking, and to stop himself tearing up. He knew it wasn’t real. He knew it was just a dream. He didn’t know why it still hurt so much.

“I told you before,” Not-Bianca stepped forwards, scowling, “you shouldn’t trust a monster’s word over mine. I’m your sister, Nico.”

“You’re not,” he said, hoping she wasn’t.

“Don’t be an idiot, of course I am.”

“You’re not. I’m dreaming,” he said desperately.

“So what if you are? It doesn’t make us any less right, or you any less terrible,” Not-Percy taunted.

If Nico was dreaming, which he knew he was, then surely he could control his dreams. Travelling through dreams was as easy as travelling through shadows, which granted, wasn’t very easy. All Nico had to do was find a weak spot in reality and tear a rift, just big enough for him to slip through to the other side.

In the waking world, those rifts came in the forms of shadows. While asleep it was harder, as reality distorted itself and flowed seamlessly together to form nightmares. Nevertheless, Nico had to try and find a rift. He had to get out of here, there were people relying on him, and he didn’t need any nightmarish recreations of the people he loved to tell him that he was doing an awful job of protecting them.

Eyes still closed tightly, Nico reached out for a rift. He imagined himself somewhere else, anywhere else, just not here. He found something and tugged, feeling the air ripple around him as his dreamscape shifted.

He stood in the doorway to a massive hall crowded with shadowy figures that flitted away when he turned his eyes upon them. The room stretched away into thick, white fog that pulsed and shifted as if the very air was alive.

Nico’s first thought was that he had woken up in the Underworld. The second was that, if that was the case, he really had to find Blitzen.

Somewhere far ahead of him, a door slammed. The sound echoed and magnified for several long moments, before being swallowed by the silence. A few moments later, Nico heard two sets of footsteps, faint at first, but growing louder. And therefore closer.

He squinted into the mist, trying to find silhouettes, and was met with nothing but more white.

“What are you going to do with the boy, then?” An unfamiliar voice asked, the ends of the words cracking like ice.

A short sigh answered her, and Nico was very familiar with that type of short sigh, because that it was usually being directed at him. Was . . . was ‘the boy’ in this situation him? It would make sense, with the sort of trouble he’d gotten himself in to.

Hades’ voice rang through the hall, “Zeus wants to interfere personally, which never ends well.”

Nico wholeheartedly agreed with that.

Was it his imagination or could he see a slightly darker white blur emerging from the white?

“It only makes sense,” the unfamiliar voice replied, “Greek and Norse demigods mingling . . . it cannot end well, especially if what you have heard about the son of Hephaestus is true.”

“Yes, well, it’s difficult to tell what Apollo really means,” Hades muttered darkly. Nico squinted at the shapes emerging from the mist. “But it cannot be coincidence, considering the attention the other has already garnered.”

The two figures drew closer. The one on the left was Hades, Nico was sure of it. Even half-obscured by fog his purposeful stride was impossible to miss. Nico couldn’t begin to fathom who his companion was. The shadows in the corners of his eyes started to twist and writhe, or else disappear completely, and Nico took that as a bad sign.

Knowing his luck, Hades and the stranger would probably be able to see him, even though he was dreaming. He knew it wouldn’t end well if they did. Especially if he was their topic of conversation. He needed to leave.

He needed to wake up. Nico reached out and clawed his way from the hall, into darkness, and then into soft yellow light.

“Nico?” Someone asked sleepily. “What are you doing here?”

Nico opened his eyes and peered cautiously out at the softly lit room he now found himself in. Sitting on a bed opposite where Nico stood, a fluffy blanket wrapped like a cape around his shoulders, a stocky guy with blond hair stared out at him.

“Hey Clovis,” Nico greeted, shoulders slumping in relief. Nico didn’t much care for the son of Hypnos, but the kid wasn’t a threat, for which Nico was infinitely glad. “I’m just passing through.”

“Hmm,” Clovis hummed agreeably. His eyes were drooping closed again before Nico had even finished the sentence.

“Can you maybe, uh,” Nico waved a hand vaguely at his surroundings, trying to find an accurate hand gesture that meant open-a-rift-in-subconscious-reality-that-will-somehow-wake-me-up-probably-using-magic. “Get me out of here?”

Clovis peered at Nico sceptically, “Okay, yeah, but are you sure you don’t wanna have nap first? You look like you’re running on fumes.”

“I’m fine,” Nico said dismissively.

He didn’t have time to waste on sleeping, not when he and Blitzen could be anywhere in any world, probably facing imminent danger. Why didn’t anyone ever understand he could function fine without sleep or food until he got everyone to safety? He would rest later, after he managed to not die.

Clovis stared at Nico sceptically. Or, as sceptically as one could when they were half asleep and hugging a pillow pet to their chest. Then the other boy yawned and shrugged, “Sure, whatever. Drop by again if you need a proper nap.”

Clovis’ eyes slid closed and the room melted away. Nico floated for a few moments, suspended in his subconscious, until a coarse voice met his ears.

“C’mon kid, you gotta wake up. I don’t know where this is, but things aren’t looking so hot- get back!”

That sounded like Blitzen. More specifically, it sounded like Blitzen was in trouble.

Nico struggled awake. He opened his eyes and was met with a grey field rolling out towards a massive building. Blitzen was standing over him, fists clenched and stature tense, although Nico knew he wouldn’t be able to touch, let alone fight, any of the ghosts that kept crowding around to inspect the pair.

Nico groaned and sat up, rubbing his head in a half-hearted attempt to stop it throbbing.

“Oh, thank the gods! These ghosts are getting real antsy.” Blitzen glanced down at Nico. “I reckon got a Grade-A problem on our hands.”

“You’re right about that, but not for the reason you think. The spirits won’t hurt you.” Nico climbed to his feet and swung about to stare at the black marble castle on the horizon. “Welcome to the Underworld.”

Chapter Text

Leo scrambled towards Magnus and knelt beside him on the smooth rock, close enough that their shoulders were almost touching. He could see their reflections, illuminated in gold, on the inky black water that moved sluggishly downstream.

“I am not swimming in that,” Leo muttered, squinting his eyes as though it would help him see the bottom of the river. If there was a bottom. This place was obviously inherently magic, so maybe this water went on forever and ever without end.

“There has to be a way across,” Magnus said, sitting back on his heels and looking around. “From what I remember about Helheim, there’s a bridge with, like, a troll or a giant or something. There’s a way across, we just need to find-”

Magnus cut himself off, staring wide-eyed to his right. Leo squinted over Magnus’ shoulder but couldn’t see anything in the darkness, which was honestly probably worse than whatever Magnus was staring at.

“What are you looking at?” Leo poked Magnus’ in the shoulder, but the other boy didn’t respond.

“Do you hear her too?” Magnus whispered, jaw tightening.

Leo fell silent for a moment, head tilted, but all he could hear was Hearthstone’s shallow breath and the overwhelming sound of nothing. “No.”

“We have to help her,” Magnus said, standing unsteadily and almost knocking Leo into the water as he did.

Leo shot to his feet reached a hand out for Magnus. “Woah now, one thing we are not doing is running off into the darkness at the sound of someone’s voice. That’s a horror movie waiting to happen.”

“It’s my mother!” Magnus spat, pulling away from Leo and taking a shaky step away from him, towards the darkness. “I have to help her.”

Leo’s chest tightened. He could imagine all too well what Magnus was feeling. Leo’s own sorrow and guilt had healed over time, but if he heard his mother’s voice – crying out for help, no less – those wounds would have torn themselves open all over again. Magnus hadn’t even been given that time.

If he were Magnus, he would want nothing more than to be allowed to go find his mother, to save her. But he wasn’t Magnus and he didn’t have time for deep philosophical introspection on what the right thing to do was.

He had to save Magnus and he would claw his way up from the pits of Hel to do so.

“Remember where we are,” Leo said, reaching forwards again to grab Magnus’ hand. “We’re in Hel. If your mother is here, there isn’t anything more we could do for her. We have to keep going while we’re still alive. Hearth needs you. I need you.”

Magnus softened and nodded, although he kept looking around and back into the blackness. He gripped Leo’s hand and squeezed it, and Leo squeezed right back, letting the contact be their lifeline.

“You said there’s a bridge,” Leo said, not meeting Magnus’ eyes. Magnus probably wanted nothing more than to shove Leo into the river for tearing him away from a chance to save his mother. Leo probably deserved it.

Magnus nodded.

“So we just keep walking until we find it.”

Like most things in Leo’s life, it was easier said than done. He’d had to let go of Magnus’ hand to help prop Hearthstone up between himself and Magnus once more, which sort of sucked. Hearth was still dead weight that they had to lug about with no clue where they were going, which also sucked. Magnus now was dragging his feet and continuously looking out into the darkness away from the river, obviously hearing his mother, which really sucked.

Leo’s legs felt like jelly and he was ready to collapse, but whenever he looked over at Magnus to suggest the idea of taking a break, he saw the helplessness on Magnus’ face and remembered why he was forcing them both onwards in the first place.

If he wasn’t so focused on walking and breathing – was the air getting thinner or was it just him? – he would have tried to cheer Magnus up with corny jokes or anecdotes that at first seemed funny but the more you thought about them were actually kind of sad. Maybe it was a good thing that Leo couldn’t talk.

Finally, a shape loomed out of the darkness over the water ahead of them, reaching out over the river in a gentle slope. From what Leo could see, it fit the description of bridge, but only just. It was hewn out of crystal so polished it was almost see-through, the first few metres just barely above the surface of the river, before it curved upwards with seemingly no supports. Structurally, it made no sense, and Leo was left with the unsatisfying conclusion that it, too, had to be magic.

“There’s the bridge,” Magnus said between gasps for air. “I don’t see any giant guarding it.”

“Maybe it’s on its lunch break?” Leo offered, trying to reposition Hearthstone so that he was carrying more of Hearth’s weight. Magnus may have be taller than Leo, but he certainly wasn’t any stronger, so if Leo felt like he was about to collapse, Magnus must have felt much worse.

“Somehow,” Magnus paused to try and breath some more, “I doubt it.”

“One way to find out.”

They stumbled their way to the foot of the bridge. It was still too dark to see the other side. If it weren’t for the fact that Magnus was still emitting a soft golden light, it might have been too dark to see anything at all.

Leo thanked all the gods, real and not real, that Magnus was a Disney Princess in disguise. He thanked them slightly less when he realised that made him the Disney Prince who had to complete some impossible task to rescue said princess. Hopefully their movie was subversive of tired tropes and sexist stereotypes, like Shrek. Did that make Nico their Donkey?

“We should keep moving,” Magnus said, at the same time as Leo blurted out, “Do you like Shrek?”

Magnus turned and blinked at Leo. “What?”

“Uh, nothing,” Leo said quickly. “You think it’s safe to cross?”

“Well, no,” Magnus said, “But I don’t think we have much choice.”

In the quiet that followed, he jerked his head back out to the right and a pained expression crossed his face. Leo opened his mouth to talk, but before he could even figure out what to say, Magnus’ expression hardened and he started forwards, leaving Leo no choice but to move forwards alongside him – or risk dropping Hearth into the inky waters below.

At first, everything seemed to be going smoothly. Which, as Leo was learning, meant things would absolutely go wrong the moment he let his guard down, if not sooner.

“Leo? Do you see that?” Magnus whispered, pointing off into the darkness below them.

Speak of the devil. Or, evil death-god, maybe? Leo squinted in the direction Magnus was staring. “I don’t see anything. Too dark. Is it, um, another spirit?”

“No,” Magnus said. “The water is rippling.”

“Water does that,” Leo said. Magnus was making it very difficult to ignore the unease creeping up his spine. “It’s normal.”

“No, not like this,” Magnus said, oblivious to Leo’s quest to pretend that everything-was-normal-and-not-going-to-kill-him. “Not like there’s something massive just under the surface.”

“So long as it’s under the surface, we shouldn’t have a problem,” Leo reasoned, quickening his pace and therefore forcing Magnus to do the same.

“Leo,” Magnus whispered, “I think-”

Whatever Magnus thought suddenly mattered a lot less to Leo, because he was drowned out by the sound of something massive just under the surface of the water surging upwards out of the water. Dripping wet and growling, the humanoid figure loomed high above the bridge, darker than the darkness.

“It’s not underwater now,” Magnus said faintly, “I think that means we have a problem.”

Chapter Text

If Magnus was honest with himself, and he usually tried to be, problem may have been an understatement. Standing on a bridge in literal Hel with only himself, Leo and an unconscious elf facing off against whatever monster had dragged itself up from the inky water below them was a little bit more than a problem.

The figure looming over the bridge narrowed its glowing eyes and opened its mouth to reveal teeth the size and shape of boulders, and let out a terrible roaring sound. It took Magnus a moment to realise it was yawning.

“Who dares to cross the Gioll, boundary of Hel?” The monster’s voice was loud enough to make Magnus’ ears ring, loud enough to drown out the whispers that had persisted in the back of his mind since he entered this place. Silence followed the creature’s demand, absolute and impenetrable, leaving Magnus’ mind empty.

After several seconds that may have actually been centuries, Leo cleared his throat and yelled upwards, “D-do you want an answer? Or are you being menacing and rhetorical?”

Magnus wanted to elbow Leo, and he would have, had it not been for the fact that Hearth was still unconscious and propped up between them.

“I’m Magnus and the slightly smaller, more annoying one is Leo,” Magnus added, for clarification. “And this is Hearthstone. He’s unconscious.”

The figure stooped lower, closer to the glowing circle of light that Magnus was still emitting. It was bone thin, ragged cloth covering its head and torso. Magnus couldn’t make out the details of its face, and he was strangely thankful.

“I know who you are, Magnus Chase,” the monster thundered. “I am surprised, I would have thought you would be . . . among the living.”

It pointed a bony finger up at the ceiling that may or may not have existed somewhere in the darkness above them. Were its fingers anything but bones?

“Now that you know who we are,” Leo said, “Who are you?”

Magnus began to consider the very real possibility that Leo either had absolutely no fear, or absolutely no will to live. He wasn’t sure which was more likely.

“I am Modgud, guardian of Gjallarbru, the bridge to Hel.”

“I told you,” Magnus hissed, “I told you there was a giant guarding Hel.”

“You would do well to listen to your companion, Leo,” Modgud said. “He is more embedded in this world than you could ever imagine.”

Leo held up his free hand in a surrendering motion. “What is this? Team up on Leo day? You shouldn’t be siding with a monster, Magnus.”

“Technically, she sided with me,” Magnus shrugged at the reproachful look Leo gave him. “Sorry.”

The monster smiled with just teeth. Literally, Magnus realised with horror, since it had no lips or skin or muscle or anything other than bone. “In order to enter, you must each pay a toll.”

That seemed suspiciously straightforward. Nothing in Magnus’ life was straightforward. Or straight, recently. He had never really thought about how cute guys were before he met Leo. Magnus glanced over at Leo, then away again. Stupid brain, being stupid and weird, now was not the time to have an identity crisis.

“We have money?” Leo offered, beginning to shrug his backpack off.

“A toll of blood,” Modgud clarified, her grin somehow now seeming more like a scowl.

“Oh. That’s cool, that works,” Leo squeaked, pulling his backpack more firmly onto his shoulder. “We have blood, too.”

It took all of Magnus’ effort not to face palm. The whispers in the back of his mind started creeping back in. He shook his head, to no avail. They had to get out of this place. Soon.

“Excellent,” Modgud leaned further forwards, thin fingers gripping the edge of the bridge with enough strength to make the rock bend. Magnus didn’t doubt she could snap the bridge in half and send them plummeting into the inky water below without a second thought.

“So . . .” Leo said after a pause. “How do we pay?”

Modgud gave him a surprisingly judgemental look for a pile of bones. “With blood.”

Magnus got the feeling he and Leo were going to have to work out the specifics themselves, and hope that the price for getting something wrong wasn’t death. The first problem, as Leo had so elegantly put it, was how to pay.

Neither he, Leo nor Hearthstone had any sort of dagger that they could use. If only Nico and his wickedly sharp sword were still here. Although . . .

Magnus shrugged off his backpack awkwardly, trying to simultaneously support Hearth’s dead – not literally, yet – weight, not fall over his own feet and unzip the bag with one hand. A small pile of coins fell onto the bridge, hitting the jewelled surface with an echoing clang. Magnus winced as Modgud’s attention focused on him.

“What little tricks are you playing, Magnus Chase?” She growled. If Magnus looked, which he tried really hard not to, he thought he could see the bridge cracking under her bony fingers.

“Nothing, no tricks,” he said, now shoving through the coins desperately trying to find the original contents of his bag. His hands brushed past an old protein bar wrapper, several scrunched up homework assignments and a whole lot of lint before he finally found the small, metal object he was looking for.

Triumphantly he pulled out the knife Hearth had given him, all the way back in the New Orleans graveyard. “We can pay your toll now.”

“Oh,” Leo’s voice held a distinct lack of enthusiasm for someone who had previously been entirely willing to piss off a massive skeletal monster. “Cool. Blood payments. Can’t wait.”

“It is that or death, half-blood,” Modgud warned. “Choose wisely.”

“Wise decisions aren’t really my forte,” Leo lamented.

Magnus, again, forwent the witty banter in favour of taking a deep breath and, before he could really process how stupid of an idea it was, made a shallow cut down the fleshy part of his palm. The blood oozed out of the cut, down his fingers and dripped onto the bridge, where the droplets sat like small rubies.

Magnus grimaced and screwed up his face. He could already smell the blood over the general must of underground and it made his stomach curl.

“Are you okay?” Leo asked softly.

Magnus nodded and wiped the knife off on the edge of his shirt, then offered it up to Leo. “Your turn.”

Leo made a similar cut on his palm and let the blood fall. “Good enough for you?”

Magnus had a similar, albeit much less judgemental, question, “Does Hearth need to pay?”

Modgud cackled, “Your alf is close enough to death as it is, I see no need to bar him entry. Your payment is complete. You may pass.”

That sentence didn’t feel nearly as good as Magnus wanted it to, but he still nodded respectfully, “Thank you, uh, Modgud. See you round, I guess.”

“For your own sake, Magnus Chase, you had best hope you do not.” And with that cheery sentiment, she sunk back into the murky water below.

Leo pocketed the knife and shifted on his feet to better support Hearth. “Are you okay to keep going?”

Magnus sighed, slinging his backpack on more firmly. “Do we have a choice?”

Leo was quiet, which was just as much of an answer. Together they turned and stumbled onwards, across the crystal bridge and into the depths of Hel.

Chapter Text

Things were about as good as could be expected, which was to say absolutely awful. Nico had no weapon, no clue what was going on and no way to warn Leo and Magnus that they were in danger. That was assuming the two hadn’t already gotten themselves killed. Nico was pretty sure they hadn’t, but their lifelines felt far away and removed, as if trapped behind a sheet of glass, which was almost worse.

“I’m really starting to question your mental stability, kid,” Blitzen grumbled as he trudged after Nico. “Usually upon finding yourself in Hel, you do not walk towards the big, scary palace.”

“You mightn’t, but you’re not a son of Hades,” Nico pointed out. “Besides, we’re not going to the palace. We’re going to the forges.”

Nico was being petty on that last point. The distinction was difficult to make, as the forges were adjacent to the palace, stationed with a lovely view overlooking the Field of Punishment. It was decidedly not one of Nico’s favourite parts of the Underworld. Neither was trampling through the seemingly endless Field of Asphodel, an experience made a thousand times worse by both the headache pounding against his temples and the walking, talking headache that was Blitzen.

“Oh, well that makes it all better then!” Blitzen was saying, somehow having enough energy to talk and stomp across the flaky grey grass. “The forges full of lava and sharp, pointy things. A big step up from the palace of death!”

“You don’t have to follow me,” Nico snapped.

Surprisingly, that shut Blitzen up. Unfortunately it didn’t stop the dwarf from continuing to walk so close behind Nico that he was almost stepping on his heels. As they drew closer to the palace, Nico started to get a cold, creeping sensation, like ice cold water dripping down the back of his neck. He couldn’t shake the feeling that each step closer was a mistake.

Which was stupid! The Underworld was practically Nico’s second home at this point. He was probably just unsettled from his dream. Which was a perfectly good reason to be unsettled, if Zeus, Hades and an undetermined number of other gods were after Leo and Magnus.

Nico and Blitz rounded the side of the palace, leaving the Fields of Asphodel and the clinging hands of the dead behind them. The icy feeling had grown worse, creeping through Nico’s veins and twisting in his stomach.

“You’d think,” Blitzen finally broke the silence as the pair jumped over a small lava creak, “that a place so full of fire would be a little bit warmer.”

If anything, that made Nico freeze up even more. If Blitz was also cold, then there was no way Nico was just imagining things. Something in the Underworld had changed and Nico, for once, was in favour of not finding out what.

“It’ll be warmer in the forges,” Nico promised through gritted teeth.

“Hey, kid, why exactly aren’t we running for the exits?” Blitzen asked, as if the thought had only just occurred to him.

“You lost my sword, I’m getting it back.” Nico didn’t turn around or slow down. He could see the low shape of the forges up ahead, hear the clanging of metal against metal and the sizzle of lava, smell the smoke. “The Underworld is the only place I know that can manufacture decent stygian iron weapons.”

“You’re sure Hades will be cool,” Blitzen paused to shiver dramatically and then chuckle at his unintentional pun, “with you stealing from him?”

Nico wasn’t sure at all. In lieu of an answer, he shoved open the reinforced steel doors of the forges and ushered Blitzen inside.

The forges were long, low buildings full of metal pipes and lava streams and real, working minecart tracks that would occasionally and without warning deposit chunks of ores and metals and rocks into the forges. The entire place stunk of sulphur and ash and was hot enough to give Nico heatstroke just by stepping through the doors.

Or, it had been. Despite the usual flurry of activity and the flames belching out of nearby furnaces, the forges were as eerily cold as the rest of Hades’ palace.

“This place is a mess,” Blitzen muttered, side-stepping around a pile of coal to get a better look at a nearby array of skeletal workers hammering out metal into daggers and door hinges. “Any self-respecting metalsmith would rather be dead than work here.”

“No kidding,” Nico said. “If I had the option to stop by Hephaestus or Poseidon’s forges, I would have taken it.”

“You can’t take a sword that one of these geezers made, kid,” Blitzen continued, “I could do better than that and I don’t even specialise in weaponry.”

“Are you offering?” Nico asked, eyeing the various piles of finished products that littered the floor. There had to be some pre-made stygian iron swords here somewhere, right?

Blitzen grunted and stayed quiet.

Nico ducked under a metal pipe that should have been hot to touch, but instead felt like ice when he brushed past it. The other side did not give him any clearer a view of the overcrowded forges. “What do you specialise in, anyway?”

“Fashion, obviously.”

“Right.” Nico rolled his eyes, then glanced back at Blitz and saw that the dwarf’s expression was serious. “Oh. Sure, why not?”

Blitzen, who had puffed out his chest as if anticipating an argument, paused and frowned. “Yeah. Good. Exactly. That’s- yeah.”

Nico opened his mouth to respond, then froze. Somewhat literally, as the chills that had been wracking his body suddenly increased tenfold, like someone had stabbed him in the back with an icicle. But mostly because he could hear two sets of footsteps approaching the forges, and growing louder by the second.

“Hide!” Nico lunged back across the forges and shoved Blitzen sideways into a pile of gemstones, which blended in with his garishly bright floral shirt. Oh, the unforeseen benefits of wearing clothes that looked like they’d been puked on by a rainbow. Blitzen spluttered indignantly and attempted to get up, but cut himself off as the doors swung open. Whatever miniscule survival instinct the dwarf had was finally coming into play.

Two gods stood in the doorway.

The first was all-too familiar to Nico, a tall, pale man wearing a black toga and the most disappointed look imaginable. Nico’s father, Hades. Looking at the second god made Nico’s brain hurt. She looked like a supermodel and a corpse had both been cut in half vertically then stitched together in the laziest Frankenstein’s monster Nico had ever seen. The ice that was pervading the Underworld came from her, Nico realised, cold was rolling off of her in waves.

“Ah, Nico, I thought I might find you here,” Hades said, with the tone of voice someone might use when addressing a dead rat. His expression changed to a thin smile as he waved a hand at his companion, “I don’t suppose you’ve met my guest. This is Hel.”

Chapter Text

The thing they didn’t tell you about Hel was that it was boring.

Terrifying, sure, what with the bridge and the massive skeleton and the darkness. But boring. Shuffling over a crystal bridge suspended over inky black waters by a single thread was only scary for so long and telling funny jokes and anecdotes didn’t really feel right when Magnus was getting that sad, faraway look in his eyes again.

Leo stared out into the darkness in the same direction Magnus kept glancing. Nothing there, and nothing calling to him from the shadows. He didn’t know if it would be better or worse if there was.

“Are you sure it’s just me?” Magnus asked softly. “You don’t hear her . . . or anyone?”

Leo let the silence well up between them again, complete and unbroken. For just a second, Leo wished it wasn’t, he wished he could hear his mother’s voice calling from him through the darkness, see even the smallest glimpse of her face. Instead, he heard nothing.

He shook his head. “She’s . . . not in this Underworld, I guess.”

“I shouldn’t’ve asked,” Magnus muttered, head bowed. “I didn’t mean to . . .”

“It’s alright,” Leo said, the words numb. “It’s been a long time. I’ve come as close to accepting it as I think I can.”

He reminded himself of that, let the words get cemented in the forefront of his mind. Even if she was here, it would only hurt more to hear her and know that she couldn’t come back. He had other things to live for now.

The mechanic store he’d set up, if he ever made it out of boarding school. The satisfaction of perfectly dismantling and reconstructing a radio. Those occasional times when he'd see a particularly nice classic car trundling down the street. The way Magnus looked at him when he thought Leo wasn’t paying attention, with those big, grey eyes that looked silver in the sunlight.

. . . Maybe Leo had spent a little too much time looking at Magnus too.

They kept moving forwards. Leo’s legs were starting to ache from walking, and from supporting Hearthstone’s not-dead-yet dead weight. The surface of the bridge was sloped and smooth, each slippery step leaving Leo worryingly close to sliding right off the edge. Was it too much to ask for handrails? At least they were on the downwards slope, more than half way across the massive black river, and with no sign of Modgud or any other terrifying monster.

“What do you think is on the other side?” Leo asked, although he wasn’t sure he wanted to entertain the answer.

“Garm.” Magnus said grimly. “Big dog. Apparently its howl foretells the Fenrir wolf escaping and causing the apocalypse. Then, um, Hel’s palace . . . I think?”

“First of all, I barely understood half of that. Second of all, a big dog guarding the gates of Hel, kinda like Cerberus?” Leo asked. “That’s not very original.”

“It doesn’t need to be original, only effective,” Magnus pointed out. His voice was steady, if out of breath, but his face was pale and clammy. Magnus had panicked over the wolves back in the New Orleans graveyard, too.

“Are you going to be okay? With, um, Garm,” Leo asked.

“No,” Magnus admitted quietly, “But then, I’m not very okay with a lot of the stuff that’s happened lately.”

“I don’t blame you,” Leo chuckled weakly. “If Garm is a guard dog, maybe it’s trained? Do we have a stick or something to play fetch with?”

“A stick? Wouldn't a dog prefer a rubber ball?” Magnus asked. “But no.”

He could see the edge of the bank now, a shoreline of crumbling black dirt and wispy grey trees with leaves that glittered and reflected the golden light Magnus still radiated. There was no sign of Garm, yet, but that didn’t ease Leo’s worries.

“Listen, if it comes down to it . . . I’ll distract the dog.” Leo offered. “You do whatever you can to get out alive.”

Magnus didn’t reply, and when Leo looked over, the other boy was staring grimly into the forest, eyebrows drawn.

“Magnus?” Leo prompted.

“No.”

“What?”

“You can’t just keep playing martyr, Leo.” Magnus said. “I’m not- I can help you.”

“I’m not saying you can’t! Just that-”

Leo should’ve really consider not multitasking when one of those tasks was the warmup to a heated argument and the other was walking across the least architecturally sound bridge in the worlds. He mis-stepped, falling sideways and flinging out his arms to soften his fall. Magnus yelped as he and Hearthstone tumbled down as well, cushioned by Leo. The three of them were a tangle of limbs that started sliding downwards, veering towards the side of the bridge at alarming speeds.

Leo managed to find Magnus’ hand and squeezed it tight, closing his eyes and bracing for impact. They hit the dirt and toppled head over heels, both Magnus and Leo’s struggling causing them to roll several feet further than Hearth, who was sprawled in a very uncomfortable looking pile at the foot of the bridge.

“Um, hi,” Leo said, inches away from Magnus’ bright pink face. “Were we arguing?”

“Get off!” Magnus shoved Leo away.

Leo rolled to the side with a small ‘oomph’ and lay there panting. He really hoped Magnus wasn’t making a habit out of shoving him away. The ground was cold and hard and uncomfortable, the glittering leaves of the trees above them looked sort of like stars in a night sky.

It was tempting to just keep lying down. His legs ached as if they had been set on fire, expect in Leo’s experience the only pain left by flames was emotional.

If only Helheim had buses, or bus stops, or even some sort of discount Uber. Then again, if he stopped for too long, maybe he wouldn’t have the energy or motivation to start again. Maybe it was best to keep going until they found a way out, or another terrifying monster to kill.

Garm, Leo thought, if you’re out there, a timely appearance would be great motivation for me to get a move on.

“Get up,” Magnus’s face appeared above Leo’s haloed by glowing golden light and still flushed, despite Magnus’ obvious attempt to stay composed. His toes nudged Leo in the side. By toes, Leo meant pointy shoes, and by nudged, he meant stabbed in the ribs.

Leo forwent the temptation to be annoying, because he was already in Hel and the last thing he needed to do was give any gods out there a reason for him to stay, and climbed to his feet, brushing off clumps of dirt. Without a word, he and Magnus returned to Hearthstone, lifting him up and over their shoulders again. The elf's feet still dragged on the ground, his already sickly pale face had grown even paler since their tumble.

“He’s still breathing,” Magnus muttered, then sighed with relief. “We need to keep going. Maybe we won't see Garm at all.”

Speak of the devil – or, the devil’s dog – and it doth appear. As if in fashionably late answer to Leo’s prayer, a massive wolf-like dog sauntered out of the forest, lips pulled back in a snarl and shaggy grey fur dripping with blood.

Chapter Text

A small part of Magnus’ mind was thinking that Leo’s plan of ‘I distract it, you run’ was looking pretty good right now. Especially with the huge, dark shape of Garm stalking towards them through the silver trees, stinking of blood and animal. The rest of Magnus’ mind was still mad at Leo, and at Leo’s insistence that Magnus was somehow incapable of fighting.

But neither part of Magnus’ mind really mattered, because every nerve in his body was frozen in place kneeling over Hearthstone’s unconscious body on the cold, hard ground. Magnus couldn’t run even if he wanted to.

“Oh.” Leo muttered. “When you said big dog, you meant really big dog.”

The wolf was roughly the size of a truck, easily big enough to snap up Leo and Magnus as easily as if they were doggy treats. It was thin and wiry despite its thick fur, all lean muscles and sharp bones. Its eyes glinted with a dark intelligence that looked far too human for an animal.

Garm was to wolves what Oden was to gods.

Leo pulled out Hearth’s knife with shaking hands, clutching the still-bloody blade close to his chest. Magnus doubted that Garm would feel anything more than a flea bite if it was stabbed by that knife. He racked his brain, trying to remember everything he could about the wolf, but the only thought he managed was: AAAAAHHHHHHHH!

“Uhm,” Leo said loudly, his voice shaking. “Good doggy?”

Garm growled. Garm was not a good doggy.

Magnus looked to Leo, then to Hearthstone still lying unconscious at Magnus’ feet, then back to Leo. Next to a creature as enormous and deadly as Garm, he and Leo didn’t stand a chance. Their sole dagger was little more than a toothpick.

What would Hearth do? Strangle Garm with his scarf, probably, or use his weird collection of rocks to open a portal to another world.

His rocks – runestones.

“Leo,” Magnus’ voice cracked on the words like thin ice underfoot, threatening to give way and leave him struggling for air as he drowned in frigid tears. “Leo, can you distract Garm?”

“Human meat shield, got it. You’d better have something good planned, Maggie.” Leo shot Magnus a warm smile, unsheathed Hearth’s dagger, and charged.

“You’re not- Maggie-” Magnus didn’t have time to unpack all of that. Leo flung himself to the side and just narrowly missed Garm’s jaws snapping together, so Magnus decided the other boy was probably fine – at least for now – and he leaned in over Hearthstone’s unconscious body, patting down the pockets in the alf’s leather jacket.

If Magnus could find those runestones, and figure out how they worked, maybe he could get them out of this mess, or out of Hel entirely. Hearth seemed to have more pockets than he knew what to do with, if how many of them were seemingly empty was any indication. Finally Magnus’ fingers prodded something that clattered like rocks bumping together.

Several metres away Leo screeched as Garm lunged towards him and tore its claws through a silver tree stump like it was paper.

You’re doing great sweetie, Magnus was tempted to yell. The only thing stronger than that temptation was the fear of attracting a giant wolf's attention, a fear which Magnus was, for the third time in his life, face to face with.

Instead he reached into Hearthstone’s bag of rocks and pulled out a handful, examining the strange, pointed letters carved onto them. They spilt through his fingers and onto the ground, glittering like gemstones. Magnus stared, unsure what any of them actually did.

Leo yelped as Garm lunged for him again, jaws snapping shut where his head had been moments before. It didn’t matter what they did, Magnus decided, something – anything – would be better than nothing. He clenched his fist around a runestone with a tilted cross engraved on it. Naudiz, his mind supplied.

“Leo, get back!” He yelled, and chucked the rock at Garm. It bounced harmlessly off the wolf’s nose, doing nothing but drawing its attention to Magnus and Hearthstone, before Leo darted back in with his knife, yelling to draw Garm’s attention away before darting back to the relative cover of the trees.

Why hadn’t that worked? The magic stones worked when Hearthstone threw them, it shouldn’t’ve been any different when Magnus did the exact same thing. Maybe it was an alf thing, or a Hearthstone thing.

And though Hearth wasn’t able to explain it, he was there. Magnus could work with that. He plucked another rune from the pile, thurisaz, a flag-shaped triangle. Lifting Hearth’s limp hand, Magnus pushed the rock into it and clenched his fist around Hearth’s.

Leo was still safely hidden among the trees, chucking sticks and stones towards Garm as he dodged through the silvery undergrowth. Good, if this worked and hurt Leo, Magnus would never forgive himself. Taking a deep breath, he and Hearth hurled the stone.

This one didn’t travel nearly as far, Hearthstone’s lack of momentum landing it metres away from Garm’s tail. That was all it needed, as upon hitting the ground the runestone crackled like thunder and exploded, singing Garm’s fur right off its shaggy hindquarters.

“Yeah, you like that mutt?” Leo yelled, somewhere far to the left. “Magnus, that was awesome! Do it again.”

Awesome or not, it hadn’t done anything but make an already angry dog angrier. Magnus selected another stone at random and gave it the same treatment, tucking it into Hearth’s fist and throwing. His haste meant that the stone travelled an even shorter than the last one, barely making it halfway towards the wolf before hitting the dirt, rolling twice and coming to a stop.

For a moment, Magnus stared in dismay as Garm stalked ever closer, then out of the cold, dead earth itself, a feast emerged. Magnus froze. Garm froze. The rustling in the bushes that was Leo froze. All three stared in bewilderment at the spread of steaming-hot loaves of bread that lay on the dirt before them. They were absurdly and obviously hand-cooked, misshapen and uneven and all different sizes.

In the back of Magnus’ mind, a smaller, angrier Magnus screamed that he should have remembered earlier Garm could be warded off with this sort of bread – Hel-cakes – Hel, it was specifically designed for the cause. The remainder of Magnus, largerer and much more terrified, told it to shut up and that myths were story tales and probably not even accurate really.

But then Garm lowered its head and sniffed the Hel-cakes. Its lips pulled back, revealing yellowing teeth sharp enough to cut steel, but then a tongue with the texture of sandpaper lolled out. The wolf attacked the Hel-cakes with the same enthusiasm as it had Magnus and Leo, tail thumping against the ground, almost louder than Magnus’ heartbeat.

“We need to collect the stones I threw,” Magnus whispered, “There should be three of them.”

“You stay here.”

For once, Magnus was glad to do so. There was a headache creeping in from the back of his head, making his eyes sting and his thoughts altogether too loud. His thoughts or . . . the hissing murmurs of spirits, picking at the edges of his mind like unwanted party guests. The wet crunching of Garm eating bounced around Magnus’ head, echoing louder and louder and making him want to sob.

Leo started forwards, excruciatingly slow, waiting for Garm’s attention to flick back to him, but it didn’t happen. Leo inched closer, closer still, close enough to pick up the useless naudiz stone lying several metres away. Another few steps and Leo was reaching out with a shaking hand for the other two runes.

Somehow, thank all the apparently-real-gods, Leo returned in one piece.

“Not even any bite marks,” Leo showed off his unscathed arms as he helped Magnus scoop the rocks back into Hearth’s pouch, tighten the rope sealing it and tuck it back in the unconscious man’s pocket. “We should leave before we become the next course.”

That was a good idea.

Standing up, however, wasn’t. Magnus’ head swam and spun with every step, the sound of his footsteps and Leo’s voice growing fuzzier by the second. The whispers were growing louder, turning into shrieks and screams that tore at the inside of his head. He could hear, more than feel, the blood pumping through his veins, too hot for the cold, cold world of Hel.

At some point the silver trees dropped away and Leo and Magnus found themselves on another path, identical to the first, winding away towards the distance. Unlike before, there was an end in sight. Magnus stared at it with blurry eyes and wished that there wasn’t.

Before them, silhouetted against the dark horizon, was the palace of Hel. Behind them, the ivory trees reached out for them with twisted, leafless branches. And in the distance, Garm raised its head and howled.

Chapter Text

When confronted with two all-powerful gods of death, could one really be expected to do anything other than meekly agree with anything and everything they said? Probably. Percy would have, Nico knew, but Percy had always been too brave for his own good.

Reckless, Nico corrected himself, Percy’d always been too reckless for his own good.

Nico was not reckless, or brave, or Percy, which was how he found himself sitting at a lattice table in a gemstone garden with three gods and praying that Blitzen didn’t decide to stage an impromptu rescue mission.

“Tea, Nico? It’s peppermint.” Persephone offered, but the sickly sweetness in her voice told him she’d rather offer him a cup of poison. Compared to the desaturated colours of Hel, she was a flower in full bloom. What was she even doing in the Underworld when it was nowhere near winter?

“Okay.” Nico saw Hades’ brow furrow and he quickly tacked on a stilted, “Awesome. Thanks.”

“And just what are you doing here, Nico?” Hades asked, quirking an eyebrow.

Nico knew what his father meant. What are you doing in the Underworld, why have you arrived here so abruptly? Why the forges? What are you looking for, what are you up to, what are you hiding? Maybe even do you know where your new demigod friends are, if Hades was in the loop.

“Having tea.” Okay, maybe Nico was a little bit reckless after all.

Hel laughed, voice like snow and ice. Soft and sharp, cold enough to bite. “He has a mouth on him, doesn’t he?”

Hades gave a long-suffering sigh, as if he was the unluckiest of the group. Nico bet Hades had never been turned into a daffodil.

“Nico has a talent for turning up where he isn’t supposed to be and saying things he isn’t supposed to say,” Hades agreed, “But he’s proven useful in the past, and may be useful again in the future.”

Good to know where they stood. Wouldn’t want Nico to think his father actually cared for him, right?

Nico nodded his thanks automatically as a ghostly servant placed an ornate teacup in front of him, the painted flowers on the side morphing from roses to marigolds to lilies. The tea itself was sickly sweet from honey and sharp with peppermint.

“How are you finding your tea?” Persephone asked, with another charming smile that only confirmed Nico’s hypothesis that he’d probably been poisoned.

“I think I burnt my tongue.” Shut up, Nico told himself, shut up shut up shut up. “Uh. I mean, it’s really good, thank you.”

“Nico,” Hades said, almost before Nico finished speaking, treading on the heels of his words. “What are you doing here?”

“I shadow-travelled here by accident,” Nico answered, selectively honest. “Why? Am I no longer welcome?”

“No, no, you are,” Hades said, with about the same amount of conviction in his voice as Nico had when assuring Percy he’d love to stay at Camp Half-Blood. “Nico, are you alone?”

The interrogation was starting to make Nico more and more on edge. Hades was definitely trying to get Nico to admit to knowing Leo and Magnus, but why? Nico didn’t know exactly what he’d done wrong, and knowing the gods, whatever it is would get himself, Leo and Magnus killed. Better to keep quiet until he knew more, right?

“Yes.”

Persephone narrowed her eyes, “Are you sure?”

“I’d think I’d have realised if I wasn’t,” Nico said, “I think Lord Hades would notice if there were any other living mortals here with me.”

“Indeed,” Hades acknowledged.

Thank the gods Nico’s travelling companion was a dwarf. Thank the gods his aura wasn’t that of an alive-but-not-for-much-longer demigod. Now if Blitzen could just use that to his advantage and not do something stupid – a difficult concept for most demigods and monsters alike to grasp – then there was a chance the two of them may get out of this alive.

“Forgive your father’s suspicion, Nico,” Hel spoke up, breath clouding the air. “Strange things have been happening of late – worlds colliding and mingling – it’s all quite unorthodox.”

“And you think I know something about it?” Nico tried his best to sound sceptical, but the way his voice cracked did not help in the slightest.

It was true, he lingered on the edge of the world, between light and shadows. If any half-blood were to know things they shouldn’t, it’d be him. But he wouldn’t admit it, wouldn’t admit anything, until he knew whether the gods had ill intent for Leo and Magnus. The two didn’t know any better, hadn’t done anything wrong, didn’t deserve all this divine intervention. Did they?

“You certainly don’t seem surprised to be having tea with the Norse goddess of the Underworld,” Persephone punctuated her observation with a sip of tea.

Surprised, no. Terrified, maybe.

Nico had never been surprised by the revelation that gods were real and reality as he had known it wasn’t. He’d taken it all in stride, and had even found it exciting. Nico wished he could go back in time and slap his younger self in the face. Nothing about being a demigod was exciting.

He met his step-mother’s stare and monotoned, “I’m in shock as we speak.”

“Nico,” Hades warned, voice lacking any bite.

“Sorry,” Nico apologised, with about the same amount of sincerity. “And I don’t know anything about worlds colliding or mingling or- or anything. It all sounds very exciting, though.”

“Indeed,” Hel mused, her mismatched eyes staring straight through Nico. “It’s quite the event.”

Nico had been a part of enough supernatural events to last a lifetime. It was just his luck to get dragged into another.

“Sorry to disappoint,” and this time the bitterness in his tone was sincere, “I don’t know anything about it.”

Luckily, neither Hades, Persephone or Hel were the god of truth. The lie, hidden by true resentment, went undetected.

“Very well,” nevertheless, Hades sounded disappointed. “You may be on your way, Nico. Thank you for humouring us.”

“Thank you for . . .”

The interrogation? The almost heart attack? Nico had responded with gratitude because that was how you spoke to all-powerful gods who were one snarky comment away from zapping you into a puff of smoke. He hadn’t considered that he would have to actually finish his sentence, find something to be grateful for.

“The tea,” Nico settled on finally. “Thank you for the tea.”

None of the gods staring at him looked impressed. But none of them said anything.

Nico stood with careful movements, still all too aware that he was being watched, and stepped back away from the table. “I’m going to go now?”

The bizarre tea party had confirmed what Nico already knew – Leo and Magnus were in cataclysmic trouble and it was up to Nico to stop them.

There was no reprimand or snide comment. Hades nodded once, solemn and resigned, “Very well. Off with you now, go do whatever demigods do when they aren’t saving the world.”

Nico didn’t need any more convincing. He had to get to Leo and Magnus before the gods did. He had to keep them from danger, whatever that danger may be. He had to get out of here. And he had to make sure Blitzen had by some miracle not been found out. Nico turned tail and ran for the forges.

Chapter Text

By the time they reached the steps of Hel’s palace, Magnus was barely breathing, each rasp tearing at his throat in a way Leo knew had to burn like fire. Not that Leo really knew what that felt like. Still, the point stood, Magnus was in pain and probably about to pass out.

“Sit down,” Leo ordered, only to be met with Magnus shaking his head. “Please.”

“I’m good,” Magnus wheezed, “Could keep goin’ for hours.”

“Magnus, you sound half dead,” Leo reached over and put his free hand on Magnus’ shoulder, “Sit. Down.”

Magnus did, crumbling where he stood to flop against the steps. He looked as unconscious as Hearthstone did, eyes rolled back in his skull and body limp. Leo sat beside him and pulled his legs up to hug his knees to his chest.

“That was awesome back there,” he said, “You were awesome. Garm was not so awesome.”

Magnus chuckled. “Stop making me laugh, can’t breathe.”

“Well,” Leo said measuredly, “That sounds like a you problem.”

“S’not fair,” Magnus managed, before returning to the important task of trying not to suffocate.

Leo looked over at Magnus’ face, bright pink and shiny with sweat, heat radiating off him even though they were in the depths of Hel. He looked like garbage. Leo kind of wanted to kiss him anyway. Whoa there brain, not the time or place to unpack that one.

And yet, the thought kept playing over and over in his head. Leo tapped out a beat on his leg distractedly, scanning the murky surroundings. Dark and empty as ever. At least it seemed empty for Magnus too.

Which, now that Leo thought about it, instead of thinking about how cute Magnus was, even though thinking about Magnus was much more enjoyable than thinking about the current situation – the current situation being Hel itself – but now that Leo thought about it, the silence was suspicious. There should have been something, beyond the giant on the bridge and the wolf in the woods. There should have been spirits, or gods and goddesses, or massive torture devices.

But there was nothing. Here. Yet.

“I’m going to go scout the place out,” Leo decided abruptly, standing and stretching out his aching legs.

Instantly, Magnus attempted to get to his feet, arms shaking. “Yeah, we should-”

“Nope, nuh uh, not on,” again Leo put a hand on Magnus’ shoulder and shoved him back down. Magnus reached up to push his hand away and Leo took the opportunity to slip his hand into Magnus’ and squeeze gently. “I’m going to explore the spooky, dangerous palace of Hel, and you are going to stay here and rest.”

Magnus took a deep breath and worked his way up to speaking words, “I’m fine, Leo, I don’t need to be babied.”

Leo looked down at Magnus, who stared back with glazed grey eyes, eyelids drooping. Despite his obvious exhaustion, his determination didn’t waiver.

“You can’t even stand up,” despite the sharpness of his words making him wince, Leo pushed on. “I won’t be long. You stay and keep an eye on Hearthstone. We can’t exactly leave him just . . . lying here.”

It was obvious his explanation – excuse, really – hadn’t done anything to patch up the wound his first sentence cut. Magnus half turned away, shuffling closer to Hearthstone’s unconscious body. His voice was as cold as Helheim, “Fine. Go on, then. You’ll know where to find me.”

Leo opened his mouth and said nothing. What was there to say? He wasn’t babying Magnus, Magnus couldn’t even stand up! It wasn’t Leo’s problem if Magnus wanted to be stubborn and self-sabotaging.

The echoing of Leo’s own footsteps drew him out of his thoughts and into the entrance hall of Hel’s palace. A cold light emanated from somewhere, though he couldn’t see any lanterns – or gods forbid actual working lightbulbs. Stone walls as sheer as cliff faces stretched upwards until they were swallowed by fog.

Standing in the doorway, Leo thought that this must be what it was like standing at the foot of a glacial valley, staring out at something larger than life, ancient and beautiful and dangerous. Something right out of a fairy-tale.

Leo took a hesitant step forwards, listening to his footfalls echo across the hollow hall. The sound rippled down the room, fainter and fainter until it disappeared completely. It was quiet. It hadn’t been quiet before, with Magnus. Leo didn’t like the quiet.

The urge to turn his back on the hall of Hel was strong, almost too strong to ignore. This was no place for the living. No place for Leo.

Magnus was outside, huddled on the stairs, waiting for Leo to come back.

Magnus was outside. Magnus was upset at Leo and Leo-

What was he supposed to do? Come back empty handed, tell Magnus that he was too afraid to go more than a step past the doorway? Tell Magnus that he was wrong? No. He could do this. He could walk through the cold, creepy palace of Hel and he could do it by himself.

He took a step forwards. Then another. He walked – crept, really, although any attempt at sneaking was futile compared to the silence of the underworld – wandered from room to room, peeking around corners and through gaping doorways.

Behind him, the entrance faded into the mist. In front of him, the hall stretched on eternally. No end in sight. There never was. Still, Leo crept forwards, feeling that the moment his momentum gave up, so would he.

Each new step and room only deepened the unease that had been prickling under his skin from the moment he walked through the door. Because aside from Leo himself, there wasn’t a single living soul. There wasn’t a single soul at all.

The palace of Hel was empty.

Chapter Text

Magnus really needed to stop taking the whole ‘going through Hel’ thing quite so literally.

That being said, figuratively, he wasn’t much better off.

The argument – fight? No, it was too one sided for that – disagreement. His and Leo’s disagreement kept playing over in Magnus’ mind. Leo’s quick dismissal and quicker departure stung. Was that really how Leo felt? That Magnus was weak and incompetent and dead weight, just as much as Hearthstone? Worse, because at least Hearth was useful when he was awake.

Magnus shoved the palms of his hands into his eyes, rubbing at his aching forehead. Thinking about it hurt. Everything hurt.

. . . Maybe Leo was right. Magnus couldn’t walk, could barely breathe – stupid, gods damned asthma – and it only made sense that Leo would go gather intel while Magnus would . . . watch Hearthstone? Try not to die? Sulk?

It still didn’t make it less insulting. It still didn’t make Magnus feel any less incapable. He wasn’t incapable.

He kicked at the marble step underfoot, wincing as his ankle hit the stone. The last thing he needed was to somehow break his foot in the middle of Hel. If he did, he’d never hear the end of it from Leo. He could practically see it already, Leo’s entire face lit up with laughter at the fact that it wasn’t some awesome, terrifying, impossible monster that had taken Magnus down. No, it was a set of stone steps and Magnus’ own pride. Fitting, he supposed, but at least imagining Leo’s fond smile made it a little less humiliating.

I’m supposed to be upset with him, Magnus reminded himself, I am upset with him. He just needs to stop being so gods damned cute, even in my own brain.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to shove all the annoying, confusing thoughts in his head back down where they belong – repressed in the back of his brain. The static in his ears rose in the following silence, buzzing in his ears like an insect. Magnus shook his head, to no avail.

The white noise was almost worse than the just-out-of-reach whispers of voices he never thought he’d hear again. Almost.

Magnus sighed and shuffled down the steps towards Hearthstone. Leo had left him to look after the unconscious man, and if Magnus failed even that simple task then he’d all but be proving Leo’s stupid point for him.

Hearth’s pulse was faint, but steady, and as Magnus pressed his fingers against Hearth’s wrist it seemed to grow stronger. He couldn’t help but wonder what Hearth had thought the outcome of his so-called shortcut would be. Surely not this. Surely Hearth’s great plan wasn’t to go to Hel and take a nap. The guy seemed smarter than that.

Which begged the question, was Helheim Hearthstone’s intended destination for his shortcut? Or was it a mistake, like Magnus’ own attempts at using magic? Perhaps magic always left a margin of error. Perhaps it always took a toll like that. Magnus had felt woozy just after throwing the rune stones at Garm, maybe a spell that allowed one to travel between worlds was draining enough to knock Hearth out for hours on end.

Or maybe it was something different entirely. God knows, Magnus thought, anything was possible now.

The old lady who had not been sitting on the stairs beside Magnus a moment ago reaches down with a shrivelled, translucent hand and presses her palm against Hearthstone’s forehead. Her presence, which Magnus would have thought would make him scream and run off into the darkness, because this was a ghost and he was in Hel, was unnervingly calming.

Glancing at her out of the corner of his eye, he took in her white hair, glasses and mottled skin. There was something familiar about her, about the shape of her eyes and the slope of her nose, as though he’d seen her once before, in a memory, or a photograph . . .

Unwillingly, memories of the Chase Mansion surface. A room full of books that smells of lemon polish and leather, shelves upon shelves of hardcovers and antiques. Family portraits in ornamental frames, holding faces of people Magnus has never met. Faces like the one belonging to the old lady sat beside him.

Magnus took a deep breath and turned to greet someone he’d never met in his life. “. . . Grandma?”

“Hello Magnus,” she smiled, and it was the same smile Magnus’ mum used to give him, so full of love, and it hurt. It hurt too much to look at, but too much to look away. “Don’t you look just like your mother?”

“My mum- where is she? Why isn’t she here?” Doesn’t she want to see me? He choked on the last question, forcing it back down. The answer – whatever it may be – would hurt more than not knowing. “Why are you here?”

“The goddess who rules this realm has returned, and so we spirits who reside here have returned.” It didn’t make much sense to Magnus, but then, not much did anymore. “I’m afraid I do not know why your mother isn’t here.”

“It isn’t fair!”

“No, it isn’t,” his grandmother said softly. “But would it be fair for you to stay here with her?”

“It- it should’ve- it shouldn’t’ve been her,” he whispered, ashamed of the words even as he said them. “Why did it have to be her? Why wasn’t it me instead?”

“Magnus-”

“I just want her back,” he cried, nails biting into his palms hard enough to hurt. “I just want her back- that’s not too much to ask for, it’s not fair that she- it’s not fair.”

“It’s not,” his grandmother agreed again. “None of this is fair.”

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” he muttered. It was ironic beyond humour, the way he was barred from seeing the dead in the one place in all the worlds where that very thing was possible. “There’s nothing I can do about anything.”

“It’s okay to feel helpless and afraid and upset.”

It was just like her, it was just like his mum, and again, again Magnus couldn’t think of anything but how unfair it all was. He hated that that was all he could think, over and over and over.

“There’s just- nothing to do, and nothing to say about it that hasn’t already been said. And it sucks.” He was a broken record, chipped and cracked until the music is distorted and discordant. “Everything sucks right now.”

A heavy silence settled over them, but everything inside Magnus was too loud for it to be peaceful. Far off in the dark, the blue flickers of spirits twinkled like stars. Misty-eyed, he stared out at them, wondering if one was his mum. Wondering whether it really mattered if one was.

“There is a tree,” his grandmother said, apologetically abrupt. “The World Tree. Its roots can be found within the walls of the palace behind us.”

Guiltily, Magnus grabbed at the distraction, seized it with both hands and refused to let go. “The World Tree? The one that spans all nine worlds? The one you can climb to travel between worlds?”

If it really was that World Tree – and really, what other World Tree could it be? – then maybe Magnus could get Leo and Hearth out of here. Neither of them deserved to rot in Helheim forever.

They both deserved to go back to Earth, to feel the sun on their faces and the wind against their skin, to feel warm and happy again. Leo deserved so much more than Helheim, and Magnus was going to do everything he could to give it to him.

He would find the World Tree and claw his way up the branches to Midguard if it was the last thing he did. Leo was going to go back home, back to safety. Because all he could do now was live for his loved ones who couldn’t, and help those who could.

And oh. That might be the first time Magnus has acknowledged it as love.

But really, what else could it be?

He looked back to his grandmother, a thank you poised on his lips, only to find an empty stair beside him and the limp body of an alf at his feet. Magnus was as alone as he had been when Leo left.

Chapter Text

Blitzen was in the forges where Nico had left him, shoulder to shoulder with the skeletal workers as he hunched over a workbench. Maybe miracles did come true.

“Blitzen,” Nico skidded to a stop in front of the dwarf, shoving a skeleton aside and wincing as his hand went through the poor thing’s ribcage.

“Woah, what’s the rush, kid?” A frown was slowly creasing Blitz’s face as he took in Nico’s panic. “Nothing good, I’m guessing?”

“The gods are looking for Leo and Magnus,” Nico’s lungs were burning cold from sprinting all the way from Persephone’s garden. “All of them. We need to go.”

There was a clatter of metal on metal as Blitzen dropped whatever he was holding onto the workbench, wiping soot-stained hands on his Hawaiian shirt. Nico should have been reassured by the dwarf taking their adventure seriously, but if anything the fact that Blitzen didn’t even give his now-ruined shirt a second glance only further cemented how dire their situation really was.

“Alright, alright,” Blitzen wiped sweat off his forehead, “This is fine. We just need to get to Magnus, we can keep him safe. We can- Capo, we gotta talk to Capo. Kid, where’s the nearest body of water?”

The name was familiar, on the tip of Nico’s tongue even, he’d heard it somewhere in the recent mess of days he’d somehow managed to live through. But exactly who – or what – Capo was, he couldn’t quite pinpoint. Now wasn’t the time to question things, though, now was the time to blindly follow whoever had even a semblance of a plan.

“That’d be the Styx,” Nico said, “That can be out escape route, too, Charon can take us up to Los Angeles.”

Thank the gods Nico didn’t need to shadow-travel again. His bones ached even at the thought.

Blitzen gave Nico a look he was very familiar with – an I-don’t-understand-the-words-coming-out-your-mouth-but-I-won’t-ask look – and said, “Once we’re back in Midgard, I reckon we head for the rendezvous point. Hearth will make sure to meet us there.”

“Rendezvous point?”

“Near Boston.”

Nico nodded and pulled his aviator jacket firmly around his shoulders, “We should get going. We have a lot of ground to cover if we want to beat the gods in getting to our friends.”

“Ah, one sec!” Blitzen dived under his workbench, voice muffled, “I made a little somethin’ for you while you were out having your family reunion, it’s shoddy work, but I figured if no one else was gonna get you one, I’d have to. Think of it as an apology for losing your old one, kid.”

Blitzen re-emerged, gingerly holding something long and sharp and black out towards Nico. That was- that was his sword! Polished to perfection, the stygian iron blade gleaming something wicked, that was the very sword he thought he’d lost forever.

Or, and now Nico noticed that the blade was free of nicks and scrapes from hard won battles, it was a new sword, forged identical to his old one. Forged by, presumably, Blitzen.

“This was you . . . for me?”

At the look of awe on Nico’s face, the dwarf chuckled. “Not too shabby, if I do say myself. I ain’t no expert in weaponry, and I’ve never worked with Stygian iron before, but-”

“Blitz,” Nico interrupted, “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, kid,” Blitzen didn’t even try hiding how his grin grew as he handed Nico the sword – the weight was familiar and comfortable, balanced perfectly. Blizten was a gods damned miracle worker. “Let’s just get going. Like you said, we got a lot of ground to cover.”

The walk to the River Styx was unfortunately uneventful. By the end of it, Nico was convinced the entire Underworld was simply holding its breath, lying in wait for the moment he let his guard down.

The air around the Styx was lukewarm, a dizzying contrast to the coldness of Hel. Standing on the jetty with Blitzen, Nico examined the water. The river was having a slow day, chugging lazily onwards as it carried discarded dreams downstream. Nico spotted the shell of an old car, a graduation cap and a child’s doll before he stopped looking.

He lifted his eyes towards the upstream horizon, and found a dark shape gliding along the surface. Charon’s ferry.

“You’d better hurry,” He warned Blitz.

The dwarf was struggling to untie the rope binding a cloth sack, grumbling to himself as his fingers tripped over the knots.

“Blitzen,” Nico urged.

“He’s being stubborn,” Blitz huffed, “Magnus Chase is in danger and he’s napping away in his stupid sack. Open already-”

The knots suddenly loosened, the sack opening and tipping something roundish into the water. Nico recoiled at the smell – it was that of a human, if a human had been tied up in a sack and dragged through the Underworld.

The thing in the water bobbed to the surface, ignoring the current that tugged at the orangish tufts attached to it. It was wrinkled and shrivelled and strangely familiar, but between the murky water and Nico’s aversion to staring too closely at it – whatever it was – he couldn’t place it. Again, that tip-of-the-tongue sensation begged him to remember.

“Is that, uh, Capo?” Nico asked.

“That’s him,” Blitzen agreed, “Give the guy a moment to wake up properly. This Underworld water can’t be good for the old non-existent respiratory system.”

Suddenly, the shrunken thing coughed out a mouthful of water and blinked open cloudy blue eyes. It spluttered, “Public bathrooms, the River Styx, you really know how to pick ‘em.”

Nico knew where he’d seen Capo before. Capo was the decapitated head who’d promised to speak with him in his dreams.

Chapter Text

Leo was wrong. Leo was very, very wrong. The Palace of Hel was very, very not empty and was, in fact, very, very full of things trying to kill him.

The blade of an axe cleaved through the air and embedded its decorative handle into the floor inches from Leo’s toes. Moving too fast to stop, Leo leapt over the weapon and right through the bearded ghoul bearing down on him. His red-and-white shield went poof as Leo emerged from through the wood.

Casting a hurried glance over his shoulder, Leo saw the spirit’s face slowly reforming into a horrible scowl. Through the ghoul’s transparent head Leo could see an army of similarly armed spirits.

Magnus had said Helheim wasn’t the resting place of warriors. If that really was true, the civilian spirits had a terrifying ability to adapt to armed combat.

“You disrespect our goddess.” One screeched, making a wild leap for Leo and grabbing at his left sneaker. Leo kicked its intangible skull in with his heel and kept running.

“Trespassing into her palace,” another wailed, before being crushed by its peers.

“You don’t belong here!” Yelled a third. The cry was picked up by all the other ghouls until it echoed across the palace and through Leo’s mind like a chorus. “You don’t belong, half-blood, you don’t belong!”

Not belonging, unfortunately, didn’t make leaving any easier.

There were hallways along the room, which Leo had hoped he could make a break for when he’d started his dashing escape, but this hope was quickly dashed. Ghouls poured out from the corridors like water from a leaky tap. Easy to fix – replace the loose parts, close the door – but irritating nonetheless.

There were still a few empty entranceways. One somewhere behind Leo that he’d seen when he started running. A second on the other side of the hall, almost parallel to him. And there, several metres ahead and on his right, an entirely empty doorway.

Whatever was behind that doorway was something the ghosts were afraid of, a rational part of Leo’s mind told him, but that was a problem to deal with when Leo was finished being afraid of ghosts and could move up the proverbial food chain.

With that cheery thought, Leo made his decision, took his chance, and flung himself into the doorway.

The corridor was narrow and twisted, which was great for Leo. Anything to make it that much harder to be followed by the entire populous of Hel. He wasn’t sure how long he ran, skidding round corners and past alcoves, praying to all the gods he didn’t know the names of that this wasn’t a dead end.

The gods, it seemed, were listening. The corridor opened abruptly into a roofless room full of tree.

The room centred around the trunk of the thickest tree Leo had ever seen. Staring at it, Leo thought it may just be another wall, it was so impossibly immense. Because sure, he could see all four walls, but try as he might he could not fit this tree within them. It was just . . . too big to compute.

The tree’s bark was knotted and wrinkled, the few massive branches that Leo could see through the mist sagging under their own weight. Beyond its boughs, the tree stretched away up and up forever, taller than the world itself.

Fearing that he would stand forever trying to make sense of it, Leo tore his eyes away. Twisting out from the tree were roots as thick as his torso, snaking under and on top of and around each other to form the worst quality floorboards Leo had ever seen.

He had only stumbled over several roots when the first of the spirits came pouring into the room.

Urging his aching legs to move faster, Leo scrambled away with the feverish gracelessness of a cornered deer who had broken all its legs.

Somehow, at some point, he rounded the trunk. His eyes scanned the walls for another exit. There had to be another exit. There was no other exit.

Above- behind? – from somewhere there was an animalistic screech. Ears ringing, Leo twisted to look, tore his eyes away from where he was stepping.

And that was his fatal mistake. His foot caught and Leo went tumbling, head over heels over head again, onto the floor. Confused and disoriented, Leo stared at the sky that was somehow inside the palace of Hel and waited to die.

He had had a good run. There wasn’t much he’d do different, except maybe tell Magnus he loved him. And kiss him, probably. That’d be nice.

Maybe Nico could bring him back as a ghost. Surely Nico could do those sorts of things, if he cared enough to.

Leo wished the spirits trying to chase him down and kill him would hurry up with the and kill him part already. Back and neck pressing uncomfortably against the bark, Leo tilted his head back in the direction from which he’d run.

Only, the undead had been replaced by something much worse.

Swathes of brown and green scales, claws stained with blood, breath that smelt like rotting flesh. It was a dragon, in the same way Garm was a wolf. And, judging by the way it swung his head from side to side as it slithered over the roots, it was hunting.

Leo held his breath as the creature stalked closer, praying to all the gods he knew – Hephaestus, Hel, whoever Magnus’ dad was, Hades, did Jesus count? – that the dragon somehow hadn’t noticed him. The creature’s nostrils twitched, smoke billowed out its gaping jaw. Slitted yellow eyes raked across the room like claws until they caught on Leo.

Both froze in place. Leo could barely breathe. The dragon blinked, slowly, a pointed tongue flicking out to taste the air. Sinew and muscle rippled under its scales as the creature lowered itself in preparation to pounce.

Then, “YAAAARK!”

For the second time in minutes Leo’s heart considered having an attack as another massive, horrifying creature leapt from the branches of the tree. A squirrel, big as a monster truck, squealing like it was on fire. The dragon turned towards it, hissing and snapping its jaws.

“YAAAARK!” The squirrel cried again. Scrawny isn’t attractive. Your shirt is full of holes. I’ve never seen a Greek demigod rejected from camp before, but there’s a first for everything.

Ouch. Rude. The dragon seemed to think so, too, because it twisted and roared and gnashed its teeth between shooting insults like breaths of fire at the squirrel. But it’s attention was firmly, at least for the time being, not on Leo.

He scrambled backwards on his butt, rounding the far side of the tree until he could once more see the entranceway. It seemed to take forever, double as long as just walking through Helheim had, but at last, there was the door.

One last glance ensured the dragon and the squirrel were preoccupied with their verbal sparring match. Leo got to his feet and ran without looking back.

Shaky with fear and adrenaline, Leo burst through the front doors and into the empty expanse of darkness outside. He had never been so grateful to be in boring old, normal Hel.

Chapter Text

The sound of slamming doors alerted Magnus to Leo’s return. He turned and offered a weak smile, because even though he and Leo needed to talk, it was still Leo. “Hey. I’m not done being mad at you.”

It was only after the words had left his mouth that he realised Leo looked like he had bigger problems to worry about. His curly hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat, his pupils wide and his hands shaking as they fisted the hem of his shirt. His legs were shaking as though he’d just run a million miles and was ready to run a million more.

In short, Leo looked terrible. Or, rather, he looked great, but also like he had narrowly escaped certain doom at the hands of a gazillion ghouls and also a dragon. But also great. Because of course he looked great, he was Leo.

“Hey, I’m not done running for my life,” Leo panted, stumbling down the steps to collapse beside Magnus. “I- I know we should talk, but later, okay? Maybe when get back to planet Earth.”

Magnus sat on his hands to stop them from reaching out and combing hair out of Leo’s face. Not the time. He’d just told himself and Leo he was still mad. “Later. Um, speaking of planet Earth, did you find it?”

“What?” Leo gasped, “What was I looking for? Was it the opportunity for certain death? Because I definitely found that.”

Magnus would never understand how Leo could be wheezing on the floor after running for his life and still have the energy to speak. It was just one of those wonderful mysteries that seemed to surround Leo – honourable mentions were awarded to how is it possible to be that annoying and funny at the same time? and why does my heart try and claw out my throat when I’m around you?

He’d figured out the answer to that last one, at least, but that only opened up a whole new can of worms – all of which were crawling around in his stomach making him sick in the best way possible.

“Yggdrasil.” At Leo’s blank look, Magnus expanded, “The World Tree. It’s, uh, a big tree. We can climb it and leave this place.”

“Oh,” a look of understanding dawned across Leo’s face. “Yes. Right. I almost sprained an ankle on that. I was wondering whose bright idea it was to plant a tree in Hel.”

“It wasn’t planted-” Magnus cut himself off. There wasn’t time for this. “Never mind. Do you think we can get there before anything else gets us?”

Leo looked at Magnus, then down at Hearth. “Well, if you’d asked me if I thought any of this was possible a week ago, I’d have said no.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Oh, no, it’s still a no. But I don’t see that we have any other choice now, do we?”

Magnus laughed. Despite the threat of oncoming doom, he felt a little better for it.

“I will warn you,” Leo said, “there is a very scary dragon and a very mean squirrel hanging around.”

“Nidhogg and Ratatoskr,” Magnus nodded. The dragon who gnawed at the World Tree’s roots and the squirrel that ferried insults between the aforementioned dragon and the eagle who perched at the top of the tree. Nice guys. “Hopefully they’ll be so busy shouting at each other we can sneak right past.”

“They were very loud,” Leo agreed, flopping backwards to attempt to stretch out over the stairs, only to start squirming uncomfortably as the stone pressed into his back. “You’re much nicer company. And much cuter. Even when you’re mad at me.”

“Another thing to discuss later,” Magnus notes. “Any other obstacles?”

“Uhm,” Leo stared out at the void, pupils moving as though he was reading words in thin air.

Magnus waited patiently, picking at the laces of his sneakers and taking another careful look at Hearth. Still breathing. Good. Breathing was a good sign. He realised Leo was staring at him. “Well?”

“Well what?”

“Well is there anything other than the dragon and squirrel that might kill us in there?”

“Oh,” Leo said, “Right. You asked- yeah. Yeah there’s like a whole lot of angry ghosts. Also maybe a god, but I couldn’t really tell.”

Magnus’ conversation with his grandmother rose into his mind. The goddess who rules this realm has returned, and so we spirits who reside here have returned. That- that made sense now, that’s why Helheim had been so empty, and why Leo had suddenly encountered all those ghosts. Duh. Obviously.

Stupid emotions making it hard to think.

“Hel,” Magnus said.

“Yeah,” Leo sighed, “It’s pretty sh-”

“No,” Magnus cut him off. “The goddess, Hel. Ruler of Helheim.”

“Oh. That’s still pretty sh-”

“Not helping, Leo.”

“Sorry.” Leo kicked his heel against the marble step. “. . . Do you think we can kill a god?”

“Well,” Magnus mocks, “If you’d asked me a week ago . . .”

“That’s a no.”

“That’s a no.”

Their conversation flickered out into silence.

Magnus stewed over possibilities in his head. Between Magnus’ asthma and Hearthstone’s unconsciousness, there was no way they could outrun anything that came after them once they entered the palace. There was also no way they could fight, if fighting ghosts was even possible. Outsmarting their opponents was equally out of the question, Leo had made it very clear that whatever was inside was not interested in compromise.

They could use more of Hearth’s runestones. Those had worked well enough on Garm, if only by pure coincidence and several failed attempts. But with the sheer multitude of ghosts and squirrels and dragons and gods they might be about to face, Magnus isn’t sure they can afford failed attempts. If they even end up finding a runestone that worked.

Besides, even if they do, who’s to say Magnus won’t be so exhausted after using the magic that he would collapse like Hearthstone? He can’t leave Leo to fend for himself alone in the depths of Hel. He won’t.

So what had gotten Magnus and Leo this far? Luck, mostly. Nico and Hearthstone. More luck.

This entire ordeal, ever since meeting Leo, has been going in blind and somehow surviving anyway. Magnus has had no clue what he was doing since day one.

Screw it.

If Magnus can’t think it through and come up with a plan, then he’ll have to brute force the issue. It’s worked this far.

“Hey Leo?” Magnus asks, “How do you feel about reckless and unnecessary endangerment to human life?”

Chapter Text

“Blitzen,” The decapitated head crooned, still spewing water out of its pug-like nose. “Leave me in that sack for this long ever again, and I’ll- oh!” Its baby blue eyes blink up at Nico, lips peeling back in a toothy grin. “Another customer, hello again young demigod.”

Nico, who until a few seconds ago had completely forgotten the fact that he’d dreamt of and spoken to a decapitated head which Blitzen kept and carried around in a sack, just stared.

“What in Hades are you?” Nico blurted out. Blitzen hissed and tried to stomp on Nico’s foot, a reprimand that Nico dodged gracefully.

The grin widened. Clearly, the decapitated head had never heard of dental floss. Or maybe it had, and just couldn’t use it because it didn't have hands.

“Mimir,” it introduced happily, “God of knowledge. Norse god of knowledge, to be precise. Who are you?”

“Nico,” Nico said, “Son of Hades. Surprised you didn’t know that already, Mimir, god of knowledge.”

“Nico,” Blitzen muttered. “He’s a god.”

“So’s my dad, doesn’t make him special.”

“Very presumptuous, Nico di Angelo, son of Hades,” Mirmir made a weird bobbing motion in the Styx, probably the closest he could get to shaking his head in disappointment.

“So what exactly do you know about me? And how?” Nico asks, hand on the hilt of his sword. Thank gods he has his sword again. Thank Blitzen he has his sword again. “Before, in that bathroom, then again just now, you called me a customer. What does that mean?”

“The gods exist in many different forms to many different people,” Mirmir answered, bearing his teeth in another ugly grin.

It occurred to Nico that it was a great shame that Norse gods couldn’t pick and choose their appearance in the same way Greek gods could. They mustn’t, otherwise why would Mirmir choose to look like a half-deflated basketball covered in mould for all of eternity?

Thankfully he wasn’t the god of reading minds, or the entire conversation would have been a lot more awkward.

“Although us Norse gods and your Greek deities are different, sometimes we get a little bit of overlap, a little bit of give and take,” Mirmir kept monologuing. “Which means someone like you, Nico di Angelo, who is a longstanding customer of my Greek counterpart Mnemosyne, is a longstanding customer of mine.”

Nico couldn’t remember ever meeting the goddess of memories herself, but the two times he had been unlucky enough to visit the Lethe were likely more than enough to establish himself in the goddess’ mind. And, somehow, unfortunately, in Mirmir’s mind.

“. . . So multiple mythologies co-exist,” Nico said, the most tactical subject change he could think of, because the more he thought about this decapitated head knowing anything about him, let alone things he didn’t remember about himself, the more he wanted to drop kick it across the River Styx.

“Yes, yes, keep up,” Mirmir blew bubbles out his nose in an exasperated sigh.

“Nico,” interjected Blitzen, “Not to be rude, but how is your existentialism helpful to finding the kid?”

“I’m getting to that,” Nico waved Blitzen off. “The gods, they all interact with each other?”

“Recently, yes.”

“How recently?” With gods, that could be anywhere from a century ago to yesterday.

“Oh, two, three weeks. Around the time you met Magnus Chase and Leo Valdez in Boston.” Mirmir paused, pale blue pupils rolling back as he tried to recall. “Exactly when you met Magnus Chase and Leo Valdez in Boston, actually.”

Just as Nico had suspected. The gods were being their stupid, meddling selves. Trying to pry apart Leo and Nico and Magnus for . . . whatever reason. There was probably a reason. Beyond the obvious answer of gods being gods. Which was usually a pretty good answer, but not one that explained why, for the first time in memory, two entirely separate worlds were colliding over three teenagers.

“Why?” Nico pressed. “What’s so special about Leo and Magnus that half the pantheon of two separate religions has to interfere?”

Surely not another prophecy. Not so soon after the last one had been completed.

“That would be telling,” Mirmir sounded infuriating like Apollo, which was never a good thing. It meant that the bodiless head might start breaking out into slam-poetry. “Telling means meddling. The only meddling allowed here is the meddling I specifically request, ain’t that right, Blizten?”

“That’s right, Cappo,” Blitz said with a sigh. Then to Nico, “All I know is we gotta find Magnus Chase and keep him alive. So far, I’ve been doing a fantastic job at that, no thanks to you.”

“In my defence, two adult men trailing three homeless kids? Not a good look.”

Blitzen spluttered something about gods and options before throwing up his hands. “Alright, I suppose! You win that one. Listen, time to wrap it up, kid, that creepy boatman is coming in hot.”

Upstream, Charon’s raft had drifted close enough that Nico could see the white glint of the ferryman’s skull under his cloak. Behind Charon, the flickering spirits of the dead were just becoming visible, vacant eyes roaming unseeingly over the Fields of Asphodel.

Welcome to the Underworld, Nico thought, Take a good long look at your home-away-from-home for the next forever.

Or in Nico’s case his actual, only home. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

“Nico,” Blitz urged.

“Okay, okay,” Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. “Just tell us what to do next.”

“That’s easy,” Mirmir had the gall to look disappointed. “What you’re already doing, just better.”

Then a wooden oar came down towards his cranium and the god disappeared with a loud pop. Charon’s sockets turned from the black waters to Nico and Blitzen on the wharf.

“Master Nico,” the ferryman greeted, tone like oil on water, false cheer slipping away down the Styx before the last syllable left his mouth. “To what do I owe the honour?”

“We need a ride back to the Overworld,” Nico said, words automatic as his brain circled again over what Mirmir had said. “I’ll give you a couple extra drachmas if you don’t tell my dad.”

After they got to the Overworld they could . . . they could figure out a way to find Leo and Magnus, somehow. If Leo and Magnus were even in this world. If they hadn’t gotten themselves killed already.

Gods, if only Mirmir were still here, of only Nico could actually ask any of the questions whose answers he really needed to know. If only Mirmir would give straight forward answers to them.

But it was no good. The god was gone, and Nico was no better off than before.

Chapter Text

Leo was not, it turned out, a big fan of reckless endangerment to human life.

Although anyone who saw him now would disagree with the notion. After all, here he was sneaking into a creepy ghost palace where'd he'd almost already died, and bringing the love of his life and an unconscious elf with him. That was practically the dictionary definition of reckless endangerment to human life. Leo was practically the gods damned poster boy of reckless endangerment to human life.

Why couldn't he be the poster boy of something cooler, like cars, or hnefatafl?

“Are you sure about this?” He asked, squirming to make sure Hearth was securely propped up between him and Magnus.

“Not at all,” Magnus muttered. “But do you have any better plans?”

“I can think of a few.”

“That don’t involve sitting outside hoping nothing murders us?”

“. . . No.”

“Exactly,” Magnus huffed, “That’s why we’re doing this.”

“And if we’re caught?”

“I told you, we ask to speak to Hel and hope we can get on her good side.”

That was a pretty bad plan on all accounts. Assuming they weren’t killed by who-or-whatever caught them, and assuming that they were given a chance to plead their case to Hel, why in all the Nine Worlds did Magnus think the goddess of death would let them live?

There were still spirits milling about the palace halls, flickering about in the corners of Leo’s eyes. Some reached out for him with translucent fingers, grip phasing right through his sleeves, some raised battle axes and pitchforks warily. Leo shifted as close to Magnus as he could, given there was an unconscious elf in the way. The ghosts didn’t seem to bother Magnus, keeping well away from his golden glow.

Unfair. Why did the ghosts try to murder Leo but let Magnus walk on by? Was it because he was a Norse demigod where Leo was Greek, and not a part of this world? Was it because Hel had returned and calmed the spirits of the dead? Was Magnus just too pretty for them to want to maul? That was fair, Leo could get behind that.

He wondered distantly whether they’d back off from him if he set himself on fire. If only the dead were as wary of fire as the living. If only the thought of flames flickering up and down his arms didn’t make him sick.

There was no sign of Hel herself. Yet.

“Where’s the tree?” Magnus asked. “Which doorway?”

Leo scanned the walls, eyes taking in next to nothing. His free hand tugged absently at the hem of his shirt, eyebrows furrowed. None of the doorways looked like the one he’d run into. What if none of them were? What if the palace of Hel twisted and changed around them, the subtle distortion in a mirror, just enough to make Leo feel like something was off but not enough for him to know what?

Magnus was still looking at him for an answer. Leo had to have an answer, he couldn't not have an answer. Any would do, even a wrong one. They couldn’t stay in Hel forever, as tempting as it was. But they were too far in now to turn back.

“This one,” Leo picked a door at random.

It was in about the same spot, and narrow and twisted enough to be the one he ran through. Magnus didn’t protest, just pressed his lips together and nodded, determined.

At first Leo thought he must have made a wrong turn. On the other side of the door was a room almost as large as the one they left, with tiled floors and cabinets fit for giants. A fireplace was embedded into the wall, a big black cauldron sitting on the embers. For a moment curiosity nagged at the back of Leo’s mind, before he decided he’d rather not find out what the creatures of Helheim had for breakfast. Probably Leo, if they caught him.

“Never mind,” Leo started to say, “I never went through a kitchen. Wrong door, I guess even I make mistakes-”

“No,” Magnus pointed shakily, “Look.”

Between the counter and the fireplace, the wall opened up into what looked like a mouse hole for a mouse the size of a monster truck.

“I have a good feeling about that way,” Magnus said.

“A good feeling?” Leo echoed sceptically. Personally, all he felt was like he was about to die.

“Well,” Magnus amended, “Maybe not a good feeling. Just- I think that’s the right way to go, this time.”

That definitely sounded more promising than Leo’s gut instincts, all of which were telling him the right thing to do was to curl up into a ball and cry. He nodded a reluctant agreement. It was dark in the second tunnel, and with the firelight warm on their backs like someone breathing down their necks Leo felt like he was walking into the belly of a beast.

Thank all the gods for Magnus being here with him, or else Leo would run away screaming and probably be caught and eaten by giants. The only upside of that would be Leo wouldn't have to live down the embarrassment. Because he'd be dead.

Eventually the tunnel opened up, like it had the first time, into a room that for all intents and purposes was bigger than the world, even though that was impossible. This time, however, the threat didn’t come from behind them, in the form of angry ghosts. No, this time the threat met them head on.

There was a lady standing in the doorway. She looked a bit like Frankenstein’s monster, or like someone who’s been half dipped in acid. The left half of her face was beautiful and tragic, like all those old timey actresses who died too young. Her right half also looked like someone who’s died, except she'd been left in a pit in a ground for a good few years after the whole, uh . . . dying thing had happened. Possibly the decomposing process too. Skeletal features, rotting skin, patches of ice and frostbite clinging to her cheeks and palm.

At least, and this was the only thought Leo could find to comfort himself, at least it didn’t look anything like fire.

“Gods,” Magnus whispered, staring at the figure before them. Leo guessed he was really regretting his whole hope-we-can-get-on-her-good side idea now, because Leo wasn’t sure she had a good side.

“Hello Magnus Chase,” said Hel, “We’ve been looking absolutely everywhere for you.”

Chapter Text

“. . . Hey,” Magnus said.

In hindsight, when confronted with the goddess of death itself, who has just admitted to searching for you, maybe a better opening would be something along the lines of ‘please don’t kill me ’ or ‘I have a knife and an unconscious elf and I’m not afraid to use either’. Anything other than ‘hey’.

Silhouetted by the doorway, all glittering ice and dark eyes, Hel smiled. It was beautiful and hideous and entirely tragic. “You have proven yourself quite the difficult little demigod to catch.”

It wasn’t like anything he’d encountered so far has given him much motivation to be caught. Being caught seemed to be synonymous with being killed. Magnus wasn’t quite ready for that yet, thank you very much. Give him at least a few more years.

“But we all knew you couldn’t run forever,” Hel continued, a soft musing, snow falling in the night. “It was foolish to enter my realm.”

“It was Hearth,” Magnus’ voice was small. He felt Leo shift closer, try to grab his hand without letting Hearthstone slip.

“Even more foolish, then,” the goddess said, “your alf should know he cannot survive this eternal night. If it weren’t for you and your inbuilt instinct to heal, Magnus Chase, he would be dead.”

Magnus looked down at his glowing hands. An inbuilt instinct to heal? He was healing Hearth? If it weren’t for him- oh gods. What if he had gone with Leo to explore the palace initially? What if he had let Heartstone die?

“As it is,” Hel continued, “he will die nonetheless. You only prolonged his suffering.”

“He won’t die,” Magnus spat, sounding a lot more confident than he sounds. “I won’t let him.”

He didn’t see how he could stop it, if it was inevitable, or if the goddess of death wished it to be so. But he’d try. With everything he had, he’d try. No one, especially not his friends, were dying on his watch.

“Hel yeah!” Leo agreed, then winced as Hel levelled him with a glare.

“You mortals are so disrespectful! Always ‘Hel yeah’ and ‘go to Hel’ and ‘what the Hel’, never ‘how is Hel?’” She hissed, breath steaming in the cold air. “For that, Leo Valdez, you can die too.”

Leo’s face went clammy, “Uh, I’m good, actually.”

“He’s not dying either,” Magnus informed Hel, still not exactly sure how to make good on that promise. He just knew that Hearth wasn’t allowed to die, and Leo definitely wasn’t allowed to die, and Magnus would die on that hill. “We- we’re just on our way out, actually, we don’t mean any trouble.”

“Your very existence is trouble,” Hel said, “So long as you are alive, and – I am told – perhaps after. Unless you stay with me.”

“So you want to kill us all,” Magnus surmised. “For vague and ominous reasons. For things we might do, in the future.”

“No, I want to kill him for insulting me,” Hel corrected, pointing one bony finger at Leo.

“And you haven’t, because . . .” Magnus was treading on thin ice here.

But if this all-powerful goddess of death hadn’t killed them yet, she must either be toying with them, or she couldn’t. Somehow, for some reason, she wouldn't - couldn't - kill them. Magnus hoped against hope that it was the latter.

She hissed and steam billowed through the air, caressing her cheekbones. Her eyes were flinty as she turned her gaze once more onto Leo. “That one is . . . necessary, or so I am told.”

“Necessary?” Leo croaked. “For what?”

“Why do I care? You would never been one of mine, Greek half-blood.” Hel scoffed, as though Leo’s presence was personally insulting. Then she forced a smile that made Magnus really wish she hadn’t, and turned towards him. “But you, Magnus Chase, you are destined for death. Stay here, with me.”

“No,” Magnus said. Because duh. No chance in Hel was Magnus going to just. Stay here. In this dank cave full of ghosts. Hel was going to have to work on her sales pitch.

The goddess kept smiling, as though she expected this answer.

“Are you certain?” She asked, gentle and cold. “It could be your only chance to see her again.”

“Her?” Magnus breathed, but he already knew who Hel was referring to.

His mother. The very thing he had only just started to accept he may never get back. And all he had to do was give up. Stay in Helheim, and be happy with his mother.

Without sunlight or nature or life. Without Leo.

He couldn’t. He couldn’t leave Leo alone again, in the way Magnus had been left alone.

Magnus took a deep breath, looked the goddess in the eyes, and told her, “No.”

“No?” Hel echoed, and for a moment the silky smooth tone drops from her voice, leaving nothing but grotesque surprise. “Don’t be so hasty, Magnus Chase, or you might make a decision you will not live to regret.”

“She died to save me,” Magnus said firmly. “I have to honour that. I can’t let that sacrifice be in vain. I have to find reasons to live.”

He glanced towards Leo and thought maybe he had already found one of them.

Hel’s mismatched eyes narrowed, smile veering more into a sneer that was equally grotesque on her half-decomposed face.

“Besides,” Magnus continued, much braver than he felt. How in Hel was his voice not shaking? “I don’t think you can actually keep us down here. Every other god in all the worlds seem to want us alive. Surely one of you can’t go against dozens of them.”

Magnus had hit the nail on the head. Hel fumed like a lit fuse, taking deep breaths to calm herself and to stamp out the spark. Her smile was long gone, and at this rate never coming back.

“I forget,” she muttered, “how infuriatingly stubborn mortals can be. Very well. You may go, but this won’t be the last time we meet, Magnus Chase, and I hope to all the gods that you reconsider my offer.”

She disappeared in a blizzard that smells of death.

“Nice lady,” Leo said.

“Yeah,” Magnus agreed with a snort. “Ready to return to Midgard?”

“I miss not having frostbite.”

And so, the two began the long climb back home.

Chapter Text

The first thing Nico did after leaving Hell was go to McDonalds.

In his defence, he was hungry. The last thing he ate were dubiously sparkly noodles at Blitzen’s house, which were a) not exactly filling, and b) dubious and sparkly. Nico would rather McDonalds any day.

Their table was sticky, much to Blitzen’s very verbal disgust, and the metal chairs lacked integrity or rocket boosters or something of the sort. Nico was more than happy to nod listlessly whenever Blitz paused to breathe so long as he was allowed to keep shovelling fries into his mouth.

“-and the Drive-Thru,” Blitzen was saying. “Great concept, but the execution? Terrible. Sitting there, car idling, hungry alf in the back kicking your seat to get your attention and ask how long until the food gets there for the fifth time in thirty seconds, Hearthstone, I swear to all the gods- what I’m saying is, there’s room for improvement.”

“Can’t improve on perfection,” Nico says.

Blitzen huffed and crossed his arms. “McDonalds is not perfection.”

“Have you ever had a Happy Meal before?”

“No, and I refuse to.”

“Maybe if you tried it-”

“Maybe if you tried having some standards, kid.”

“I will stab you.”

“Childrens, enough.” Hermes said, from the chair where he was definitely not sitting a few seconds ago. “Any more arguing and you’re both grounded. No McDonalds for a month.”

“Hermes,” Nico greeted when he’s done choking on a mouthful of chips from the jumpscare.

“Lord Hermes,” Blitzen corrected.

Nico ignored Blitz. If the gods wanted Nico’s respect they should have tried actually earning it. Really, he was just surprised one of the gods was stepping in to do some actual parenting, or the pretence of it. That had to be a first.

Maybe he should have been more surprised by Hermes' sudden appearance. Maybe he should have bowed or grovelled or something. But Nico was tired and hungry and if the gods wanted his shock and awe, they should probably try to be a little more exciting than the limp green stuff passing for lettuce in Nico’s burger.

Hermes smiled tensely, although most of his attention was on the cell phone in his hand as he tapped away at some message or another. “Nico di Angelo. Blitzen.”

“Lord Hermes,” Blitzen said again. “What brings you to this, uh, humble McDonalds in downtown LA?”

“I heard you were in the area. I was hoping you could help me deliver a message.” Hermes paused ominously, leaning back in his seat to stare out towards the parking lot. “That and I couldn’t help but overhear what you were saying about the Drive-Thru. I have to say, Blitzen, I agree, not nearly as efficient as it could be! Do you know how many times I’ve run late for meetings because I thought I could get a quick lunch and end up waiting upwards of half an hour?”

And no rats! One of the snakes curling about the antenna of his phone agreed. At least, none on the menu.

Nico groaned and buried his head in his hands. For Hades’ sake, really? This was the conversation worth having now?

“What was the message?” He interrupted.

“Pardon?” Hermes had the audacity to look affronted by Nico’s disinterest in the intricacies of McDonald’s Drive-Thrus.

“The message. That you said you had for us to pass on.”

“Ah, yes,” Hermes sighed, suddenly sombre again. “The message. Do you know how hard it is to deliver inter-world messages, by the way? We barely manage to handle worldwide affairs, and now they want me to manage another eight on top of that? You would really think Odin had his own messenger god to do his dirty work, doesn’t he know I already work overtime?”

“The message,” Nico repeated. “What is it? Who’s it for?”

“Oh, it’s an invitation for Leo Valdez and Magnus Chase,” Hermes said, “and you, I suppose. You’re all invited to an impromptu summit at Mount Olympus, which is to take place as soon as Leo and Magnus can be located.”

“So you want me to find them and take them to you guys for some sort of divine punishment for- what? Being from two different, uh, mythologies? That sounds sort of like your fault for not keeping up with your own children.”

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” Hermes held up his hands. “Besides, it’s a little more complicated then that. Those two in particular, well, their fates have already been laid out ahead of them. It doesn’t do anyone any good to have them twisting the threads prematurely. So could you pass on the invitation for me?”

“No deal.”

There was no way in any of the nine worlds that Nico was going to lead two whole pantheons of gods right to Magnus and Leo. Especially if the gods had laid out their fates, or whatever. That just meant more trouble in the future, trouble that no one could do anything to stop. If Nico couldn't prevent whatever was going to happen to Magnus and Leo, he could at least prevent what was happening.

Hermes sighed, "The summit will take place. These terms are as good as you’re going to get.”

“Do me one better,” Nico insisted. “Wait until we’re ready to attend.”

Nico couldn't stop the inevitable, but he could delay it. Give Magnus and Leo the time to prepare that Nico himself was never given.

“I can’t do that, Nico.”

“Then I’m afraid I can’t pass on the message.”

“Nico,” Blitz hissed. “Come on.”

But Hermes, thankfully, was one of the smarter Olympians. A businessman. He knew when to take a deal. The god bowed his head. “Very well.”

“On the River Styx,” Nico added.

“On the River Styx.”

Nico nodded, satisfied. “I really don’t know where they are right now, but I know where they’ll be. I’ll pass on your stupid message and we’ll attend your stupid summit, but only when we’re ready.”

“Excellent,” Hermes said, in a tone that hinted that Nico’s terms weren’t so much excellent as infuriating. The god bid them goodbye, stood, and vanished in a flash of blinding light.

“Now what?” Blitzen asked.

“Now,” Nico told him, “we call a cab.”

Chapter Text

It was early morning when Leo and Magnus pulled a still-unconscious Hearthstone out of the roots of a gnarled old pine tree and into the world again. They were somewhere in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forest and mulch. Birds sung softly among still branches. Winding away in either direction was a twisted dirt path, halfway swallowed by the undergrowth.

From the looks of things, they were very much back on Earth and very much lost.

“I forgot how much I missed fresh air,” Magnus gasped from where he’d collapsed at the base of the tree’s trunk, face flushed pink and arms shaking from exhaustion.

“I never want to see another tree in my life,” Leo said, shaking out his own stiff limbs and glaring about the forest. He wasn’t sure exactly how long or how far he and Magnus had climbed. Things like time and distance seemed to be subject to magic. All he knew was it was much too long and much too far to be reasonable.

Near his feet, something twitched in the dead leaves. That something was a pale hand, attached to an equally pale elf. Hearthstone twitched again, expression twisting in discomfort, before his eyes blinked open.

“Oh, thank gods he’s alive,” Magnus muttered.

Hearth pushed himself upright, scrabbling for his pouch of rocks and looking around with wide eyes. His grey eyes found Magnus and Leo and his shoulders slumped just a little, lifting his shaky hands to point at the two then make a circular motion with his thumb up. Are you okay?

What a question. What was okay, anyway? They weren’t dead, they weren’t in the land of the dead, but that was about as okay as it got.

“I think so,” Magnus said, and mimicked the sign back at Hearth.

Leo did his best to follow the silent conversation that ensued between Magnus and Hearth. In the quiet moments between the chaos, Magnus had tried teaching him the basics of sign language, from his own cobbled-together knowledge. From what Leo could figure, there was a lot of apologies, a lot of talk about magic, a car crash, more apologies, and something about nature.

“Come on,” Magnus said suddenly, voice too loud for the silence of the forest. “We can’t stay here forever. We should follow the path, see if it ends somewhere we can stay.”

Leo squinted doubtfully down said path, which at second glance looked less like a path and more like a trail forged by wild animals. Like bunnies, or something. No good ever came from following bunnies.

But outnumbered and with no better option to offer, Leo followed Magnus and Hearth along the dirt track.

“Hearthstone’s spell backfired,” Magnus explained as they walked. “He tried to take us to Alfheim but got it wrong, and we ended up in Hel. As you do. There’s no sunlight there, and alfs can’t live without sunlight and he started dying. I- . . . he’s not sure how he’s alive.”

“It was you,” Leo figured. “You saved him.”

“But how?”

“Same way I brought that robot statue to life, and made a car work without hijacking it, and, uh, caught on fire, I guess.”

“And . . . how did you do all that?”

“No idea. I just did.” Leo figured that’s how all of this worked. Magic, or something.

Things just . . . happened. Maybe there was a reason, like godly parents and runestones, but it was all still just things happening because. Except without the because. Leo’s head was starting to hurt thinking about it.

They walked on in silence until the trail opened up onto a dirt road.

“This is a coincidence,” Leo said. No way did Magnus or Hearth have any clue that the trio would do anything but wander about the wilderness until they were all eaten by bears.

“Lady Luck is on our side,” Magnus agreed. “Or the Fates. Or the Norns. Or-”

Hearth pushed past them both, making a sharp turn right and continuing doggedly down the road.

“Does he know where we’re going?” Leo asked.

“No clue, but he got us this far.”

“He got us to literal Hel.”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

Some way down the road, they passed a carpark. Then a wooden sign, welcoming them to D.A.R. State Forest, where the road opened up into a campsite littered with few fire pits and fewer tents.

“He did not know this was here,” Leo muttered. “I don’t believe it.”

Hearth turned to them, touching the tips of his index, pinkie and thumb.

“Camp,” Magnus practically lit up at the word. “Leo, we’re going camping!”

“. . . Yay?” As far as Leo was concerned, camping was better only than foster care and literal Hel, but only just.

Granted, he’d never really been camping in the conventional holiday sense. Sleeping on the street just wasn’t the same as a vacation, and the only time one of his foster families had tried taking Leo camping he had run away while they stopped for lunch at a McDonalds. In his defence, he suspected his foster siblings were going to murder him and bury his body in the woods one night. He stands by that suspicion even now, years later.

Magnus on the other hand looked like Christmas had come early. He turned to Leo, voice rushed like it hurt to speak and hurt more to say nothing at all. “I haven’t been camping in years. We used to do it all the time, me and- and my mum. Just the two of us and nature, you know. But- . . . it’s not the same without her.”

“It can’t be worse than sleeping in a sewer.” Leo knew firsthand that there was really nothing you could say to an admission of grief. I’m so sorry becomes numb well before the thousandth time hearing the words. Better just to focus on right now.

“I . . .” Magnus wavers for a second. “I think this will be good. Camping with my, um, best friend. Something normal after my whole life has been turned upside down.”

Best friend. Leo was Magnus’ best friend, in all the worlds. Magnus was cute and smart and funny and kind and Leo was his best friend. He wanted to melt into a puddle on the forest floor and explode like a firework.

Hearth signed something too fast for Leo to catch, but he recognised what Magnus signs in return. A circle with his thumb and index finger, the others pointed straight up; pointing to Leo then Magnus himself; then both hands outspread, palm-down, pushing down. Okay. We stay.

“Hearth is going to go find an information centre or something?” Magnus translated. “Set up a campsite. Contact Blitz. No idea how, since it’s not like he can just call him on a pay-phone.”

“Magic, probably.” Leo watched Hearth’s back until the alf disappears into the trees. It's always magic.

Magnus plopped down on the dirt and patted the spot next to him, indicating Leo do the same. “Let’s hope it doesn’t go wrong this time.”

“It’s about time we catch a lucky break.”

“Now that we’ve got a moment to just . . . not die,” Magnus glanced over. His grey eyes look silver in the patch of sunlight. Neither of them knew who his godly parent is, but it damn well could be Freyja for how pretty Magnus is. “Leo?”

“Yeah?” Leo breathed.

It was just the two of them. Somewhere safe. There was no better time than now to attack the – for once – metaphorical monsters keeping the two of them apart. He leaned in, but Magnus held out a hand to stop him.

“I think it’s time we talk.”

Chapter Text

“Oh.” Leo swallowed thickly, expression suddenly twisting into disappointment.

“Is that . . . okay?”

“Yeah, uh, no, that’s- okay.” Leo coughed and glanced out into the woods. After a few moments he looked back and asked, “Uhm, do you want to start?”

Magnus really, really did not. He hadn’t even wanted to bring it up, but he couldn’t shake the creeping worry that if he doesn’t everything will keep building up under the surface until it exploded. “Right. I . . . don’t really know where I’m going with this, I don’t really know what the right words for everything I’m feeling. A mess, maybe. I want to- gods, I don’t know where I’m going with this.”

“You were mad at me because I didn’t let you roam around the palace of Hel like it’s a haunted house in an amusement park,” Leo said. “Ring any bells?”

Oh, so many. Too many. Magnus was getting a headache. “You were treating me like I was- like I wouldn’t be any help, if something went wrong. Even right after I saved us from Garm.”

He got it already; Leo was self-sacrificial and wanted to shield Magnus from any or all danger and Magnus loved him to death – maybe not quite that far, now that he’d seen the place – for it. But there was a difference between wanting to protect someone and never even giving them a chance to protect themselves.

“I'm sorry for that,” Leo said, “I really am. I just didn't want anything to happen to you. And to be fair, you’d just had an asthma attack and sending you into the spooky palace to run for your life from ghosts would have made me a bad, uh, friend. Bad friend. Plus, Hearth would’ve died. I think Blitzen would kill us for that. He seems to like Hearth. Gods, I wonder where he and Nico are right now-”

“That’s not what I was getting at,” Magnus interrupted, then winced. “Sorry, just. Next time, don’t just assume I can’t do something without asking me. Even if you were right this time. I know I can’t- can’t wield fire or magic, but that doesn’t mean I’m useless, Leo.”

“Magnus, you aren’t useless-”

“Then stop treating me like I am.”

The words hang heavy in the air, harsh against the soft birdsong. Leo’s brow furrowed, his mouth twitching like he was trying not to speak. Had Magnus been too harsh? Was he putting words in Leo’s mouth? Was this the end? Maybe Magnus shouldn’t’ve said anything at all. If only he could swallow the words back down and never say them in the first place.

“I- I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You did,” Leo said, “it’s okay. Really, I get it. What it’s like to be treated like I’m useless, or I can’t do anything right, or I’m a waste of space. Not that you can tell by looking at my incredibly muscular and handsome physique, but being passed around from foster home to foster home does that to you. You can say mean things and they can be true, Magnus. Unless they’re about me, because that’ll hurt my feelings.”

Magnus snickered, despite himself. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Besides, just because you can’t light yourself on fire – stupid skill to have if you ask me – doesn’t mean you can’t do other things. Maybe you can’t fight, but you’re smart. You know things, you see things. You saw through the Mist at the Mile-Stepper Inn, you figured out how to defeat Garm, you talked Hel down from smiting us. You kept us alive just as much as Hearth or I. Not being able to wield a sword like a Disney Prince after three days doesn’t make you useless.”

“What is this, therapy?” Magnus joked, if only to distract from how his face was burning so much he’d almost believe he could set himself on fire. “But, I- I think I get it. Like, there’s a difference between acknowledging your strengths and pretending you have none, just like there’s a difference between compensating for your weaknesses and ignoring them.”

“Just say what I said but more eloquently, why don’t you?” Leo grinned, fond as ever. Maybe he was an idiot for ever thinking Leo would be mad at him. “How about this, I’ll do my best not to make assumptions about how much you can take, but only if you promise not to wait until we go to Hel and back next time to tell me there’s a problem, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We good?”

“We are.”

Thank the gods.

“And . . . are you okay?” Leo nudged Magnus’ knee with his own.

“Yeah. I’m- yeah.” Magnus was better than okay. It was as though he’d finally stuck a Band-Aid over a scab he hadn’t been able to stop picking. About time, too, he’d had enough picking away at his problems for one afternoon. Gods, he hadn’t realised he had so many problems, and that wasn’t even covering the ones made by all-powerful deities. “Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a really cute guy, but what’s new?”

Leo blinked and looked away, trying to ignore the smile tugging at his lips. “Are- do you, uh-”

“I mean it,” Magnus doubled down, a grin tugging at his lips as Leo continued to struggled for eye contact. “You’re good looking. Ignoring how short you are, and how you have weird pointy ears like an elf-”

At this Leo giggled, giggled, “I get it. We can’t all be as dashingly handsome as you, that’d just be unfair.”

“Yeah,” and now Magnus was gasping for breath between laughter too, lungs burning in protest. “Exactly!”

“But,” Leo held up a hand, somehow managing to turn his impish expression dead serious. “But no homo, right?”

And Magnus bluescreened.

“I cannot believe you just said that, I can’t believe-”

“We agreed on that hill that one time-”

“-you really just said that, to my face-”

“-oh, come on-”

“-and expected me not to cringe.”

“You said it too!”

“Yeah, when I was in denial. I was stupid, and foolish, and young.”

“It was two weeks ago!”

“It feels like four gods damn years!”

"Can I?"

"Yes."

Leo's lips met Magnus' in a kiss. It was warm and mushy and honestly a little grosser than Magnus expected, but it was also a moth to a flame, a summer day, flying forever. Gods, Magnus wanted this for forever.

Face pink, grinning like an idiot, he pulled away only to tell Leo, “I love you.”

“I love you, Magnus,” Leo said, then just to rub it in. “All of the homo.”

Chapter Text

The car came tearing up the street as though there was an army of monsters on its heels, screeching to a stop in the McDonalds parking lot in a cloud of smoke that smelt of sulphur. Nico coughed and shoved his nose into his shirt, which didn’t smell much better after a week in a sewer, a jail and the Underworld.

The driver’s window inched open as the chauffer wound it down, revealing the second least attractive corpse Nico knew. Jules-Albert grunted in a distinctly French accent.

“Cool,” Nico said, because he spoke neither zombie nor French. “Listen, we need a ride to . . .”

“Massachusetts,” Blitz said.

“Massachusetts.”

Nico didn’t need to speak zombie or French to know that Jules-Albert was probably cursing up a storm that his decomposed vocal chords couldn’t communicate.

“For the record, I’m not thrilled either,” Nico clarified, “but it’s an emergency. Not a war, yet, but- listen, I’ll explain on the way, alright?”

There was a loud click as the doors unlocked. Nico beckoned to Blitz and rounded the bonnet to slip into the driver’s seat. A very disgruntled Blitzen slid into the back, one hand making sure his wide-brimmed hat stayed firmly on his head. He’d barely slammed the door closed before Jules-Albert revved the engine and dove back into traffic.

“Thor’s hammer, I’m gonna be carsick,” Blitzen grumbled as they took a sharp left through a red light. “This is your idea of a cab?”

“You thought I was going to call an actual cab?” Nico retorted. “I can’t exactly ask some random mortal to drive us all the way across the country. I'm fourteen, homeless and have nothing except pocket change. Plus, Jules-Albert doesn’t need rest stops. This is the fastest way to get to Leo and Magnus without Zeus shooting us out of the sky.”

Nico has been there, done that. He didn’t enjoy it one bit, and had no desire to relive it a second time, thank you very much.

Besides, if Leo and Magnus had managed to keep themselves alive thus far – which they had, Nico knew, he could feel twin heartbeats like the curl of a flame and the blossom of a wildflower, delicate and fragile and there – they couldn’t be too badly off. Yes, the gods were clawing their way ever closer for some ambiguous reason they didn’t want to disclose, but Hermes had assured them that the summit would take place when, and only when, Nico had made it back to Leo and Magnus to give them a debrief.

“Blitzen?” Nico asked. “Where is the rendezvous point?”

“Massachusetts.”

“Where in Massachusetts?”

A pause.

“Where in Massachusetts?”

“Massachusetts.”

“Massachusetts? Hades, Blitz, that’s a pretty big area to cover! How do you plan on finding them, exactly?”

“Hearth will send a sign to let us know where they are, assuming they’re in this world.”

Great. Better and better. Nico grumbled and turned away to stare out the window at the suburbs rolling by. “Whatever. I’m going to sleep. Wake me up later.”

He dreamt of the Underworld, because of course he did. Nico was standing on grey grass, in a grey crowd, under a grey sky that fades to black rock somewhere unseeably far above his head. He groaned and dragged a hand down his face. Why, even in his own mind, did he always end up here?

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s get this over with. I’ve got more important things to do than be bullied by my own subconscious.”

“And yet,” Percy’s voice sneered. “Here you are.”

“Here I am,” he echoed. “Almost like this was a subconscious decision on my part.”

Greyscale and distorted by memories and nightmares alike, the fake pantomime phantoms of Percy and Bianca circled Nico like dire wolves, jaws snapping insults and eyes flashing with disgust. Their words were biting as they tore into him. It would be so easy to believe them. But if he did . . .

If he did, Magnus and Leo would be helpless without him, and at the mercy of two pantheons of gods. If he did, he’d be dishonouring Bianca’s memory. The real Bianca, the one who loved him, not the sick copy made by his own unconscious mind.

“We’ve been over this,” Nico refused to let his voice waiver. “This is just a dream. You aren’t real, and you can’t hurt me.”

“Nico,” Not-Percy crooned, sickly sweet. Nico hated hearing his name in any iteration of Percy’s mouth. “You know words hurt more than any weapon ever could.”

“Maybe so,” Nico agreed. “But I don’t need to listen to you.”

And with a deep breath, he stepped forwards through the shadow of his dream, out of the Underworld and-

Nope. He was still in the Underworld. Great.

Although there was no sign of the memories of ghosts which haunted him, just the regular old grey spirits of Asphodel. And the shape of two very large, very much burning-Nico’s-eyes-and-soul gods out for an afternoon stroll amongst the dead.

Nico averted his eyes, blinking away the light particles and rubbing at his aching head. That was way too close for staring at a god’s true form for his liking.

“-swore it on the River Styx, that fool.” That was Hades’ voice, words harsh in a way usually reserved for berating Nico. “Who knows when my incompetent son will find his little friends?”

Ah. There it was.

Persephone hums. “Hermes seems to have faith in him.”

“Yes, because Hermes has never misplaced his confidence in any half-blood.”

At least Hermes had faith, Nico thought sourly. Besides, Nico wasn’t Luke. He was just trying not to get two idiot demigods who didn’t know what they were meddling with killed. He didn’t ask for any of this. This is what he gets, for falling asleep in a sewer.

“When I see my son at the summit,” Hades continued. “He better not have disappointed me again.”

Again. Like Nico hadn’t done everything in his power not to, like he hadn’t helped save the world, and save Leo and Magnus’ lives.

Nico opened his eyes. The sun was somewhere low in the sky and there was a crick in his neck from falling asleep against the headrest.

“Are we there yet?” Nico yawned.

In the back seat, Blitzen chuckled. “Not even close, kid.”

Nico buried his head in knees. This was going to be a long drive.

Chapter Text

Magnus, it turned out, was right. Camping was pretty cool. The cute guy struggling to strike a match by the fire pit helped.

When Hearth had returned to collect the two of them, Leo and Magnus had practically leapt apart like schoolkids caught kissing behind the bleachers. Or whatever schoolkids with crushes did. Leo Valdez, professional middle school dropout, was surprisingly not an expert. He suspected interdimensional travel with a guy you met in a sewer and a man who stalked you halfway across the country was not a typical first date. Though no one could argue that it wasn’t memorable.

Upon finding them, Hearth had just raised his eyebrows and informed them there was plenty of space to pitch a tent in the campsite. Leo suspected Hearth had not paid for any of that room, not that he was complaining.

They had found a site with more grass than dirt, and a fire pit nearby, and Hearth had set about setting up their tent. Yeah, apparently Hearth had a tent. Or, as Magnus had reminded Leo, a runestone which turned into a tent.

“Naudiz,” Magnus had explained, “is the rune for ‘need’ or ‘distress’. What we need now is a tent.”

“Or a car. Or some money,” Leo said. “But, you know, a tent works too.”

Hearth had pitched said tent and proceeded to take a nap in a patch of afternoon sun, leaving Magnus and Leo to their own devices. After a few minutes, Magnus suggested trying to start a fire in the fire pit for dinner, or when it got dark.

Leo – who was still not a fan of fire in any capacity, and who didn’t want to spend his afternoon collecting sticks – suggested doing literally anything else. Naturally, they started collecting wood for the fire pit.

“Where did you even get matches?” Leo asked, watching Magnus striking one against the side of the packet he’d pulled out of his pocket.

Magnus pointed at the backpack that had, at some point, belonged to Nico. “I think that thing is magic. It always has whatever we need in it. Snacks, a knife, matches.”

The kind where it was magically filled with stuff Nico had bought at a convenience store weeks ago. If that was magic.

“Does it still have snacks?” Leo asked. Disappointingly, it did not. It also did not have firewood.

If Hel itself made for an awful first date – a point even Magnus could agree on when Leo brought it up – then collecting firewood only made for a marginally better second one. Leo had already managed to get three splinters.

“Give me a chance to ask you out when there aren’t two entire pantheons of gods that have it in for us,” Magnus protested, “I can take you . . . uh, listen, I have literally no money, but I could probably afford McDonalds?”

“Don’t talk about McDonalds,” Leo warned. “I would actually kill for some chicken nuggets right now.”

“Or I know this place that does absolutely incredible falafel, back in Boston.”

“Magnus, seriously, I cannot listen to you talk about food and know that we’re going to have to eat, like, bugs or something for dinner.”

Collecting the firewood killed an hour or so, but it did not kill Leo’s hunger. Or his boredom. As they lugged branches through the forest, he kept catching a glimpse of water through the trees – shimmering silver sheets of metal which match the overcast sky. Leo mightn’t have been a big fan of fire, but he could absolutely get behind a swim. How long had it been since he last had a shower? He’d been wearing the same grubby clothes since he ran away and he was now covered in dog hair and dirt.

“Hey,” Leo said as he dropped one last armful of sticks onto the pile. “Let’s go down to the lake.”

Magnus’ entire face lit up, but he hesitated. “I don’t know if we should just leave Hearth. What if something happens?”

“Magnus. Nothing’s gonna happen. Look, I’ll give you a kiss if you come swimming with me.”

“Two kisses?”

“All the kisses.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

The lake was still and silver in the late afternoon light. They shed shoes and socks and pants, Leo’s shirt, Magnus’ blue cardigan on the sandy shore. Leo was the first to wade in, water lapping at his knees. It was cold enough to make his skin prick, but he turned back to wave and yell for Magnus to join him anyway.

Magnus hesitated, toes sinking into the sand. Leo bent down to splash water at him.

“Oh, that’s it! Come here, you.” Magnus dashed in after Leo, who splashed a few desperate steps before Magnus’ shoulders collided with his ribs and the two went down with a scream. They surfaced soaking wet and spluttering for breath between laughter.

Magnus’ hair darkened to a rusty bronze when wet, and through the shirt clinging to his skin Leo could see his ribs. Leo grimaced in sympathy. Then in disgust as a handful of lake water was slapped at his face.

“You little-”

“We’re even now,” Magnus held up his hands defensively. “You splashed me, I splashed you-”

“So it’s my turn, is what you’re saying.” Leo said, and did his best to upend the lake onto his boyfriend’s head. If only his father was the god of water, not fire.

Magnus pouted. His irises were the same shade of grey as the lake, a brilliant silver that sparkled in the light. Laughter lined his eyes, and his cheeks were dimpled as he tried not to smile. Arms crossed and hair sticking to his forehead and lips turning blue from the cold, he was beautiful. He was always beautiful.

“You’re staring,” Magnus accused lightly.

“You’re pretty.”

Magnus turned his face away, still trying to swallow his smile. “Leo.”

“What? It’s true! You can’t get mad because it’s true.”

“You’re stupid.”

“And you love me,” Leo sing-songed.

“. . . And I love you.”

“I love you too.”

It’s funny, how everything and nothing was different. They’d loved each other a long time , before they even put it into words. Magnus was still the same boy who outsmarted gods and monsters, who made Leo laugh until his lungs hurt, and who too his breath away. Only now, Leo could say that, and can lean over and kiss him. So he did, and Magnus kissed back too.

The sun was low in the patchy side when they pick their way back to camp, still dressed down and dripping wet. Hearthstone, sitting by a lit campfire with three paper plates of baked beans on toast, gave them both some very pointed signs and told them that they were going straight to bed after dinner and are not going anywhere until the next morning.

“Okay mum.” Leo rolled his eyes and grabbed a plate, plopping down on the log beside Magnus.

“I said we should have left a message,” Magnus said, because he did and he just has to rub it in. Dork.

“Shut up and eat your baked beans,” Leo replied through a full mouth. Either Leo was exhausted, or the food was blessed by the gods themselves, because it tasted heavenly.

Magnus shuffled closer, slotting in beside Leo’s shoulder like a puzzle piece Leo never realised was missing. A perfect fit.

Everything was perfect, which of course means nothing would last.

Chapter Text

“Wake up.”

“G’way Leo . . .” Magnus mumbled, burying his head into his pillow. The early morning air carried a chill and birdsong. Magnus was by no means one to sleep in, but it must have been pre-dawn for how little light tried to force its way between his eyelids.

“I’m not Leo. Wake up.”

Wait.

Magnus bolted upright, almost braining the blurry shape of a person hovering above him. He blinked, scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand and looked around. Beside him, sprawled eagle-spread across the air mattress, was Leo, hogging the wolf pelt blanket. Which was fine by Magnus, who would rather not sleep under the skin of a dead wolf thank you very much. Leo could lie all he liked about it being synthetic fur, but Magnus saw Hearthstone shaking his head over his boyfriend’s – boyfriend, Leo was his boyfriend! – shoulder.

Finally, he lifted his eyes up towards the person who woke him, a pale, wiry boy with bat wing curls of black hair and an oversized aviator jacket hanging from thin shoulders-

“Nico!?”

Nico di Angelo was crouched over Magnus, ghostlike with his pale skin and dark clothes. He looked tired. For a second, Magnus considered the possibility that he was still dreaming, a possibility forcibly discarded when Nico jabbed him between the ribs with a bony finger.

“Get Leo and get up, we need to talk.”

“Wh- how did you- you’re alive!”

“Of course I’m alive. How dumb do you think I am? I’m not you.” Nico rolled his eyes, ignored Magnus indignant yelp of hey, we’re alive too! and stood, a darker shadow in the dark tent. “Just wake Leo already, then meet me outside for breakfast. There’s a lot to discuss.”

He ducked out of the tent, into the sliver of grey-blue sky visible between the trees outside, and disappeared.

Magnus flopped backwards onto the bed and rolled himself into Leo’s side. Leo was warm and the crook of his neck was comfortable and even sleep-mused, his hair fell in candle flames over his forehead, contrasting his sharp, elf-like features. My boyfriend, Magnus thought again, how lucky am I?

“Leo,” Magnus shook Leo’s shoulder, a much gentler treatment than he himself had been given by Nico. “Wake up. Nico is here.”

It took almost another minute to coax Leo into the waking world, where Leo proceeded to mumble incoherently and make grabby hands at Magnus’ face.

“I want cuddles as much as you do,” Magnus assured him, “but Nico is literally on the other side of this thin wall of fabric and will probably run us through with his sword if we don’t hurry up and go say hello.”

“Not probably,” Nico calls through said thin wall of fabric. “I definitely will. Hurry up.”

Feeling more like a walking corpse than a human, Magnus stumbled outside. The pre-dawn light exaggerated the lines in the trees and on the faces of the figures huddled about the glowing embers of a fire.

Nico, stabbing at the flames with a long stick, was perched on a log beside what Magnus can only describe as a zombie in a racing suit. Opposite them, Hearth had his leather jacket zipped all the way up to the tip of his nose, which was red from the cold. With one arm flung over his shoulder, dressed in a heavy trench coat and broad-brimmed hat to block out the growing light, sat Blitzen. Just beyond the circle of firelight loomed the shape of a sleeping car.

Dragging Leo by the wrist, Magnus stumbled down to sit by the fire.

“So,” Nico started, straight to business. “Hearth has told us a bit of what you two got up to, but says he was unconscious for a lot of it. What happened in the Underworld?”

“Hel,” Magnus corrected, and went on to relay their misadventures in the land of the dead. At his shoulder, Leo slowly roused himself back into the land of the living.

“You think that’s bad?” Nico asked. “Blitzen got us both locked in jail!”

The story of the time Blitzen got himself and Nico locked in jail, the daring escape from said jail, the two’s adventures in the Underworld, and the time they met a god at McDonald’s almost put Leo and Magnus’ story to shame. Nico’s delivery was deadpan, given life only through occasional interjections from Blitz to insist “Don’t listen to him, it was not my fault we were imprisoned, it was Junior-” and “Funny, ‘cause I remember someone all but crying when I showed them the sword I made-” and “I can’t believe he likes McDonalds, what sort of god-”

“So we need to head to Olympus as soon as possible,” Nico concluded. “The gods are meeting for a summit to discuss, well. Us, I suppose.”

“Us,” Leo echoed. “We need a better group name. Or, like, a club name? Are we a club?”

“We should start a club,” Magnus agreed. He glances between Nico and Leo, grey eyes narrowed in thought. “What do we all have in common?”

The fire crackled into the quiet.

“We’re all demigods,” Nico contributed at length, tone as unenthusiastic as his expression.

“We’re all devilishly handsome,” Leo said. “Especially Magnus.”

Nico rolled his eyes towards the heavens as though asking Thor or Zeus or whoever was in charge of thunder today to strike him right out of the sky.

“Don’t worry, you’re cute too.” Leo leant over to pat Nico on the shoulder.

Nico buried his face in his hands, but his flushed face was obvious even in the flickering firelight. “That’s- whatever. Um. We all have tragic backstories involving the death of a parental figure.”

“Whoa dude, what the f-”

“Too soon,” Magnus said, holding up his hands in a ‘T’ for time out. “Try again.”

“We’re all well on our way to developing post-traumatic stress disorder.” Nico suggested unenthusiastically.

It was, suffice to say, not a very good try. Even if it was true. Magnus maintained that Hel was a pretty awful place for a first date.

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine?” Leo joked. “I’ve got one Magnus. Get this. We’re all gay.”

Nico’s cheeks somehow grew even redder. His face returned to the safe-haven of his hands. “No.”

“No? Come on, I saw the longing in your eyes when-”

“No.”

“Drop it Leo,” Magnus advised.

“Consider it dropped.” Leo mimed zipping his lips closed, locking them and tossing away the key. “Dropped all the way to the Underworld.”

“Ugh,” Nico’s voice was muffled by his hands. “No thanks. I don’t want my father to ever hear this conversation.”

“Neither do I. Consider it dropped all the way past the Underworld and into Tartarus, where even Hades won’t hear of it,” Leo amended. “Magnus, I’ve got it!”

Magnus took a deep breath to steady himself. “. . . Yeah?”

“We’re all homeless!”

“You want us to make a club celebrating that we’re all . . . homeless?”

“Neither of you have any better ideas!”

“I have given you several considerably better ideas,” Nico snapped, the argument enough incentive to lift his head from his hands even if his face was still blotchy pink. “Also, I have a home. You’re meant to be in foster care. The only one of us that’s actually homeless is Magnus.”

“Your home is literally Hel. You also ran away from it, multiple times. Face it, you’re homeless.”

“Whether you two have homes or not, we’re all sitting here together in a forest in the middle of Boston,” Magnus pointed out, “without said homes. The Homeless Demigod Club. Hmm. It has a ring to it.”

Nico gave a long-suffering sigh. “Are you sure you don’t want to consider, maybe, just the Demigod Club? Or the Losers In A Forest Club? Or literally anything else?”

“I vote the Homeless Demigod Club,” Leo said. “That’s two verse one. We win. It’s official.”

“Well, officially enjoy your first and last day of the club,” Nico said, “because tonight we meet with the gods. There’s a summit at Olympus.”

Chapter Text

Olympus hummed with energy. The air was sharp with static, hair stood up all along the back of Nico’s neck and goosebumps pricked his arms. Nymphs and dryads and minor gods hurried along winding paths and lounged in togas and tunics in pleasure gardens. Side by side with them, pieces from the wrong puzzle, were towering giants, spindly elves, gods in cloaks and thick fur capes suited more for harsh winter than a pleasantly muzzy afternoon on Olympus.

Nico twisted the silver skull ring on his finger, squinting up at the glittering white buildings through the late afternoon haze. Their little group had spent the better part of the day travelling back to New York.

In the lobby of the Empire State Building, the doorman had tried to stop Magnus, Hearthstone and Blitzen from pushing through the turnstiles until Nico had tried to push a metre of Stygian iron into his stomach, then spent the elevator ride up to the 600^th floor giving Magnus the stink eye for stopping him. The ride up had minutes stretching out to hours, elevator music tinny and stifling against the silence.

Leo had tried to start up conversation a few times, but a lack of any enthusiastic response and Nico turning his glare on him had shut down even Leo’s insistent chatter. Nico would admit it – he was antsy. He didn’t want to be on Olympus. He didn’t want anything to do with whatever the gods were meddling with this time, and whatever solution they thought they found to the apparent problem that was Leo Valdez and Magnus Chase. Given his history with the gods, could anyone blame him?

“Almost there,” he muttered, unnecessarily, as he herded Leo, Magnus, Hearth and Blitz along the path winding up to the glistening marble atop the peak of a mountain that didn’t exist, overlooking Olympus, New York City, and the world.

“Wait a sec,” Blitzen panted, struggling to keep up with Nico’s brisk pace in his heavy trench coat and netted hat. “I might be more of a fashionista than an architect, kid, but isn’t that the same palace we saw in Hel?”

“The Underworld,” Nico corrected, “and yes. My father is . . . not very well-liked among the Olympians. For a long time, he was allowed here only on the Solstices.”

Even after millennia, he had carved his home in the image of the Olympians, of his family black and red and hellfire where Olympus is marble and gold.

“Everyone here is a god,” Magnus was muttering as they walked, crowds parting about them like seas. “That’s a god, and that’s a god, and that’s a god-”

“That’s a dryad,” Nico corrected. Again.

“Oh, oh of course, duh!” Magnus said, voice pitching up towards hysterical. “I should have known it was a dryad, what a normal, everyday thing to see, my bad-”

“Magnus,” Leo said, surprisingly steady. “Breathe.”

“I’m breathing. A lot.” Magnus sucked air between his teeth, chest heaving with each quick inhale.

“Try breathing a little less,” Leo advised. Magnus smacked him lightly on the side of the head. Entirely deserved, in Nico’s opinion.

Nico pretended not to see Leo squeezing Magnus’ hand, their fingers firmly interlocked. The two had been practically inseparable ever since Nico got back. Before then, too, according to Hearth. Sure, sure, Nico was happy for them. Young love, whatever.

It. Wasn’t weird. The two of them being together. Leo and Magnus. Boyfriends. Not weird. Yeah, not weird and not even worth the thought Nico had been giving it, considering he was on his way to meet with two gods damned pantheons of gods. Which was way more important than Leo and Magnus and whether they were- whatever they were. None of it was weird.

. . . That didn’t stop Nico thinking about it. It didn’t get rid of the way his stomach twisted like a pit of snakes, or the ache in the back of his head whenever he saw the two of them – so blatantly, unapologetically happy.

Nico didn’t get it. He knew he never would. That was fine. He didn’t have to.

All of a sudden the steps to the throne room were right there, and so were those massive doors, and beyond them the gods.

Nico stopped. “This is it.”

“You . . . you make it sound like a goodbye,” Magnus noted, still nervous but the panicked note to his voice had softened. His knuckles were white around Leo’s. “Is it?”

“I don’t know.” Nico said. How could he? The gods were unknowable.

No. Not unknowable – that made them sound omnipotent, holier-than-thou, like they could do no wrong, watching from above and weaving the tapestry of life with careful hands, each thread picked out and put in place for a purpose. No, the gods were no Fates. They were just as human as all their children, when it really came down to it.

“I guess it depends.”

“On?”

“Magnus, I don’t know,” Nico snapped. “I- I dragged you into this. I tried my best to protect you both – to protect all of you, Hearth and Blitz included – and I failed. I know I did, and I’m sorry.”

Magnus reached out, hand hovering just out of Nico’s orbit as though unsure whether it would be slapped away. Nico wasn’t sure either.

“You didn’t fail,” Magnus said.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Dude,” Leo said. “You were dragged into this as much as we were. I mean, we met you passed out in a sewer. You got yourself out of Hel and across the country for us. And, like, you’re not even dating Magnus, so you really could’ve just dipped at any point guilt free.”

“And left you guys alone to die?” Nico rolled his eyes. “Also, if I did, Blitz would’ve had my head. He would’ve put it in his creepy head bag. Did I tell you about the head bag?”

Even for a son of Hades, the head bag was a step too far.

“Hey-” Blitz said indignantly, but cut himself off when Hearth touched his arm and made a few pointed signs. “Hearth says to get to the point already.”

“The point is, just in case this is goodbye,” Nico said carefully, “which it may not be, but if it is. I just wanted to say, even though I made your lives like a thousand times worse, I am happy to have met you. You guys are . . . cool, I guess.”

“Really?” Leo asked. “Because I’d say I’m pretty hot.”

He paused, as if waiting for a life track. Hearth face-palmed. Even Magnus looked, for a moment, as if he were re-evaluating the life choices that led to him have Leo of all people as his partner. Maybe it was a good thing the gods were about to forcibly remove Leo from Nico’s life.

“Get it? ‘Cause, like, I can catch on fire-”

“We get it,” Magnus assured him. “You’re very funny.”

“And cute,” Leo added.

Magnus rolled his eyes but smiled fondly. “And cute.”

“And smart.”

“And smart.”

“And I’m gonna throw up if you two don’t stop,” Nico said. “Are we ready to go?”

With no words left between them, the group of five begin the final climb to Mount Olympus.

Chapter Text

If Leo was being honest with himself, he was terrified.

He had spent the past few days pretending not to be – totally normal to be attacked by giant wolves in a graveyard. There are plenty of creepy novelty inns, right? Hel? No big deal. Nothing special about a World Tree, no sir – but standing 600 floors above New York City, on a mountaintop made of clouds, before a room full of beings that could crush him like an ant underfoot, and whose every breath was the birth and death of stars, made it a little hard to keep his cool.

He could feel Magnus crushing the bones in his hand into dust from how tightly he was gripping it, and Leo didn’t doubt he was doing the same to Magnus. It was all he could do to focus on putting one foot in front of another and follow Nico, who was unnaturally calm in the presence of two dozen gods who could zap him into a little pile of ash with a snap of their fingers, especially when every nerve in Leo’s body was fighting to run screaming out of the room.

Squashed between the large ‘U’ of thrones spaced out on the marble floor, where the figures Leo’s brain refused to comprehend as literal Greek gods that were real and also related to him lounged, were yet more chairs, upsized folding chairs like those you might see at a campsite, in which figures Leo’s brain doubly refused to recognise as Norse gods sat.

Here a squat man with a red face sipping on Red Bull. There a beautiful lady petting a cat that was too big for her lap. And there, a young girl in a silver parker resolutely ignoring the golden-haired teen flicking spit-balls in her direction, and a weathered man peering out at the scene with one clever eye, and a lady who Leo recognised as Hel and quickly looked away, and a man with wild red hair like a lion’s mane, and a man with a mechanical leg who kept peering at Leo like he was some sort of anomaly, and-

Nico cleared his throat and somehow managed not to collapse under the weight of dozens of all-powerful eyes focused on him.

“Um,” Nico said eloquently, glancing between the towering figures as though unsure who to address. “Hi. Er, hello. We’re . . . here.”

“Get on with it!” Someone cried.

“Thor,” chided the elderly man, squinting about the room with one beady eye.

Thor. Like from the comics. And also the myths. And also real life. Thor from real life. Yeah, this was fine. Leo was totally not freaking out.

“Nico di Angelo,” boomed a man in a pinstripe suit, his voice a clap of thunder. “You and your little half-blood friends have proven yourselves rather difficult to pin down.”

“Well,” interrupted a goddess who was petting a lion as though it was a housecat. “If Hermes hadn’t-”

“Excuse you! I managed to ensure they would arrive,” protested a god Leo vaguely noted as Hermes from the hnefatafl competition.

“You sure took your time doing it.”

The god in the pinstripe suit cleared his throat pointedly, the sound echoing across the cavernous room. “The point is, they are here now, and so . . . we must decide what to do with them.”

“I was going to bring them to Camp Half-Blood,” Nico cuts in quickly. “So they could be protected from monsters and trained-”

“You would take him to Camp Half-Blood?” Thor chuckled, pointing a crooked finger at Magnus, who tried and failed to hide behind Leo, shoulders hunched.

“Camp Half-Blood would be no place for a demigod such as Magnus Chase,” agreed a goddess in a war helm.

“Hey!” Leo protested loudly. “What’s wrong with M-”

To his right, Hearthstone shoved Blitz, who stumbled forwards with a yelp, pulled himself up and yelled over Leo, “Hearth and I were tasked with keeping the boy safe until- um, until the time comes.”

Okay. That was ominous as Hel. What time comes? What was going to happen to Magnus? Why couldn’t he go to Nico’s mysterious Camp Half-Blood with Leo? Leo gripped his boyfriend’s hand, feeling Magnus squeeze back even tighter.

There was more outcry, which broke down into soft murmurs and an eventual agreement.

“Yes,” said the one-eyed man, who along with the man in the pinstriped suit seemed to be some sort of leader. Leo racked his brain for his admittedly limited knowledge of Norse mythology and came up empty-handed. “That will do well. Hearthstone, Blitzen, you’ve proven yourselves thus far, keeping Magnus Chase from harm, and you will continue to do so until the time comes.”

Privately, Leo felt that he himself – and Nico, he supposed – were equally responsible for Magnus’ lack of grievous injury over the past few days. After all, what had Blitzen and Hearthstone done other than stalk them halfway across the country, make them play hnefatafl-to-the-death and send them to literal Hel? But he was not about to say that in front of a room full of gods who could and most likely would smite him if he so much as looked at them funny.

“As for Leo Valdez . . .” the man in the pinstriped suit mused.

A lady in a gown that shimmered like peacock feathers stepped forwards to place a hand on the man’s arm. Her face was motherly, but distant, like the type of mother than told her kids she didn’t have favourites even though every action she took told you otherwise. “Zeus, it’s too early. He can’t-”

Zeus – that was Zeus, of course it was – took her hand in his, in a gesture that seemed more absent-minded than loving. “Leo Valdez, too, will be returned to his prior arrangements.”

Prior arrangements. Foster care. Gods, no thank you. “I’ll just run away again, and find Magnus.”

“Leo-” Nico bit out, eyes wide with panic.

“You will do no such thing,” Zeus commanded, lightning anger flickering in his eyes. “The Fates determined your destiny long ago Leo Valdez, and Magnus Chase will play no part in it.”

“But-”

“You’d best listen to him, son.” The speaker, the god who'd been eyeing Leo strangely earlier, seemed to be more focused on the mechanical parts he was twisting together with ink-stained hands than the conversation. “There’s things even the gods can’t change, things yet to unfold, and you’d do well to understand your part in them.”

“I don’t understand,” Leo spat, insolent only because he didn’t know any better. Had he known, in that moment, who he was talking to, he doubted he would have spoken at all. “I don’t understand because no one will explain it!”

“Worlds are colliding, in ways they haven’t since long before your time.” As he spoke, the man began to twine two wires together, tucking them into place against the metal body of the contraption he was forming. “Let’s take a walk, son, and I’ll explain it to you. You and your boy both.”

To Leo’s surprise, none of the gods protested. There was another round of bird-chatter whispers, and a lot of long glances towards both Leo and the god. Someone jostled a god near the back, fair-haired and dressed in sturdy hiking attire, who shook his head and sunk back into the crowd.

The god slotted a final metal plate into place on the little machine he was working on, which revealed itself as a metal bird, and wound up the key on its back. It fluttered once, twice, then soared in a spiral about the domed roof. The god stood. One of his legs was held in a metal brace which, if Leo was to hazard a guess, he probably crafted himself.

As he walked towards the entrance, he shrunk down from his enormous six metres to tower over Leo and Magnus at a more reasonable two. Footsteps echoed about the room, Leo glanced back to see Nico running to catch up, only to falter as a god dressed in death-black robes called his name.

“We’ll come back,” Magnus said, “we’ll be right back, promise.”

“Okay,” Nico said, although his voice was weak. “Okay, yeah. It’ll be okay. I’ll talk to them, I’ll- we’ll figure this out.”

But Leo could see the hopeless acceptance in his eyes. They may not be dead, but Magnus was going back to Boston and Leo to foster care and Nico to who-the-Hel-knows, and this was not the Disney happy ending they deserved.

“Son?” The god called from the bottom of the steps.

Leo looked down at the god, whose singed curls glint like it was full of tiny embers in the sun. His eyes were alight with the same fire, dark brown with burning embers of mirth. Leo knew those eyes, he’s looked at them thousands of times in the mirror.

The realisation hit him like a draconae that had just lost a round of hnefatafl-to-the-death. Son. Oh gods. The deity standing before them was Leo’s father; Hephaestus himself.

Chapter Text

Magnus took a few steps and paused when Leo didn’t follow. The shorter boy was stuck in place at the top of the steps, staring at the god below them.

“Leo?” Magnus asked.

“Dad,” Leo breathed.

“Whoa,” Magnus said. “Nope, no, I am not-”

“Not you, idiot” Leo yelped, smacking the palm of his hand against Magnus’ chest. “I meant him.”

Magnus followed Leo’s gaze to the bottom of the stairs, where the god stood waiting for them to catch up, tapping his foot impatiently. His metal leg brace clanged against the marble like a church bell. Magnus squinted down at the god, then back up to Leo.

“Wait, that’s Hepa-”

“Hephaestus, yeah,” Leo said.

“Gotta be honest, I do not see the family resemblance. He’s, like, rugged.”

Leo drew himself up, insulted. “I can be rugged!”

“Ehh.”

“Dude, are you seriously dumping me for my father?”

“What, no? I like you. I like scrawny. Scrawny is cute. Rugged is overrated.”

“I feel so loved right now.”

“I’m just saying-”

“I’m just saying shut up!” Leo screeched, hurrying down the stairs towards his father. Hephaestus. The god. That was going to take some getting used to.

. . . Magnus wondered if one of the gods in the council had been his father. If they were, why hadn’t they said anything? Were they ashamed of him? Did they just not care?

“Magnus?” Leo called up. “You coming?”

“On my way!”

Hephaestus led them along a winding path, lined by cloudy boulders and hanging gardens. Life size statutes of the gods sat at intervals along the path – which was a bit arrogant in Magnus’ opinion, really, who would want a statute of themselves in their own front yard? – and here and there temples rose out of the clouds, pillars stretching skyward. The only thing that slightly ruined the moment was the six hundred floor drop straight into Manhattan traffic to their left.

And the prospect of certain doom at the hands of the gods. Or, at the very least, being separated from Leo. Like Magnus said, certain doom.

Magnus hoped Nico was okay, alone before a council of gods. At least Magnus had Leo.

“Suppose you two’ve been having a strange month,” Hephaestus said.

The god’s eyes, set deep in an ancient, lined face, were a dark brown. Sunlight sparked a fire which burnt in those eyes, giving the impression of a man whose mind moved too fast for his body to catch up. Leo’s eyes. After spending so long gazing at them in his boyfriend’s face, it was uncanny to see them in someone else’s. In Leo’s father’s.

“It’s been weird,” Magnus answered truthfully.

“Yeah,” Leo added, “I guess you could say it’s been a little . . . queer.”

Magnus groaned and shoved playfully at Leo’s shoulder. “I should throw you off Olympus for that. That was awful.”

Ahead of them, Hephaestus cleared his throat. Leo visibly balked as he remembered why the two of them here having this conversation – here in Olympus – in the first place.

“It’ll be stranger yet,” Hephaestus said. “The past year has been a dark one for Olympus, but it will be darker yet. Recent events have woken things that have been asleep for many centuries, things better left asleep. The prophecy tells- well, it’s not my place to say, but you’ll have a part in it Leo, that much is clear. As for you, Magnus Chase . . . I can’t say what the Norns have planned for you, but Odin seems to think it important.”

They rounded a cloudy corner and crossed a small, stone bridge. To the right, the water dropped over the side of Olympus and vanished well before hitting the rooftops five hundred floors below. Magnus swallowed thickly, unsure if the pit in his stomach was due to the sheer drop or the weight of the god’s words.

“What does that mean?” Leo asked, picking subconsciously at the skin around his nails. “Dad – eugh, no, that’s weird – Hephaestus, uh, sir. I don’t understand why Magnus and I have to . . .”

“Why can’t we stay together?” Magnus finished. He reached out to grab Leo’s hand. It was small and warm, with familiar, calloused fingertips. Magnus didn’t want to forget the feel of Leo’s hand in his, or the sound of his laugh, or the way the tips of his pointy ears darkened when he was flustered.

Magnus reached out to grab Leo’s hand, and Leo realised he’d been worrying at the skin around his nails.

“What you saw today – two pantheons of gods together in one room, is something that hasn’t occurred in many, many years,” Hephaestus said. “It ain’t supposed to mix, far as Zeus is concerned. Just like the demigods from those pantheons ain’t supposed to mix. You’re from two different worlds, son.”

“I’m from Boston,” Magnus said. “I guess that’s basically a different world . . .”

“I still don’t get why that means we have to be separate,” Leo said, “why we have to forget- there has to be some other way, some way to fix this.”

“There are things even the gods can’t fix,” Hephaestus said.

“But you’re the god of fixing things,” Leo said. “Fixing things is your thing.”

“This ain’t something to be fixed, son. It’s fate.”

“Screw fate! I’ll make my own fate.”

“Perhaps one day,” Hephaestus said, turning those dark eyes – Leo’s eyes – onto the two demigods, “the two of you will meet again. But today, as we speak, the gods are planning to wipe your minds clean. If I had to take a guess, I’d say you have until dusk. I suggest you say your goodbyes.”

Chapter Text

Nico watched Leo and Magnus trail outside after Hephaestus and wasn’t sure if he should mutter a prayer for them or for himself. Zeus looked downright thunderous, and Nico’s father Hades didn’t seem much happier.

He opened his mouth to say something smart, only to be cut off before he had a chance to begin. Probably for the best, because Nico had no idea how he was going to save this situation.

“Let me show you something, Nico,” Hades said, sweeping away towards the door, leaving Nico no choice but to trudge after him.

“We’ll just wait here then,” Blitzen muttered as Nico passed him and Hearthstone by.

Nico stepped out of the council of the gods and onto rolling hillside. He blinked, glancing backwards, only to be met with forest. Before him, the hillside rolled down into a four-lane highway which stretched away towards a city, and beyond that Nico thought he could just make out the distant gleam of an ocean.

Every time Nico thought he was used to the gods and their tricks, they found another way to catch him off-guard.

“Where are we?” Nico asked his father. “Is this . . . San Francisco?”

Hades nodded. “Berkeley Hills.”

Nico squinted out at the haze of city. “Why are we here?”

“Do you see the highway down there?” Hades asked.

“It’d be hard to miss.”

“This is the Caldecott Tunnel. Do you see the service tunnel, just there?”

Nico followed Hades’ gaze across the highway. “I see it. Father, why are you showing me this?”

“Through that tunnel is Camp Jupiter, a camp designed to protect and train the children and descendants of the Roman gods.”

Hades paused, as if to allow Nico some highly articulate and intelligent question such as uh, what?, but Nico’s mind had gone blank. Hades’ words echoed in his ears. Camp Jupiter. Roman gods. Camp Jupiter.

Seriously, uh, what?

Well, if Greek mythology was real, and Roman mythology was real . . . what was one more? Really, why not? Why not throw Egyptian gods into the mix, while they were at it? After the past few weeks, Nico was starting to feel that nothing could surprise him anymore.

“Much like the Greek gods travelled west, so too have our Roman counterparts. And, much like your Camp Half-Blood, they have created their own safe-haven.”

Nico stuttered for a second, mouth unable to keep up with the myriad of questions his brain wanted it to spew out. He felt, absurdly, like his ten-year-old self, naïve and excited at the world that had just opened up to him. But he knew better than to assume anything good from this . . . this Camp Jupiter.

“Does anyone else know about this?” Nico asked.

“Only the gods, and you.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I do not appreciate you deceiving me, Nico,” Hades said. “Telling you this . . . it is a show of trust.”

“Right,” Nico said, as non-sarcastically as he could manage. Judging by Hades’ expression, it hadn’t worked. Well, forgive Nico for not believing that. Hades only shared things with his son when it would benefit the god.

“Go to them,” Hades said. “Introduce yourself as a child of Pluto. It is important you make this connection.”

“Why?” Nico asked again. Why him? Why not Percy, or Annabeth, or a hero? Why now? Wasn’t it all supposed to be over, with the war won and Kronos defeated?

“The era of isolation is coming to an end,” Hades said, cryptic as could be expected from a god. “Leo and Magnus must part ways, but it will not stay that way. Not for long. We must be ready.”

Nico stared down at the highway, at the cars flying obliviously by. He had been in California not two days ago, with no idea that barely six hours from where he and Blitz had had McDonalds, an entire Roman demigod camp was hidden in plain sight.

And Nico only knew now because, what, the world was going to end? Again?

“I don’t understand- it’s not fair. I did everything to protect them,” Nico rasped. “I kept them alive, and- and now- it’s just over? They have to go be part of some stupid prophecy just because you say so?”

“The Fates say so,” Hades said. His voice was sharp. “Do not complain to me of injustice. I, of all the gods, know it is impossible to defy the fates, Nico. Hera is insistent that this is the only way, and for once Zeus is in agreement with her. Even if I disagreed, there would be nothing I could do.”

“Do you disagree?” After all, Hades was showing Nico Camp Jupiter, before any other demigod in the world. Hades had told Nico to go to the Roman Camp, to introduce himself, to be involved. Those weren’t the actions of a god that agreed with the Fates.

“Does it matter?”

“I just wanted to keep them safe. To keep someone safe.”

“An admirable goal,” Hades said, “but an impossible one. Perhaps you can take solace in this; you will see them again.”

“That’s not enough. There’s no solace in that. Will they live?”

Hades was silent, unable to answer. Maybe even he didn’t know.

“You will see them again, after it ends,” the god said at length. “Come, they are waiting for you on Olympus.”

The god turned and disappeared into thin air. Nico followed him, stumbling as his sneakers met smooth marble instead of a sloping hillside. The air was cold and loaded with static. White light dazzled Nico’s eyes. He scrubbed the back of a hand over them and peered around. Yep, he was back on Olympus, in the council of the gods.

Leo and Magnus had returned to the room, both clutching the other close where they stood near the hearth. Magnus’ face was red, though he was trying to hide it in Leo’s dark curls. Blitzen was saying something soft and reassuring to Leo as Hearth awkwardly rubbed Magnus’ shoulder blades. It took the group a moment to notice Nico’s return, but the hope on their faces when they did almost killed him.

Leo and Magnus must part ways. There were no two ways around it; the gods themselves had decreed it.

Nico took a deep breath and walked over to say goodbye.

Chapter Text

Maybe a few weeks ago, Magnus would have been able to say he didn’t see this sort of ending coming. Back before his mother, and the apartment, and then the whole gods-are-real-and-I’m-in-Hel thing. But now? It was almost expected. Leo was the best thing left in Magnus’ life, so of course he had to go too.

When Nico had returned from wherever his father had taken him, red-faced and shaken, he had told Magnus and Leo that it was the end of the line. After all they’d been through, they had to say goodbye.

“You’ll see each other again,” Nico insisted. “We’ll see each other again. Just . . .”

Leo was clutching Magnus’ hand so hard his bones ached and Magnus held Leo just as tightly. He didn’t ever want to let go. He wanted to hold on until Leo was torn away from him. It was almost too awful to even think.

Magnus had barely had Leo in his life, and already he would have to let him go. It wasn’t fair. Weren’t gods supposed to be fair?

“I’m sorry,” Nico said helplessly, like any of it was his fault.

Magnus said nothing, because he didn’t want to say goodbye. “Can we-” his voice broke. “Can we have a minute alone?”

“Of course, kid,” Blitzen said. “All the time you need.”

Blitz and Hearth ushered Nico away so that Magnus and Leo could have the illusion of privacy, there on Olympus before an audience of two counsels of gods. Magnus leaned forwards to rest his head against Leo’s.

“I don’t want to let go,” he whispered, so only Leo would hear.

“I know,” Leo said. “I don’t either. But you heard Nico, we’ll see each other again.”

Magnus knew Leo now well enough to know the optimism was forced. He pulled back to look Leo in the face, ignoring how his eyes were stinging. He could feel Leo crushing his hands, but it didn’t even occur to Magnus to ask him to loosen his grip.

“It still sucks,” Magnus said eloquently.

Three simple words and Leo slumped a little. “Yeah, it still sucks.”

“I’m going to miss you.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“. . . All the homo.”

Magnus covered his hand with his spare hand and groaned. “Suddenly the idea of you out of my life doesn’t seem so bad.”

“I can’t believe it — my boyfriend’s homophobic.”

“Get out,” Magnus said, and pulled Leo closer to kiss him. “Even if Nico’s wrong and we never see each other again, I’m so glad I met you.”

There were more goodbyes, between Nico and Blitzen and Hearth, but it all started to feel numb. Magnus and Leo kept clinging to one another like a lifeline as promises were made on the Styx — something Magnus didn’t fully understand, but assumed was significant — not to speak of the events of the last few weeks.

“What now?” Magnus asked, after the promises were made. “Do we just . . . go our separate ways? Pretend like none of this ever happened? Can I at least get a lift back to Boston?”

A lady in a white dress that shimmered like peacock feathers stepped forwards. She had a motherly disposition that did nothing to hide the sharpness in her eyes. “I’m afraid it isn’t that simple. The fates have given you your parts to play, and there is no changing fate. You must descend to the Underworld and bathe in the River Lethe, so as to cleanse your memories of this meeting.”

Nico let out a strangled cry, but withered as the goddess’ ire turned upon him. “That’s not fair,” he muttered, sullen, “None of this is fair.”

“So that’s a no on a lift back to Boston?” Magnus guessed.

Blitzen gave a long-suffering sigh. “We’ll give you a lift, kid.”

“What, exactly, is the Lethe?” Leo asked.

“The river of forgetfulness – or, more literally, oblivion,” Nico explained. “It’s one of the five rivers of the Underworld. Its waters are powerful enough to wipe the mind of a Titan.”

***

The gods did not give Magnus a lift back to Boston. Instead, they gave him a lift back to Hel.

There were some pros! It was a much smoother trip than Nico’s shadow-travel or Hearthstone’s magic portals, and a much easier one than Magnus and Leo’s desperate scramble up the World Tree.

There were also some significant cons – namely the fact that they were now in Hel: Fiery Torture Pit Edition.

“I never want to see Hel again,” Magnus said.

“The Underworld,” Nico muttered. He was twisting his silver skull ring, face lined with worry.

They were standing on the banks of a milky white river lined with sickly looking cypress trees. Magnus thought, absurdly, of the lake that he and Leo had splashed and swam in only a day before. This river, the Lethe, was not nearly as appealing as a tourist destination. The dank cavern air of the Underworld didn’t help.

“So we just, what? Jump in?” Leo asked. He turned to Magnus with a forced smile. “Bet I can make a bigger splash than you.”

“Do not just jump in,” Nico snapped.

“We want to erase your last few weeks, not your entire life and identity,” Hera agreed.

“They can do that?” Leo looked vaguely sick.

The goddess stooped down and with a wave of her hand summoned two goblets, which she filled with the white water, careful not to let so much as a drop touch her skin.

“Will we ever remember?” Magnus asked.

“Maybe,” Nico said. “I sometimes- there may be impressions, feelings about certain things or people. If you’re told what happened after the fact. . . well, it’s hard to say. But I’ll make sure you two know what happened. I promise.”

Magnus didn’t know if it was better or worse to forget forever.

His knuckles were white on the goblet. His arm was heavy. It was difficult to lift it. He didn’t want this all to end. He didn’t want to forget. He didn’t want to say goodbye to Leo.

But the fates were apparently unchangeable and the future was fast approaching. All Magnus could do was meet it.

He took a deep breath, looked to Leo with a small, sad smile, and tipped the white water over his head.

Chapter Text

Nico stood by the shore of the River Styx, watching as Charon guided his ferry through the sludge and garbage clogging up the murky waters. Sat in the small wooden boat were Blitzen and Hearthstone, and Leo and Magnus. Leo and Magnus, who sat stiffly side-by-side like strangers. Who were strangers again, with the last few weeks wiped from their mind.

Nico felt strangely numb. Everything he’d devoted himself to over the last few weeks – keeping Leo and Magnus safe, keeping them together – was void. Null. It didn’t matter.

“I thought I might find you here.”

Nico turned and found himself looking up at Hades. His father stood with his hands behind his back, staring out at the boat as it slowly faded into the fog.

“Father?” Nico asked.

“What are you going to do now?” Hades asked.

“What do you mean?” Nico asked, as if he hadn’t just been asking himself the same thing.

“I think my meaning is perfectly clear.”

Nico stared out at the river. The boat had vanished. Leo and Magnus both had a clean break. . . . Nico did too.

“I’ll go to Camp Jupiter,” Nico said. He would put Leo and Magnus out of his mind. He would figure out how the gods all coexisted. And he would wait.

They’ll meet again, Nico reminded himself, I’ll make sure of it, if it’s the last thing I do. That was something to hold on to. Until then, life went on.

Nico travelled to the Roman Camp and introduced himself as an Ambassador of Pluto. Percy Jackson went missing, and Nico searched for him. Thanatos was kidnapped, and Nico revived his sister – not the one he went looking for, but one who deserved it and one he loved fiercely nevertheless – and took her to Camp Jupiter. He found Percy Jackson, son of Neptune, at Camp Jupiter. He went through Tartarus. He was captured by Giants.

He was rescued by Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus.

Leo was one of the Seven, from the Great Prophecy. The to storm or fire the world must fall Great Prophecy.

Nico was numb from Tartarus, almost too numb to care, but not numb enough for the fear in Leo’s eyes when he looked at him not to hurt. He kept his distance, even as he kept Leo and Magnus’ life-forces close to his chest and checked on them constantly, the twin candle-flames a light in the darkness; an ever-present reassurance.

They’ll meet again, the gods had promised, so things had to work out okay.

They’ll meet again, Nico reminded himself, back propped against the Athena Parthenos during a rare moment of quiet between bouts of shadow-travel.

They’ll meet again.

Mere days later, Nico stood on Half-Blood Hill, in the middle of a war, and watched as the world fell to fire, and Leo fell too. And the candlelight life-force that is Leo is blown out.

It was all over. The world was saved, but Leo was gone.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair. The gods had promised- how could this have happened?

When Leo’s life-force sparked back to life, Nico was so relieved he could’ve killed Leo himself. Everything was okay. Everything was going to be okay.

Then Magnus’ lifeforce flickered out.

When Nico heard Percy talk about Annabeth’s cousin Magnus still living – “living,” Percy had said, making air-quotes – in Boston, Nico had barely stopped himself from shadow-travelling right then and there.

It took him just under a week to track down Magnus Chase at a shelter for homeless youth. Chase Space reads the freshly-painted sign above the door as Nico steps inside.

There, behind the desk, Magnus. He was taller than he had been when Nico met him, with fuller cheeks and brighter eyes. He wore his blond hair in a low bun and a plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal corded muscle he’d never had before.

At a glance, Nico might have thought him a picture of good health, but there was something wrong with that image. The candleflame of his lifeforce was blown out; Magnus was, undeniably, dead. Yet he was, undeniably, standing before Nico in a homeless shelter in Boston.

Nico realised he was staring a couple moments after he realised Magnus was talking.

“-lcome to Chase Space,” Magnus was saying, polite as if Nico was a complete stranger. Which, to Magnus, he was. “How can I help you?”

“That’s not- I’m not homeless, Magnus!” Nico protested. Anymore.

Magnus’ blue eyes widened and then narrowed. He fingered the stone pendant hanging around his neck. “How did you know my name? Have we met?”

“Yes,” Nico said, then upon seeing Magnus’ dumbfounded expression, added, “I’m friends with your cousin.”

“You mean Annabeth?” Understanding dawned on Magnus’ face. “You’re a half-blood.”

“Look,” Nico said, offering Magnus a hand, “I know this sounds crazy, and I’m about to tell you something crazier, but first. . . there’s someone I want you to meet.”