Chapter Text
“There has been a mistake.”
The guy at the desk – HELGI, MANAGER, EAST GOTHLAND, VALUED TEAM MEMBER SINCE 749 C.E. according to his nametag – stared blankly at Will, then sighed and shook his head. His ridiculously huge beard swayed left and right, brushing dust off the desk and probably the floor too. Will wasn’t sure where that facial hair ended, but he did know that half of Cabin Aphrodite would have taken out swords and scissors at first sight to destroy it.
“They all say that,” Helgi responded. His eyes were distant, as if staring into a better world where he didn’t have to answer confused and whiny dead teenagers, or stand at that desk welcoming more confused and whiny dead teenagers all day long. The satisfaction of ordering Hunding around had started wearing off a few centuries ago, even if he had to put up a show for everyone. Now, he was just contemplating locking himself in the spa on floor 112. And never coming out again. Until Ragnarok, of course. And possibly dinners too. Dinners were also fun sometimes.
The blond dead teenager insisted.
“No no, it’s not like that, I know that I’m dead. It’s just that I shouldn’t be here.”
Helgi raised an eyebrow. The brat didn’t seem very surprised or alarmed about his own doom. He frowned, and carefully looked him up and down.
Blond hair, tanned skin, athletic body, a 10 centimetres school ruler in his hand that hummed with magic. Probably a glamour concealing a powerful weapon. Which meant…
Helgi suddenly launched forward across the desk, leaning so close to Will that he could have bumped his nose on his. Then he took a deep breath.
Will yelped and jumped back.
“What the heck?” he screamed, brandishing his ruler in front of him. To his surprise, the piece of school furniture didn’t glow and extend into his magically enhanced bow as usual. Instead, the chandelier above his head sizzled, and half the bulbs went off with a pop.
The hotel manager scowled at the chandelier, then at him.
“You’re Vanir spawn, aren’t you?” he wrinkled his nose. “Though you have a scent that I can’t quite place…” He paused and considered for a moment.
Will awkwardly shifted on his feet.
“Bah!” Helgi eventually exclaimed, brushing the air with his hand. “If you were supposed to go to Folkvanger and were accidentally picked by one of our Valkyries, you’ll have to tell the thanes at dinner. Can’t do anything for you, boy, sorry.”
He gestured at the doorman, who had been standing silently a few meters away, a grumpy frown on his face and a dark gleam in his bloodshot eyes. As soon as he was called, the guy’s face lit up into a slightly less murderous expression.
“Please take our new guest to his suite. We look forward to watching your heroic death at dinner.”
Will opened his mouth to protest, but Hunding (SAXONY, VALUED TEAM MEMBER SINCE 749 C.E.) was already shuffling him towards the corridors.
“Wait, you have to list-”
The bang of the massive doors closing cut the boy’s voice off. From the other side of the hall, a couple of einherjar playing Super Smash Bros next to the foyer looked at Helgi curiously.
“Take that thing somewhere else,” the manager grumbled, gesturing at the Wii consoles and the screen the way one swatted at invading flies.
The teenagers groaned unhappily, but complied when he glared more insistently at them. As they trotted away, Helgi leaned back into his chair and closed his eyes, trying to look for sources of motivation to keep on with the rest of his workhours. Theoretically, his workhours were 24/7 since death didn’t have any respect for employee’s rest-time, but he had made an arrangement with the Valkyries. No checking in between 7 pm and 9 am, HVT (Hotel Valhalla Time).
Helgi cracked an eye open and checked the time on his screen. 6:58 pm. He then glanced at the feed of the security camera in the front yard. No sign of activity, which meant that the strange blond boy was the last dead of the day. Good.
The manager sat up and tapped some commands on the keyboard. He usually never used it because of the ceremonial and the surprise that was one of his only entertainments during the endless dinners, but he ran a scan on the newcomer. The boy had borne a distinct scent of nature and warm sunlight that was usually associated with Vanir folk, but there was something else. It wasn’t exactly threatening, but it didn’t seem innocent either. More like something hidden behind a curtain, unmoving and waiting for a sign to spring into action, as friend or as foe.
A shiver passed through Helgi’s body as he remembered the latent feeling, and he shook his head angrily. It was probably nothing. Anyway, he was going to be fixed soon enough. Whether the boy was human, or a demigod, or something else entirely should be revealed by the scanner. They were equipped with the best database of the Nine Worlds, gathering information on every living things, or mineral things, or even things in another state of existence (though Helgi still had a hard time grasping that concept).
After a few seconds, the software made a ringing sound like a microwave and a series of sigils appeared on the screen. They blinked and started swirling around, eventually mashing up to form a single symbol that took up all the available surface.
Oh. Helgi stared dumbly at it. That was new.
He carefully extended his arm and tapped the screen, in the way someone knocks at their computer when it refused to work. The answer did not change.
After a moment, Helgi lowered his hand and sighed deeply. He spinned his chair around, hands slowly massaging his temples.
He was getting too old for this shit.
Maybe it was time for a trip to the spa.
As he stood up groaning and waddled to the elevators, a giant question mark kept flashing lazily on the screen.
*
Will ducked as a knife flew past his head. Behind him, someone screamed in pain and cursed in a language he had never heard, but Will didn’t need to know what it meant to get the sentiment. He instinctively started turning around to check on the injured, but Hunding was already pulling him towards another corridor. The guy was walking fast.
“What was that?” the boy croaked out, after speeding up a bit to avoid falling and being dragged on the floor. He turned his head back to try to catch more of the action, and saw a few more knives and other pointy things zipping past the doorframe. More people screamed.
“Nothing,” Hunding said flatly. He didn’t seem worried. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Someone got stabbed.”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t you check on them?”
The doorman shrugged.
“They’ll be fine by dinner.”
Well then.
The two walked a bit more in silence, and reached an elevator.
“Where are we going?” Will asked.
“Your room. Floor 19,” Hunding replied, as he pressed the 19 button. The elevators’ doors closed smoothly, and the hum of the machine accompanied them as it went up.
“So,” Will started again. “This is Valhalla.”
The doorman glanced at him sideways, as if trying to ascertain whether he was an idiot.
Will suddenly did feel like an idiot.
“Yeah,” the guy eventually said, as they passed floor 10. “Pretty different from Folkvanger from what I heard, though I have never been there. But if there was a mistake like you said, I guess you’ll know soon enough.”
He sized Will up and down and frowned.
“You wouldn’t be a son of Freya by any chance, would you?” he asked, a nervous edge in his voice. “If we took a child of the big boss by mistake, there might be trouble.”
“Uh, no?”
Hunding sighed, relieved.
“Good then.”
The elevator made a ding sound and came to a stop. A female voice announced “Floor 19”, and Hunding gestured at Will to follow him.
“Come, we’re almost there.”
*
“That’s your key. Press it on the rune on the door and it’ll open. Only you can access your room,” Hunding announced in a tone that indicated that it was probably the millionth time he was saying this.
Will lifted his hand to take the key, but Hunding let it go too soon and it fell on the carpeted floor with a thud.
“Oh, sorry,” Will said because he apologized too much, and crouched down to retrieve the runestone key.
When he stood up again, Hunding was staring at him with a troubled gaze.
“Why didn’t you catch the key?” he asked, accusingly. Will winced.
“Uh, I guess our timing was off? Sorr-“
“My timing is never off,” the doorman insisted, and scowled at Will and the key. The boy wiggled uncomfortably under his gaze.
As the awkward silence kept going, the door to Will’s left suddenly opened. A blond teenager stepped out, wearing a dark green shirt and jeans, and looking a bit in a hurry. He stopped dead on his tracks when he saw Will and Hunding, and his pale face lit up in a friendly smile.
“Hello!” the boy called. He looked at Will up and down. Why was everyone doing that today? “You’re new here? I’m Magnus, nice to meet you,” he said, extending a hand.
Will shook it.
“Will.”
“Welcome to Valhalla, Will! Looking forward to your introduction at dinner. Don’t worry if the thanes make faces at you, their default setting is grumpy.”
“Uh, oka-”
“Gotta run, sorry. See you soon!”
Magnus took off. In the middle of the corridor, he joined a couple of other teenagers, including one wearing a Civil War uniform, and they all headed towards the elevator, chatting loudly.
Will suddenly felt a pang of nostalgia. It looked like camp.
Get a hold of yourself, Solace, a voice in his head scolded. You need to contact Nico and get out of here asap.
Will smiled. Thinking of his small boyfriend (Nico insisted that 170 cm was not small, and Will would always pat his head in a knowing way. It usually ended with Nico trying to strangle him.) always made him feel better, and occasionally more focused. When he was in demigod life typical dangerous situation, that was. Because thinking about him in class generally had the opposite effect.
“Mmh,” Hunding groaned, and Will suddenly remembered what he was doing before Magnus appeared. The doorman seemed to have emerged from his mental solution of the fallen key problem. “Nevermind, open your door. I’m starting to feel hungry.”
Will complied, and pressed the key against the rune of the door.
The rune glowed red.
“What?” Hunding muttered, surprised. Will guessed from his reaction that the rune wasn’t supposed to do that. He checked the plate on the door, wondering if they were in front of the wrong room. WILL SOLACE, it said, but the typing was a bit wobbly, as if the plate had been partially melted.
“Try again,” the doorman said.
Will tried again. This time, the rune glowed green and the door cracked open.
“Thanks the All-Father,” Hunding sighed in his beard. He then looked up at Will, and started stretching out his hand. Midway though, he seemed to hesitate and eventually retracted it.
Will stared at him, confused.
“Well, see you at dinner boy,” the man grumbled, turning around to leave.
“What happens at dinner?”
Hunding stopped and looked back a bit.
“Ask your Valkyrie when she picks you up.”
On these words, the man left and strode away in long fast steps, leaving Will to himself on the doorstep to his afterlife room.
*
“Okay, Will, think.”
The demigod paced around his room. It was huge and nice, with an atrium and his favourite landscapes out the window. But it also felt cold and distant, as if the hotel was looking at him wearily from a safe distance.
Was it possible? Could the building be sentient?
“Ugh,” Will whimpered, then crashed backwards into his new king-size bed. They didn’t have such comfortable beds at Camp Half-Blood, he thought sadly.
He stared at the meticulously painted ceiling, showing shifting images of snowy mountains and forests of pines. It was beautiful, and Will almost lost his train of thoughts in the immaculate summits.
He closed his eyes and considered his situation, starting from the beginning.
He was going to school. No, coming back from school. He had stopped to buy a piece of pie at his favourite bakery because he was starving. (Haha. Who was he kidding. He just loved eating pie and made up excuses to stuff himself sick, despite telling his friends to take care of their health. He was a dirty hypocrite like that. Anyway.) Then he had heard screams, and his demigod instinct tingled. The next thing he knew, he was standing in a back alley, shielding a pair of five-year-old from a disturbingly horrible monster he had never seen. It had three heads – a wolf, a snake and a goldfish (a very big goldfish, with very mean dead eyes) – and the body of a leopard mixed with the rear of a goat. Its stench was so bad that Will had almost passed out just taking a breath, and his eyes had teared up like they had been sprayed with acid.
The concept of running away to the next toilets and puke had seemed very tempting.
There had been a fight where he used his plastic ruler/magic bow as a mass/spear/not-what-a-bow-is-usually-intended-to-be-used-as, and managed to smash the goldfish head and the wolf head into lifeless blobs (image censored).
But then there was the snake head, and the snake head was very vicious. With the other two heads out of the way, it had a clear path to Will’s vulnerable and very poison-sensitive flesh. So obviously, the snake head had zipped to Will’s chest and firmly planted its fangs in his demigod-flavoured meat. As Will stumbled backwards, dragging the creature with him and his eyesight becoming more and more blurred, he saw a tiny hand pass into his vision field and a blade glittered. Suddenly he wasn’t attached anymore to the fetid monster’s body, and he felt the snake head blow into sand.
Unfortunately, the poison was still there.
Will only had time to smile weakly at the terrified little girl holding the knife that had beheaded the monster, before face-planting hard on the cement.
Fortunately, he had died before his nose collided with the pavement, which would have been very painful.
And now, there he was, in the wrong afterlife.
“Ugh,” Will repeated, rolling on his side and hugging the huge fluffy pillow under his head. The fact that Valhalla existed didn’t really surprise him – he knew better than to assume that the Greek and Roman gods were the only ones still roaming the Earth. And not long ago, Percy had landed badly injured in the infirmary, and had started rambling in his sleep about crocodiles and evil Elvis Presleys and magicians. Annabeth had immediately shot to her feet and made Will promise not to tell anyone about what he had heard, which Will promised because Annabeth was scary and he didn’t want to die.
After that, Will was fairly certain that other deities were meddling with the mortal world – which was also comforting, because it meant that he wasn’t going crazy about the two-suns incident no one else had apparently witnessed, lest had been able to explain to him. Also, his father had winced pretty badly when Will had managed to corner him in a supermarket to question him about it, then had proceeded to awkwardly divert the conversation until Will accidentally looked away. Apollo apparently felt bad fleeing directly under the eyes of his children. It made him look uncool.
Now, Will had the proof that the Norse gods were a thing. He wondered if Thor looked like Chris Hemsworth. He liked Chris Hemsworth. Dreamy smile, dreamy eyes, that body that looked like it could smash through all the world’s problems-
With a sigh, the demigod rolled out of bed and stood up firmly on his feet. He hadn’t expected the Norse warriors’ heaven to be a five-star hotel, and he also definitely hadn’t expected to end up there. Moreover, he had the distinct feeling he didn’t belong, and it wasn’t just because Nico had rubbed off some of his death instinct on him. Plus, the hotel’s uncooperative behaviour seemed to agree with him.
Nico…
He knew that his boyfriend must have felt his death. What did he feel then? Pain? Sadness? A tint of happiness that he would finally be able to give a tour of the palace to Will?
Maybe he had prepared a welcome party. Will imagined the small son of Hades wearing a multicoloured party hat, standing under a banner that said “CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR DEATH” with a fanfare of skeletons playing a parody of the funeral march and Charon the ferryman bringing a cake on his boat in the background.
He smiled stupidly at the image of Long Island out the window.
“Okay, Solace, time to act like the cabin counsellor you are,” he announced to no one, and knocked twice on his forehead for good measure. He looked around him, and thought about his next move.
He needed to talk to Nico.
Will patted his pockets, and dug out a chocolate bar, his home keys, his plastic ruler, some change and a couple of drachmas.
Good. Hopefully, Iris’ service covered Valhalla.
With a newly found resolution, Will strode to the bathroom and filled the sink with hot water, then extended his hand and focused. This time, the hotel didn’t get in his way. Maybe it understood that Will was trying to get the hell out of there.
A small glow started spreading from his fingers, expanding above the water and the vapour until a colourful rainbow appeared. Will quickly flipped a drachma at the rainbow, and started improvising the most fervent prayer he had ever recited. He called to Iris, then his dad, then Nico’s dad (you never know), then anyone who could help him.
After long seconds of stressful wait, Will finally felt a presence. It wasn’t exactly like a physical presence, but more like a thought brushing past his mind, ephemeral and-
Nope, Will didn’t want it to be ephemeral.
“Hello? Lady Iris?”
Static answered him. Static. YES. This was promising.
“Lady Iris, I need to talk to Nico di Angelo. He should be-”, Will paused. “Actually I don’t know where he is, please just connect me to him?”
More static filled the air. Gradually, Will felt like he could discern voices, but maybe it was just wishful thinking and he was slipping into madness.
“W…l…at…”
Suddenly, Nico’s face appeared in the vapour. But before Will could properly beam at him, it flickered and went off again.
“Nico?” the blonde asked tentatively. The vapour was starting to clear, and the rainbow faded a little. With one hand, Will opened the hot water arrival again, his other hand still glowing sunlight.
He was starting to feel tired.
“Will? C…y…ear…me?” Nico voice buzzed again, and this time Will was sure that he hadn’t dreamed. He almost dove face-first into the rainbow in an attempt to get closer to him, but restrained himself. Iris probably wouldn’t have appreciated it, and the connection was already bad enough.
“Nico? Are you there? I can’t hear you clearly.”
A heavy silence answered him, and Will’s heart sunk a notch into his stomach. What if they just couldn’t communicate? What if he was stuck in there until Ragnarok and had to escape wild knife throwing games in the halls forever? What if he could never see Nico again?
The only comfort he had always found in death was that he wouldn’t be alone. But now he wasn’t so sure- the guy next door seemed friendly enough, but it wasn’t how Will had planned to spend his afterlife. He didn’t want to be in the luxurious Hotel Valhalla, he wanted to go down to Erebos and high-five Michael Yew and Lee Fletcher in Elysium and redecorate Nico’s room in Hades’ palace and-
Breathe, Will, breathe.
He took a deep breath, and realized that it wasn’t his inner voice speaking in his head.
He looked up at the rainbow.
“Hi,” Nico said. His image was still flickering like an old TV screen with bad satellite connection, but it seemed to have stabilized enough to allow them to talk clearly. A heavy weight suddenly disappeared from Will’s shoulders, and he almost went limp and fell on the floor.
“I love you so much Nico,” he blurted out, and didn’t feel embarrassed about it in the slightest. He could have sworn Nico’s cheeks turned a shade redder, but the son of Hades would probably tell him that it was bad colour transmission.
“Where are you, Will?” Nico asked, ignoring Will’s heartfelt declaration of his undying love. The blonde was a bit disappointed.
“Valhalla, if you can believe it.”
Nico seemed to believe him. Actually, the lack of shock was slightly unsettling.
“You knew about Valhalla,” Will stated, not even a question. He had been aware for a long time that his boyfriend knew about a lot of things that he never told him. He had known about Camp Jupiter. And Will had once caught him holding a pure white feather, staring at it like he could see the answer to all his questions in it, and then had hastily hidden it behind his back when he had seen Will.
Will hadn’t pressed back then. He also knew that he didn’t have time to press now.
“Okay, you owe me an explanation later, di Angelo,” he said, frowning in a severe way. “How do I get out?”
Nico winced and looked aside, thinking. Will’s legs started to wobble and a migraine knocked at the door of his head. He usually didn’t get tired so quickly, but he had to admit that he was in a very unusual setting. Maybe the hotel had changed its mind and decided it wanted to keep Will. Oh gods, he hoped not.
“What hour is it in Valhalla?” Nico suddenly asked. Will frowned but didn’t comment. He contortioned his upper body back to check the clock on the wall of his room without disturbing the rainbow.
“7:26 pm,” he said. “Why?”
Nico flinched. Uh oh, bad sign, Will thought.
“Okay, listen, a Valkyrie is going to pick up you soon-”
“Which is perfectly normal.”
“-and bring you to dinner. You’ll be sitting at a table with other newly arrived heroes, and they will show videos of your deaths.”
“What.”
“Everytime, an old woman will check for potential godly parents. Will, you can’t let her read you.”
“Why?”
Nico shook his head.
“For centuries, ancient myths have kept their distance from each other, like the Greeks and Romans used to for a while. But now…” His voice trailed off. “They are not ready to know about us yet.”
“But we know about them.”
“I know about them because I am my father’s ambassador, and you know because-”
Because you are dead, the words hanged silently in the air. Nico’s voice wavered and died in his throat. He looked away, as if trying to hide his face. Will squinted at the vapour.
And gasped.
“Oh my gods Nico, are you crying?”
He didn’t mean for his voice to sound so surprised and loud, but it came out wrong and it obviously hurt the other boy. Will wanted to slap himself.
“Of course I’m crying, you idiot!” Nico half screamed at him, tremors in his voice. “I felt you die! I felt your pain! Do you know what I- how it-”
A sob cut him, and Will’s heart broke in his chest. He should have known by now, he should have known how Nico always put up a strong face to hide his pain, how he sometimes ignored things so they wouldn’t hurt him. How he bottled up his feelings for the sake of a mission.
“I’m so sorry, Nico,” Will whispered. He wanted to reach out and pull the boy into a hug, to wrap his arms around his cold skin and warm him up until the tears dried up. The only thing he managed to do was to hold his fingers to the shimmering image, their tips passing through the projection. “I’m so sorry,” he repeated, his heart aching.
In front of him, Nico shook his head again, and angrily wiped out his tears. Will knew that he was scolding himself for letting that outburst of feelings get in the way and consume some precious time.
It left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“We don’t have time to talk about that,” Nico said, voice more firm but still shaking a little. “I’m coming to get you, but you have to be careful. We have to assume that regular rules for einherjar don’t apply to you.”
“What rules?”
“If you get hurt, you might not be able to heal in Valhalla. And you might also not be able to leave to another of the Nine Worlds, especially our world.”
Will considered the information. Part of him still wanted to talk about Nico’s feelings, but he knew that it wasn’t the moment. Besides, the son of Hades would probably kill him if he even tried to bring back the topic in the conversation.
Even if he was already dead.
“So, what do I have to do?”
Nico passed a hand in his hair, thinking. Will resisted the urge to reach out and try to touch it.
“The All-Father knows about us, he should be able to help.”
“Great, where do I find him?”
Nico hesitated.
“That’s the thing, we’re not sure where he went. He returned to Valhalla for a while some time ago, but he took off again after.”
“Uh,” Will commented, helpful.
“You have to find his agent.”
Will blinked.
“His agent.”
“Her name is Samirah al-Abbas. I’m not sure where she is either, but I know someone who-”
Someone knocked at Will’s door.
Both demigods froze and looked at each other. Nico’s already big eyes sized up even more, accentuating the hollowness of his cheeks and the bags under his eyes.
The door made an ominous sound as it swung open.
“Oh crap, oh crap-” Will muttered, his heartbeat soaring to the skies. He turned around to check, but he moved too fast. The rainbow wavered.
“Will, listen!” Nico called in a hushed panicked voice. His voice was filling with static. “Find Magnus Chase, he’ll help you-”
“Magnus?” Will repeated.
“Find Magnus Chase!” Nico said again, before his image started violently flickering. “I lo-”
The rainbow dissipated and the line went completely silent, leaving the son of Apollo alone in his bathroom. He moved a little, as if just emerging from a dream; but before he could collect his thoughts, a face appeared in the doorframe of the bathroom. It was a young Asian girl with tanned skin and sparkling brown eyes, her long hair hanging from a ponytail on the top of her head. She was wearing commando clothes and combat boots, and would have fitted nicely among the Hunters of Artemis if it wasn’t for the chainmail waistcoat glittering on her chest.
The girl smiled, a bit shyly.
“Hello!” the Valkyrie greeted. “I hope I’m not dropping by at an awkward moment?”
She looked around the bathroom nervously. Will suddenly became very aware that he was hunched down above a sink filled with lukewarm water. Fortunately his Apollo magic had worn off, or he would have had a hard time explaining why his hand was glowing like a mini-sun.
“Uh, no. It’s okay. I was just, er, washing my face.”
The girl didn’t seem convinced, but she didn’t press. Will silently thanked her for that.
“Well, if you are ready, I am here to take you to dinner!” she announced, a huge smile blossoming on her lips. Then she realized what her facial muscles were doing, and tried to repress the smile.
“Haha, sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “You’re actually the first hero I bring here, so it’s all new for me too.” She hesitated, and doubt crossed her eyes. “I hope you don’t mind a novice accompanying you?”
The tip of her ears turned red and she shifted awkwardly on her feet, waiting for Will’s answer. The demigod blinked.
Then a smile spread on his face and he hiccupped out a laugh. The Valkyrie looked at him with confusion.
“No, no, it’s alright, don’t worry!” Will chuckled. The effect of talking to Nico and having a mission were dawning inside of him, calming him and making him hopeful again. Plus, the Valkyrie didn’t look as scary as some of the myths depicted them to be, even though Will wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating her fighting abilities. “What’s your name?”
The girl blinked a couple more times at him, then seemed to relax and grinned.
“I’m May,” she said. “Nice to meet you Will. I mean, consciously, since we technically already met.”
She held out her hand, and Will shook it.
“Nice to meet you, May.”
The day didn’t seem nearly as gloomy as it was a few minutes ago. Actually, Will had a hard time remembering the fear he had felt when he thought he was stuck there forever. His smile widened.
“Please show me the way to dinner, I’m starving,” he said, and May grinned back at him.
As they walked towards the elevators, Will glanced at the plate on Magnus’ door, silently praying that he was the Magnus Nico had told him to find. Who knew how many Magnuses there were in that damn hotel? He didn’t feel particularly up to roaming through the 540 floors of Valhalla inspecting every door plate there was, even though he would since he didn’t have many options.
“MAGNUS CHASE”, the door plate read. Will decided that this door plate was a friendly door plate.
The memory of the blond boy’s grey eyes pushed itself to the front of his mind. Will was almost convinced Magnus was related to Annabeth, and it didn’t really surprise him. He had had his fair share of surprises for the day, and his brain just saturated. (Whatever, it seemed to grunt before metaphorically stepping into a closet and slamming the door.) Will wasn’t sure whether Magnus was up to speed on the Greek side of ancient gods having fun with the planet, but he was definitely his best shot at getting out of the hotel.
So, great. He just had to knock at his neighbour’s door after dinner. Which led him to his other task.
Don’t let the old lady read your family tree.
The thought suddenly sent a cold shiver down Will’s spine, and his smile wavered. A lightbulb at his right flickered and went dark, and Will felt like the hotel was whimpering in fear.
He gulped dryly.
Definitely don’t let the old lady read your family tree, Will thought, as the elevator’s door opened with a ding. May stepped inside and pressed a red rune after inserting a key. The spears ornamenting the door gleamed in a cold way as the door slid shut.
Great , Will thought. Just great.
He suddenly wasn’t feeling that hungry anymore.