Chapter Text
Bianca saw the Mythromagic statue in the Junkyard. She’d tried ignoring Nico’s obsession, but it was impossible to miss how he craned his neck as they walked past every toy store, how he sorted his cards every night before bed, how he had a complete set save one. The statue was in her hand before she realized she was reaching for it.
The dark eyes—cold eyes—stared at her. Empty and plastic, but not dead. Familiar. The eyes of her brother. The eyes of her father.
She stumbled back and the statue tumbled from her hand, landing with a clatter among thousands of other abandoned and forgotten things.
One shall be lost in the land without rain.
A prophecy once stated must be completed. As one string remains whole, another is cut.
“Nico?” Bianca called. She’d gone to the Hermes cabin, but beyond that, she didn’t know where else to look. Percy and Annabeth had enlisted the help of other campers, but so far no one had found anything.
Thalia put a hand on Bianca’s shoulder. “We have to go.” They were back at camp only long enough to regroup with the remainder of the Hunt. Artemis had them under strict orders not to linger.
“Just five more minutes, please.” She couldn’t let her last words with Nico be filled with anger and betrayal.
As long as they were both careful, they’d live long lives and see each other again, but he would no longer be her younger brother. Most likely, he would grow as tall as her father—a lengthy shadow haunting her memories. She would watch him age and die, letting time slip by her like she had in the hotel, unburdened by sickness, by responsibility, by guilt.
She clutched her quiver. “Nico, I know you’re angry, but please stop hiding!”
“I think I saw him go into the woods,” a blonde boy said, pointing to the tangled trees.
Bianca started towards the forest when something gripped her heart and ripped it in two. She stumbled, catching herself on a tree and tried to steady her breathing. Seconds stretched on as she reeled herself into the present.
“Nico!” She ran into the woods, hoping that she sensed wasn’t true.
Percy was already there, battling skeletons with a deep gash over his eye. They were overwhelming him, forcing him back towards a small figure, slumped on the ground like a discarded doll.
“No!” Her hair rippled, twisting together like snakes, as shadows licked at her ankles. Teeth and bones creaked as she grabbed at the skeletons, bending them to her will. “Die,” she hissed, calling upon her birthright and casting the skeletons to the underworld.
Percy stared at her, mouth agape, as she pushed past him and cradled her brother’s face in her palms.
“Nico, Nico wake up. I’m here.” Too pale, too cold. A tear slid down her nose and landed on his cheek. His eyes were open, but they were as dead as plastic.
It never rained in Camp Half Blood—that’s what Zoe had said—not unless the gods willed it.
A drop landed on her head, and then more until it was a torrential downpour. The water looked black as tar in the low light, and though the clouds were thick, heavy, and dark, there was no thunder. She looked up and let the water stream over her face, allowing her father’s tears to mingle with her own.
“I’m sorry,” Percy said, placing his hand on her shoulder. “They caught us by surprise. He pushed me out of the way but—”
“He pushed you out of the way?” She stood and shoved Percy. “You were supposed to die, not him!”
Percy stumbled, slipping and falling onto the now muddy ground. Thalia and Annabeth appeared behind Percy. “What’s going on?” Annabeth asked, gripping her dagger tight.
Thalia stared at the body by Bianca’s feet and her fierce expression melted to sorrow. “Oh, Bianca.”
“Stay away from me!”
The Hunters ignored her, circling her and Nico. One placed a comforting hand on her arm while the others reached for her brother.
She let out a breath—fogging the air—and in a frigid tone she said, “Don’t touch him.
Immediately, the girls backed away, eyes wide with fear. Even Percy stared at her, petrified.
“What…how?” Percy said, looking at Thalia and Annabeth for answers.
“No way,” Annabeth said.
Bianca glared at them before she stepped back to her brother’s side. She knelt once more, twigs and rocks digging into her knees.
“How do we honor our dead?” she asked.
“Bianca,” Thalia said, walking beside her, “I understand how you feel,” she stopped when Bianca’s eyes flashed.
One of the other Hunters spoke. “He’s not one of us. He will be grieved, of course, but he will be grieved here, at Camp Halfblood.”
“No one knows him here. I’m his only family.”
“You’re a Hunter now. You’re our family, not his.”
The rain around Bianca had gradually shifted to sleet and now became ice. Hail pattered on the ground like a thousand tiny footsteps.
“No.”
“What—”
“I said no!” Bianca tossed away her bow and quiver. “I left him, and now he’s dead! I won’t leave him again.”
“You can’t leave the Hunt, not for a man. Artemis will kill you!”
Bianca just laughed. She was so cold her fingers burned, but she wished she was colder still. She slipped her arms under Nico’s shoulders and knees. She was still small for her age, but he was smaller. And he would never get any bigger.
She stood and faced the assorted demigods and Hunters.
“Let her try.” She raised her chin. “I am the daughter of Hades, and I’m taking my brother home.”
Getting to the underworld was easy—just go down. Bianca found a cave and when the small tunnel ended, she reached out and pushed. A dozen more times and the hole opened into a massive cavern filled with the wretched dead. Souls parted around her as she marched through the fields of Asphodel towards the towering obsidian palace in the center of the underworld. The skeleton guards bowed as she approached. It was only when she reached the throne room that she slowed.
A woman and a man sat side by side. The woman was beautiful like a jagged mountain range. Compared to her, the man was uninteresting. He looked nothing like the toga-clad figurine that she’d picked up in the Junkyard, save for his eyes. They were the same.
Tears came again and she slumped to the ground, cradling Nico to her chest.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect him, I’m sorry. Please bring him back father. Please!”
Hades closed his eyes. “Silence, child.” His voice was soft, but his words boomed around the chamber.
Bianca shuddered and pulled Nico closer.
“Your brother is dead. There is nothing I can do to change that.”
“Liar!” Bianca snarled. “You’re the god of the dead! You own his soul. You can give it back!”
Persephone stood. “Do not speak to a god with such a tone!” She strode towards Bianca, who flinched. “How dare you come here, seeking a boon from my husband. You, an orphan who should have died decades ago—”
“Persephone!”
She whipped around to glare at Hades. “You expect me to turn a blind eye to your infidelity?”
“I expect you not to take your anger out on a child.”
Persephone narrowed her eyes. Bianca held her breath as the two gods stared each other down. Finally, Persephone looked away, tossing her hair. “Fine. I expect her to be gone when I return.”
It was all the warning Bianca got to close her eyes. Fluorescent green burned through her eyelids and she smelled fresh-cut grass. When the light faded, Persephone was gone.
“Rise, child,” Hades said, motioning for her to stand.
She stood on shaky legs, stumbling under the weight of Nico’s body, the day’s exhaustion finally taking a toll on her.
Her father led her through a side door which emptied into a small corridor. They wound through decadent hallways until they exited the palace and entered a small courtyard filled with marigolds.
“Lay him here.”
She obeyed. He was still too pale, but nestled in the flowers, she could have mistaken him for being asleep.
“It’s my fault.”
Hades placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “He made his choice.”
She shrugged his hand off. “He chose to protect someone. I left him alone.”
“While I wasn’t fond of your decision to cavort with my niece and her followers, it was not an unwise choice. Artemis is powerful, and you would have become formidable under her tutelage. Now you will need to watch out for her wrath as well as my brother’s.”
“What are you—your son is dead! Don’t you care?”
“Better that you survived than him, or would you have him fight the likes of Atlas?”
The pain in her chest began to throb. “You don’t mean that.”
“He was too kind, and the world is never kind to my children. You at least understand what must be done, don’t you?”
She balled her hands into fists. “Yes. I do.”
She suspected that this is not what her father had meant, but it wasn’t like she had any interest in pleasing him. She’d left the underworld soon after Nico’s “burial”, unable to be near the father that didn’t care about his son’s death. It seemed all he cared about was cultivating his resentment for his brothers and possibly gathering enough power to oppose them.
He had forbidden her from entering Elysium. It gave her some solace that her brother had entered the afterlife a hero. Not that she intended to leave him there forever; she was heir to the underworld. If her father wouldn’t return her brother’s soul, she would just find a way to take it.
Easier said than done.
She returned to the surface and realized she had no idea what to do next. She was homeless, weaponless, and missing her childhood memories. She wasn’t a Hunter anymore, and she wouldn’t return to Camp Half Blood as long as Percy Jackson lived. So she learned. She begged on street corners and dumpster dove behind restaurants. It took weeks to master pick-pocketing without alerting her targets. Every time she got caught and tossed into a holding cell, she shadow traveled to the next city over.
Most days, she’d wake up, pack her meager belongings, and head to the public library. Reading English—her second language—with dyslexia was near impossible, but she forced herself through every book on Greek mythology she could find. She learned the common myths and the obscure ones, the names and powers of monsters and minor gods, and the tumultuous history of the Olympians that led to the current state of the world.
She slept in cemeteries, comforted by the quiet murmurs of the deceased. Monsters, mortal police, and demigods were everywhere, but nothing could sneak up on her in her domain. The ground would swallow them whole or skeletal arms would pin them in place. The mortals she left alone. The monsters she dismantled, experimenting with her ever-growing powers: umbrakinesis, geokinesis, necromancy, and other powers she couldn’t name.
She could wave a hand over an ATM and force it to dispense every bill inside. Vultures were fond of her, and though she couldn’t hear them, they understood her enough to do as she asked. When she unfocused her eyes, she saw souls instead of bodies, and if she focused, she could see how long their thread of fate was.
It was summer the first time she summoned her brother’s soul.
She’d been trying to talk to Nico ever since she returned from the underworld. It shouldn’t have been difficult; she could speak to ghosts and poltergeists—spirits tethered to something in the world of the living that prevented them from moving on—and she could hear the voices of the recently deceased. One a good day she could even summon skeletons with enough sentience that they could speak. But Nico remained elusive.
It had to be her father. Nico was a brat, but he was also a kid. A dead kid. Why wouldn’t he want to talk to his older sister? So she was left trying to outwit a deity with centuries of experience and more power than she could comprehend. It was a shock to find an answer in a book.
She skimmed through the dog-eared pages of the Odyssey, confirming that she had the right supplies. The trench was a little deeper than her forearm—she estimated how much deeper it would be for a man—and she had milk, honey, water, and wine. It was in a box, but she assumed the dead wouldn’t care; any food would be a blessing. She didn’t have a ram to sacrifice, but she had several steaks, freshly stolen from the neighborhood butcher.
Offerings in the trench, she started to chant. The air grew cold and the ground started to shudder. She blinked, and blinked again. A crowd of translucent spirits shuffled towards her offerings.
“This isn’t for you,” she said, motioning for them to go away. “Listen to me!”
“Bianca?”
She spun around and gaped as Annabeth and Percy emerged from a hole in the ground, followed by a cyclops and a satyr.
“Gods Bianca, we’ve been looking for you for months!” Percy said.
Annabeth grabbed his arm. “The dead, the traitor, and the lost one raise,” she murmured.
“Keep me out of your prophecies,” Bianca said. She pulled the shadows close, readying them for a fight while simultaneously keeping watch on the hoard of spirits waiting to feast. “How did you get here?”
“Where is here?” Percy said, looking around the deserted field.
“North Dakota. How do you not know where you are? You’ve been looking for me for months.”
“We just want to help!”
“Then tell me how you got here.”
“The Labyrinth is open again,” Annabeth said. “We’re trying to find Daedalus’ workshop before Luke, and we could really use some help from a necromancer.”
Percy raised his eyebrows.
“I said to keep me out of your prophecy. Stay back!” she shouted at a spirit that stepped too close to the trench.
“Are you trying to call Nico?”
“Of course I’m trying to call Nico! That’s all I’ve been trying to do for months, but he won’t come.”
“I’m here now,” a voice said. It was quiet like it came from far away, and it echoed.
Bianca froze. The spirits parted, revealing a small specter. Like the other spirits, it’s face was too blurred to make out. If she wasn’t a child of Hades, and his sister at that, she probably wouldn’t have understood him, but her heart beat faster as he knelt and drank. His features sharpened and his transparency lessened. When he stood, she could scarcely tell he was a ghost.
“Nico,” she said, tears pricking her eyes.
He looked at her, and then he looked at Percy. “Thank you.” His voice was clearer, but still distorted. None of the dead sounded fully human when they spoke.
“For what?” Percy asked.
“Keeping your promise.”
Bianca looked between them. “Promise? What promise?”
“To keep you safe,” Nico said to Bianca.
“I said I'd do my best,” Percy said.
“Promise me again.”
“I don’t need his help,” Bianca said. “Nico, this isn’t why I called you”
“I told you, it’s dangerous as a demigod. I can’t guarantee her safety,” Percy said.
“Promise.”
Percy sighed and looked at Bianca, who sneered at him. “I promise I’ll do my best to protect her.”
“Protect me like you protected him?” Bianca said, pointing at Nico.
Percy flinched.
“Bianca, it’s not his fault—”
“Of course it’s his fault! You were ten. What were you thinking when you pushed him out of the way?”
He pressed his lips together, eyes narrowing.
“That’s not what I meant, I’m sorry. I just...I miss you.”
“You blame him because it’s easier than blaming yourself.”
Bianca’s breath left her. “How could you say that?”
He just looked at her until she looked away.
“You need to let go of your guilt.”
“I’m not guilty.”
Nico ignored her. “You’re a child of Hades—grudges are our fatal flaw. Guilt is just a grudge against yourself.”
“I’m not guilty!” The ground shuddered. The remaining spirits vanished. “Why did you wait until now to come? Why wait to tell me?”
“Dwelling on the dead will only bring you closer to your own death.”
“It’s him, isn’t it?” She pointed at Percy. “You only came because of him.”
An emotion she couldn’t name flickered across Nico’s face. “Take care of yourself, Bianca.”
“Wait—"
He flickered and vanished. She stared at the now empty hole that he had stood in—the mess of food and drink absorbed by hungry souls.
“Bianca,” Percy said.
“This is your fault,” Bianca said. “You turned him against me!”
“Percy didn’t do anything,” Annabeth said, stepping between them. “Listen to your brother—fatal flaws aren’t something to be taken lightly.”
“Shut up!” Bianca screamed. Spears of rocks and shadow erupted from the ground. Annabeth and Percy barely evaded getting skewered. “I’ll kill you!”
Percy drew Riptide and Annabeth her knife. Grover and Tyson ran towards them, presumably to help, but Bianca pulled at the earth under their feet and they sank to their thighs in mud.
“Run!” Annabeth said, dragging Grover out before Bianca could crush his legs. Percy helped his half-brother, and the quartet scrambled towards the patch of underbrush they’d emerged from.
“Coward!” Bianca’s voice was ragged. “You couldn’t save Nico and you can’t face me now!” She grabbed at them with her shadows, but Percy sliced through them. Then they vanished.
She dashed to where they’d disappeared. A ladder lead into a fissure in the earth. Warm light emanated from somewhere underground, and she watched shadows flicker and move as the quartet presumably ran through the passageway. She jumped and landed with a grunt in the empty hallway. Closing her eyes, she placed her palm on the ground and listened.
For a minute, she didn’t feel anything. Then, she sensed them. But as soon as she stood up, their location changed. Her head swam and she collapsed onto the wall. The ground was shifting, but not by her hand.
The Labyrinth—that’s what Annabeth had called it. It must be the Daedalus’ Labyrinth, she reasoned, created to trap the Minotaur. Magical. Unnavigable. She scowled. The underground was her element and it didn’t sit well with her to feel so out of place. The corridors continued to shift, stone grinding on stone; it made her teeth ache.
Gradually the vertigo lessened and she was able to walk. She had no way to tell how much time passed nor how far she’d walked, but she knew that she wasn’t in the Midwest anymore. She barely felt like she was in North America anymore. It might have been startling if she didn’t know how to shadow travel; as it was, she could go anywhere she wanted to on a moment’s notice, if she had somewhere she wanted to go.
Occasionally she’d sense a monster and hide herself in a shadowy corridor, but for the most part, it seemed empty. What had the other demigods been looking for, she wondered. Something to do with Kronos? The reason wasn’t very important to her—God or Titan, she hated all of them, even her father, because they were the reason she was alone—but curiosity kept the doubt at bay.
It hadn’t been her father’s fault at all that Nico was avoiding her. She hadn’t been a perfect sister, but what sibling was perfect? She’d made a mistake. Surely Nico understood that? If he would just forgive her, she would do anything to be worth that forgiveness.
She stopped walking. The corridor she stood in was damp and filled with moss. The earthy smell was heavy on her tongue and she could sense the residual rot of the undead.
“Who’s there?” she said.
It wasn’t pitch black in the Labyrinth, but it was dark enough that if she wasn’t Hades’ daughter, she wouldn’t be able to see anything. But as it was, she saw a ghost—tall, dressed in white robes, and wearing a circlet of gold—pass through the wall clear as daylight.
“I’ve met many strong demigods in my life, but none as strong as you,” the ghost said. “And a daughter of Hades no less! Few children does he sire, even fewer of them women.”
Bianca curled her lip. “And who are you?
“I am King Minos, servant of your father and friend of your brother,” the ghost said, dipping his head, though he did not bow, Bianca noted. “He sent me to watch after you.”
She didn’t know her father personally, but she’d read enough stories to know that he would never willingly let a ghost roam the world of the living, not when he had other immortals to do his bidding. Though, her heart twisted, imagining Nico trying to help her even in the underworld. “Really? You didn’t simply find an entrance to the Labyrinth in the underworld and escape?”
His expression soured, but he maintained his imposing demeanor. “Both can be true.”
She snorted. “So what do you get out of helping me?”
“I’m dead. It behooves me to curry favor with Hades in whatever way I can.”
“You would have done better to stay in the underworld working for him.”
“Ah, but you are his pride and joy. He will do anything to protect you.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Are you threatening me?”
“What could I do to harm you? You should be asking what I can offer you.”
“And what can you offer me?”
“Knowledge,” he said, sweeping his hands wide.
“No thanks.” She walked through the ghost.
“How dare—wait, foolish girl, stop and listen to me!”
She waved her hand, grabbing his essence and preparing to banish him back to the underworld.
“I can help you with your powers!”
“I already know how to user my powers. Watch.”
“All of them?”
She paused, but she maintained a mental grip on his spirit.
“Yes, you are strong, but you know there is greater depth to your abilities than you have accomplished,” he said, speaking quickly. “You control the earth, the darkness, dreams, decay and death itself. But death is just the other side of life.”
“Get on with it.” She tightened her grip.
“You can do more than summon ghosts! You can bring them back to life.”
Her concentration slipped and Minos slid through her grip and through the ground, reappearing at the far end of the corridor.
“It’s a simple exchange, really—a soul for a soul. More specifically, the soul of one who cheated death for one wrongly taken. Of course, you need to be touched by the underworld in order to broker that sort of deal…”
“Cheated death,” she murmured. “So it can’t be mine. Jackson then.” She could still sense him, though his location shifted impossibly every few seconds. Swallowing back nausea, she focused on his direction, not his location, feeling his presence tug at her.
“Yes, well, you could kill Poseidon’s brat of course, but there are others—”
She turned on her heel and started walking towards Percy. “You will accompany me and tell me how to complete this ritual,” she told the ghost.
Minos clenched his jaw and performed another half-bow. “Of course. I am your faithful servant.”
Percy Jackson was a difficult person to locate. She tracked him to the now clean Triple G Ranch, and then to Hephaestus’ forge. Somehow, he managed to blow up a volcano while he was still inside, convincing the whole world that he was dead. For a terrifying minute, she’d wondered what other soul she could use before feeling that Percy was still very much alive.
She arrived at Camp Halfblood only to find the new questing trio had disappeared back into the Labyrinth. By then, she was tired, hungry, and her feet were covered in blisters. Minos was never far away, and his presence was as irritating as it was unnerving. The sounds of camp activities filled the air. They were preparing for battle.
“They won’t survive this war,” Minos mused. “Kronos already has a vessel. It’s only a matter of time.”
Young campers laughed and shouted like it was a game, unaware that they would likely see more than one of their siblings dead within the week. If Percy could finish his quest—whatever it was—maybe they’d stand a chance. If Bianca stood by him, maybe they’d win.
She shook her head. What was she thinking? Giving up on Nico like that? But the thought stuck with her. If Nico cared about Percy, then he would resent her for killing him, even if she had a reason. But she couldn’t just leave Nico, not again.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see,” Bianca said.
It didn’t take long.
Soon, giggles turned into shouts and screams. The smell of ash and blood filled the air and she sensed soul after soul being reaped. It wasn’t the same feeling as when Nico died—the unbearable sense that her world had collapsed the second time—but it was unsettling all the same, like a lemon juice on a scratch. It was fine in small doses, but over time, her entire body began to burn.
Somewhere, someone’s little brother died in their arms.
The grass around her had wilted and died, and the rot was still spreading, inching closer to the trees, bushes, and nymphs in the woods. The ground split in front of her feet. Dozens of dozens of skeletons emerged from the fissure. Some wore uniforms and carried guns and swords, but just as many of them wore dresses and skirts and carried kitchen knives and needles. They were mothers, daughters, and sisters, the ones too fierce to remain at home, the ones who fought with their loved ones and ahead of them.
They ran ahead of her and tore into the Titan forces. Bianca followed at a more sedate pace, arriving to see Grover route the monsters with his scream. She shuddered at the sound, but she had proven herself more friend than foe and wasn’t shocked by the full brunt of the attack.
The undead knelt as she got closer. Some of the younger campers tried to do the same when they saw her, but their siblings pulled them away.
“What are you doing?” Minos hissed.
She licked her lips—chapped—and searched for Percy in the crowd. “Helping.”
Minos scoffed and vanished.
“Bianca!” a shout came from the lake as Percy jogged towards her. “Was that you? How did you do that?”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t really planning on it.”
He nodded. “Well, thank you.”
“It’s not over yet,” Annabeth said, appearing as she always did at Percy’s side. “They’re regrouping in the Labyrinth.”
“So we collapse the Labyrinth,” Bianca said.
“That’s impossible! The Labyrinth is huge—”
“And Percy blew up Mount St. Helen’s. Between the two of us, I’m sure we can sink the thing, or at least collapse this entrance.”
Percy nodded. “We have to try.”
She woke up a week later in the Camp infirmary. Their plan had worked—the Earthshaker and the Wealthy One had formidable control over the earth—though they had significantly altered the terrain of the camp. Several of the cabins had shattered windows and disrupted foundations; the Big House would have collapsed if not for Dionysus’ godly intervention. New rock formations dotted the woods and cliffs had formed where sections of earth had fallen or risen.
Bianca wondered if the two elder brothers realized how easily they might overthrow Zeus if they ever worked together but then quickly dismissed the thought; they likely knew, and either had no desire to rule Olympus or no desire to collaborate. Probably the latter.
Percy had woken up after three days. Bianca—who was dehydrated, malnourished, and had exhausted her powers far more than Percy—was on a strict but limited diet of ambrosia and nectar. Annabeth visited her once, appraising her with a suspicious look, and informed her that Percy couldn’t greet her himself as he was back in New York preparing for high school. It was for the best; if Bianca saw Percy again, she wasn’t sure if she’d be able to stop herself from strangling him.
Annabeth tried to ask her some other questions, but Bianca rolled onto her side and feigned sleep. That night, when everyone was asleep, Bianca filled a bag full of ambrosia and nectar and headed towards the Camp border.
It had only been a few days in the Labyrinth, but it felt like longer. Something inside of her had shifted. The ache of grief was ever present, but now it was accompanied by another ache—loneliness. For a brief moment, she’d wondered if maybe there was a place for her in camp, if only she could forgive Percy Jackson, the Hunters, and herself. But then she’d seen how they looked at her: fear, not just of her connection to death, but of her power. Percy was strong, and she was stronger. There was no home for her in Camp, so it was back to the streets, back to libraries and cemeteries, to growing her abilities to new heights.
In the back of her head, she wondered about what Minos had said: a trade. One soul for her brother’s. That should be easy. But a soul that had cheated death, that was hard to find.
At first, she tried to do things honorably. The first man she killed was an abusive drunk. He’d been to the hospital twice for alcohol poisoning and made miraculous recoveries each time. But when she slit his throat with a kitchen knife and held his soul in her palm, she knew it wasn’t sufficient for the trade.
The next soul was a demigod. She’d seen him at camp—a child of Apollo blessed with a beautiful voice. He screamed like anyone else. His soul was golden and pure, and although he was sixteen, having survived dozens of monster attacks, he went as easily to Hades as anyone else.
The last person she murdered was a Hunter. She’d barely been with them for a month, but it was easy enough to figure out their patterns. To catch a Hunter, you had to pretend to be prey. Bianca barely mourned the loss of her long hair; it was difficult to maintain on the street. The poor girl didn’t expect an unarmed, defenseless boy to gut her so easily. But even the soul of an immortal was not an acceptable trade, not when that immortal had been blessed by another goddess.
Whatever resentment Artemis had for her had surely become hate, but Bianca didn’t care. Whatever soul was worth bringing her brother back to life she would find and she would take, regardless of the consequences.
Minos found her a few weeks later in a graveyard in New Orleans.
“Bianca my dear, I’ve been searching for you.”
She rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t have needed to search if you’d just stayed.” When she saw Minos, however, she paused.
He was dragging another man through the dirt by his hair. The man was covered in cuts and bruises, but he wasn’t bleeding red, or even gold. He was bleeding black—oil. A tear in his chest revealed gears ticking like clockwork.
“This is Daedalus,” Minos said, tossing the man onto the ground.
“He’s still alive,” Bianca said, shocked.
“Yes. Despite all the crimes he’s committed, he still lives.”
She reached for him, but Minos blocked her.
“Ah, you understand! A soul for a soul, yes. But it is not your brother who will return from the dead. It is I, as soon as I slay the inventor, and you shall finalize the transfer!”
Spirits began to appear around Minos—shimmering forms that multiplied and solidified into soldiers. They brandished their weapons at her.
“You think I would obey you? You should be on your knees, begging me for assistance.”
“You have no power over me. I am the lord of spirits! The ghost king!”
“You're a fool.” She reached out once again for his essence. “And you're no king. I am.”
Minos wailed as his visage shredded apart, the tatters floating back to the underworld in pieces. The spirits Minos had summoned lowered their weapons, bowed, and vanished. Daedalus watched her with a tired expression.
“Your brother died?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Will you take my soul for ransom, then?” Daedalus asked.
“Of course I will.”
He bowed his head. “Then the rest of the Labyrinth will fall with me.”
She placed her hand on his brow. “I didn’t like it much anyway.”
One thousand miles away, Percy Jackson was celebrating his fifteenth birthday. He stood on his balcony, admiring the moonlace. When he turned around, he nearly fell over the railing with fright.
“Nico?”
He looked like he had just before he’d died—a ten year old kid wearing a too baggy shirt clutching some Mythromagic cards—but his eyes were different. He had seen the other side and come back, and he was changed for it.
“How? Did Bianca summon you again? Is she here?”
He shook his head. His whole body shook. “Bianca...she...she…”
“Hey, it’s okay,” Percy said, wrapping his arm over Nico’s shoulder. He was solid, colder than most people, but warm like the living.
Nico flinched so hard he knocked into the brick wall.
Percy raised his hands. “Deep breaths Nico. What happened?”
“The Styx,” he said. The ferocity in his gaze reminded Percy so much of Bianca. “That’s how you can beat Kronos. The River Styx.”
“I’m listening.”
Nico glanced inside Percy’s room. His eyebrows furrowed. “Is that…is that blue birthday cake?”
He sounded hungry, maybe a little wistful.
“Come inside for some cake and ice cream,” Percy said. “It sounds like we’ve got a lot to talk about.”