Chapter Text
Nico di Angelo had learned that when a horn sounded at Camp Half-Blood in winter, it was almost never for anything pleasant. In summer, at least, the camp knew how to pretend. There were sword practices, canoe races, satyrs chasing dryads through the strawberry fields, Apollo kids singing songs that made even the gods seem less threatening by comparison. Disaster still happened, obviously. This was Camp Half-Blood. But summer disasters usually arrived with enough noise that everyone could run toward them holding weapons and call it training.
Winter was different. It made every sound too clear.
The horn from the Big House cut across the frozen air just as Nico was crossing the cabin green with his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket. Frost had gathered along the edges of the cabins, bright and thin as salt. Hearth smoke from the dining pavilion drifted low between the columns, and somewhere near the arena a child of Ares was shouting at someone to stop using a shield as a sled. Normally Nico might have appreciated the stupidity. Today the horn made his stomach close around nothing.
Across the green, Will Solace was coming down the infirmary steps with a roll of bandages tucked under one arm and a mug of something steaming in his other hand. He heard the horn too. His face shifted from ordinary annoyance to healer annoyance, which Nico had learned meant the situation was probably worse than it sounded.
Will looked at him. Not for long, not dramatically, but enough to ask an entire question without opening his mouth. Nico had discovered that people could do that if they were irritating enough.
He looked away first and kept walking.
The Big House stood at the edge of the green with its windows bright against the pale morning. It looked too warm from the outside, which Nico did not trust. Warm rooms were where adults decided things. Warm rooms were where maps were spread open and voices lowered, where someone eventually said his name in the careful tone people used when they had already chosen not to listen to him.
By the time he reached the porch, Chiron was there in his wheelchair, one hand resting on the armrest, the other holding a folded message that shimmered faintly gold at the edges. Mr. D lounged near the card table in a purple tracksuit, drinking Diet Coke with the expression of someone being punished by the existence of chairs. Annabeth stood beside the map table, her hair pulled back badly, as if she had done it while walking. Thalia Grace leaned against the railing with her arms crossed, all black jacket, sharp eyes, and storm-cloud impatience.
Percy was there too.
Nico had known he would be before he saw him. Maybe not known. Felt. Percy Jackson had a way of changing the shape of a room, even when he was just standing in it looking tired and underdressed for the weather. His dark hair was still damp from the snow outside, his hands were in the pockets of his coat, and he looked like he had arrived at camp with three problems already following him and a fourth one waiting politely at the door.
When Percy saw Nico, his face did the thing Nico hated most. Not pity. Percy was terrible at pity; his expressions were too obvious for it. This was worse: that quick flash of concern, guilt, and calculation, as if Nico were a sword balanced too close to the edge of a table and Percy was trying to decide whether grabbing it would make it fall faster.
Nico stepped onto the porch and said, “If this is about the Ares kids using shields as sleds, I had nothing to do with it.”
Mr. D lifted his can. “Tragic. For once, I had hoped you were involved in something understandable.”
“Nico,” Chiron said.
That was enough.
Nico’s hands tightened in his pockets. He looked at the map on the table because everyone else was looking at him too carefully, and because the map was not normal. Normal maps did not move. Normal maps did not have coastlines that blurred like wet ink or small bronze marks burning in three different places across the northeast. One mark near New York. One farther north. One so faint it looked like it was trying to disappear.
The word came out before he could make it sound less afraid. “Bianca.”
No one answered quickly enough.
Annabeth’s eyes flicked to Percy. Percy looked at Chiron. Thalia stared down at the map like she was trying to force it into giving a better answer. Nico could have laughed, except there was no room in his chest for anything that big.
“What happened?” he asked.
Chiron unfolded the golden-edged message. “We received a report late last night from a dryad near the Hudson. Before that, a satyr patrol picked up signs in Connecticut. And this morning—”
“This morning,” Mr. D interrupted, “Olympus decided to become involved, which is always a reliable way to make a bad situation more expensive.”
Chiron gave him a tired look.
Mr. D shrugged. “I am contributing context.”
Nico ignored him. “Where is she?”
“We don’t know exactly,” Annabeth said.
“That means you know approximately.”
Annabeth did not flinch. That was one of the annoying things about Annabeth Chase. She looked guilty sometimes, angry often, exhausted almost always, but she rarely flinched when a truth was inconvenient. “North of the city,” she said. “Moving fast. Not by car, not by bus. There are gaps.”
Nico looked back at the map.
Gaps.
He knew about gaps. He knew the cold tear behind his ribs when the world folded around him and shadows became doors. He knew how far a person could go if they were desperate enough and stupid enough to ignore what it cost. He knew the taste of metal in his mouth afterward, the shaking in his hands, the way the dark sometimes clung to his vision too long.
Bianca had always been better at pretending pain was a private matter.
“Why are you tracking her?” Nico asked.
No one liked that question.
Percy shifted his weight. “Because Luke is looking for her.”
Nico felt the name like a hook under the skin.
Luke.
There had been a time when that name meant someone who had shown Nico where the extra blankets were kept in Cabin Eleven. Someone who had listened to him talk about Mythomagic without laughing too much. Someone who had spoken to Bianca as if she were not only the person responsible for keeping Nico alive. Now the name meant poison in a tree, a ship in the dark, Annabeth’s face going still, and Percy saying things carefully because some betrayals still had splinters in them.
“Luke,” Nico repeated.
Percy nodded once. “Kronos wants her.”
The porch seemed to grow colder.
Nico looked from Percy to Chiron. “Because she’s a daughter of Hades.”
“Because she is powerful,” Chiron said gently.
“That’s the same thing when people are afraid of you.”
Thalia’s gaze sharpened, but she did not argue.
Chiron folded his hands over the message. “Zeus has also expressed concern.”
Nico stared at him, then laughed once, quietly. “Concern.”
The word sounded ridiculous. Too clean. Too small for what it meant. Zeus was concerned that Bianca was alive somewhere he could not point at on a map. Zeus was concerned that a daughter of Hades had not chosen a side convenient to Olympus. Zeus was concerned that a prophecy had grown another set of teeth and one of them was walking around without permission.
“Does Zeus want her protected,” Nico asked, “or contained?”
Percy winced.
That was answer enough.
Chiron’s expression did not change much, but something in his eyes softened in a way Nico did not want. “The Lord of the Sky believes Bianca may be in danger if she remains alone.”
“From Luke.”
“And from others.”
“Others like Zeus?”
Mr. D made a thoughtful noise into his Diet Coke. “The boy has developed a talent for saying the quiet part before anyone can bury it under bad diplomacy.”
“Dionysus,” Chiron said.
“What? I am mentoring.”
“You are making it worse.”
“That is also a traditional form of mentorship.”
Annabeth put both hands on the edge of the table and leaned closer to the map. “Nico, whatever Zeus wants, Luke finding Bianca first would be worse.”
“Would it?”
The words came out before Nico could stop them, and the porch reacted all at once. Annabeth looked at him. So did Percy. So did Thalia. Nico hated all of them for making him hear the sentence after he had said it. He hated that it sounded like he was defending Luke, and he hated more that he could not say it was entirely wrong. Luke had hurt the camp. Luke had poisoned Thalia’s tree. Luke had stood with Kronos and chosen it, really chosen it. But Luke had also understood something about Bianca before half the camp had bothered to try. He had known how to speak to people who felt trapped without making the trap sound like home.
That was what made him dangerous.
Annabeth’s voice stayed controlled. Too controlled. “Yes. It would be worse.”
Nico looked away first, because Annabeth did not deserve that sentence aimed at her. Not all of it.
Percy stepped closer to the table. “Luke is recruiting. He’s not just looking for soldiers anymore. He wants symbols. He wants people who make Olympus panic.”
“Then he must be very busy,” Nico said. “There are four of us now.”
The words sat there: four. Percy, son of Poseidon. Thalia, daughter of Zeus. Nico and Bianca, children of Hades. A year ago, Percy had been the impossible exception people whispered about. Then Nico and Bianca had been found in a casino that did not care about decades. Then Thalia had come back from a tree because the Golden Fleece had done its job too well. Camp Half-Blood had saved itself and created a problem big enough for Olympus to notice from every direction.
Nico had the feeling the prophecy had been waiting with its mouth open.
Thalia pushed off the railing. “That’s why we have to find her before either side decides she’s easier to handle unconscious.”
Nico looked at her. Thalia did not soften the words, and Nico was beginning to suspect she did not know how, or else she knew and considered it a waste of time. She had been alive again for only weeks, but she carried herself like someone who had already been turned into a statue, a story, a warning, and a strategic inconvenience, and had not enjoyed any of it.
“We?” Nico said.
Thalia glanced at Chiron.
Nico followed her gaze. The careful silence had shape now.
He felt something inside him go very still. “You’re leaving.”
“Nico,” Chiron said, in exactly the voice Nico had expected.
“No,” Nico said.
Percy’s shoulders tensed.
Chiron’s mouth tightened with patience. “We need to move quickly, and we need to avoid frightening Bianca into running farther.”
“Then you should probably avoid sending a group of people chosen by Zeus, Olympus, and everyone who thinks my sister is a walking problem.”
“Nico,” Percy said, and somehow that was worse.
Heat rose into Nico’s face. It was stupid, how quickly Percy saying his name could cut through the rest of the room. It made him angrier because he heard the concern underneath it, and because part of him still wanted to step toward it like a cold person toward a fire. He hated that part most of all.
He kept his hands in his pockets so no one would see them curl. “I’m going.”
Chiron sighed, not loudly, but enough. “I expected you would say that.”
“Then you had time to prepare a better answer than telling me I can’t.”
Annabeth rubbed a hand over her forehead. “It isn’t that simple.”
“It usually is when the answer is already no.”
Percy moved around the table, closer but not too close. He was trying. Nico could tell he was trying to keep his voice level, his face open, his hands visible, like Nico was a wild animal or a trap that might spring if startled.
That did not help.
“You’re too involved,” Percy said.
Nico stared at him. “That’s your reason?”
“One of them.”
“My sister is missing, and that makes me less qualified to look for her?”
“It means you might do something reckless if we find her.”
Nico almost smiled. It would have been easier if it had felt funny. “You’re Percy Jackson.”
Percy blinked. “I’m not sure how that helps your argument.”
“It means maybe don’t build yours on not being reckless.”
Mr. D lifted his can slightly. “Point to the dark child.”
Percy ignored him, which Nico respected against his will. “This is different.”
“Because it’s Bianca.”
“Because it’s you.”
That landed wrong.
Nico knew Percy meant it kindly. He knew Percy meant that he cared if Nico got hurt, that he knew this would hurt him, that he did not want to bring him into something that might break him open in front of everyone. Percy meant all of that in the messy, sincere way he meant most things. But what Nico heard was simpler and uglier: because you are not like us. Because you are small. Because you cannot be trusted with your own pain.
His throat tightened so hard that speaking felt like pulling a nail free.
“I can track her,” he said.
Annabeth’s eyes narrowed a fraction. “How?”
Nico hesitated.
That was a mistake. Chiron noticed. Annabeth noticed. Percy noticed, of course, because Percy’s attention had become unbearable and exact, like sunlight through glass.
Nico looked at the map instead. “I know what her shadow travel feels like.”
The silence changed. This one had interest in it.
Chiron leaned forward. “You can sense her passage?”
“Sometimes.”
“How long has this been happening?”
Nico lifted one shoulder, because if he explained it too well, it would become theirs. “Since she started coming back.”
Percy’s head turned toward him. Annabeth went very still.
Nico wished he had said it differently. He wished he had not said it at all.
“Coming back?” Chiron asked.
Nico stared at the map. The faint bronze mark trembled near the top edge, as if Bianca herself were trying not to be held by it. “Not to camp. Not really.”
Percy’s voice softened. “Nico.”
That made it worse, so Nico kept talking before anyone could put gentleness over the wound. “She doesn’t talk to anyone else. She doesn’t stay. Sometimes she comes to Cabin Thirteen. At night, usually. She leaves before dawn.”
No one spoke.
Nico could feel the shape of their surprise, their questions, their sudden adult interest. He hated it. He had kept those visits like stolen coins under his tongue, proof and punishment at the same time. Bianca had been there. Bianca had not stayed. Both things were true, and neither belonged to Chiron’s map.
“She has been entering the cabin unnoticed?” Chiron asked carefully.
“She’s good at not being noticed.”
“Did she tell you where she was going?” Annabeth asked.
Nico gave her a look. “Do you think we had family meetings?”
Annabeth’s face changed, not quite flinching, but close enough to make him regret the edge in his voice. She had spent years with Luke and Thalia, and probably knew more than most people about families that did not fit into any useful shape.
“She leaves things sometimes,” Nico said, quieter despite himself. “Or fixes something. Or takes something. Once she stayed long enough to change a torn sleeve. She doesn’t tell me where she’s going. I don’t ask fast enough, or I ask wrong, or she hears whatever she thinks I mean and leaves.”
Percy looked like he wanted to step forward again. He did not.
Chiron’s expression became the kind of careful that meant he was already building three plans and rejecting two. “That explains why we have seen no signs of her inside camp.”
“No. It explains why I didn’t tell you.”
Mr. D made a small sound into his can, less amused this time.
Chiron looked at him for a long moment. “Nico, this is useful information.”
“I know. That’s why I’m going.”
“No,” Chiron said.
This time, he did not sound uncertain.
Nico went still.
Percy looked at Chiron, then back at Nico. “It doesn’t mean you have to be the one following the trail.”
“It’s my trail to follow.”
“It’s Bianca’s trail,” Annabeth said.
Nico turned on her. “Exactly.”
Annabeth looked tired. Not offended. Somehow that made it harder to stay angry at her, so Nico did it anyway.
“If Bianca is using shadow travel,” Chiron said, “then she may be exhausted, frightened, or injured. If she senses you following her, she may think the camp sent you to pull her back.”
“Maybe the camp should stop acting like that is not what it wants.”
Percy’s face tightened. “I don’t want to drag her anywhere.”
“You don’t have a plan.”
The words cut through the porch. Nico had not meant them to sound so sharp. Or maybe he had. He was not sure anymore.
Percy said nothing.
So Nico continued, because stopping would have meant feeling the room around him. “You want to find her before Luke. You want to find her before Zeus does something worse. You want to protect her. Fine. And then what? Bring her here? Hide her? Promise Olympus she’s safe as long as she stays where they can count her? Tell her Luke is dangerous, so she has to choose you instead?”
“Nico,” Chiron said.
“No. What happens after you find her?”
No one answered quickly enough. Again.
Thalia crossed her arms tighter. “We talk to her.”
Nico let out a breath. “That’s not a plan.”
“No,” Thalia said. “It’s the only part that isn’t a lie.”
That made him look at her despite himself.
Thalia’s face was closed, but not cruel. “If we show up with a cage, she runs. If we show up pretending we don’t have one behind our backs, she probably runs faster.”
“Then why are you going?”
“Because if Luke gets there first, his plan won’t be to talk to her.”
Nico hated that answer because it made sense. Annabeth glanced toward Thalia, something brief and old passing between them. Percy looked down at the map. His jaw was tight.
Chiron spoke gently. “There is another concern. Bianca knows you. She knows your presence. If she feels you in the shadows, she may flee before anyone can speak to her.”
“She might speak to me.”
“She might,” Chiron said.
The fact that he did not deny it made Nico angrier.
“But you don’t think she will.”
Chiron was silent for a moment before answering. “I think,” he said gently, “that your sister loves you and is terrified of being caught by what she loves.”
Nico’s vision went strange for a second, too sharp at the edges.
He should have said something. Something clever. Something angry. Something that made Chiron take the words back or made Percy stop looking like he wished he could step between Nico and the sentence itself. But the worst part was that Chiron was right.
Bianca loved him. Bianca had left anyway. She came back sometimes, like a ghost who had not decided whether she was haunting him or trying to prove she was alive. She stood in their cabin for minutes at a time and looked at her own bed like it belonged to another girl, then left before Nico could learn how to breathe around her. Both things were true. All of it was true, and Nico was tired of people acting as if love should cancel out the damage it did badly.
He looked down at the map. The faint bronze mark trembled near the top of the page.
“Who goes?” he asked.
Nobody seemed relieved that he had asked. That was how Nico knew he had sounded too calm.
Chiron answered. “Percy. Annabeth. Thalia.”
Of course.
The three names fell into place too easily. Percy, because he was Percy and because when dangerous things happened everyone eventually looked toward him whether they admitted it or not. Annabeth, because she could think around corners and because Percy was less likely to die when she was near him. Thalia, because she understood being a prophecy with a pulse, and because Zeus could hardly complain that his own daughter was involved.
Three heroes to retrieve one girl who did not want to be retrieved.
Nico looked at Percy.
Percy did not look away. That made it worse. Nico had expected guilt. He had not expected Percy to stand there and take the full weight of Nico’s stare, as if that helped. As if accepting blame was the same as changing the decision.
“You agreed to this?” Nico asked.
Percy’s mouth opened. Then closed. To his credit, or maybe to make it hurt more, he did not look at Chiron for help.
“Yes,” Percy said finally. “I did.”
It hurt more because he did not lie.
Annabeth looked between them and seemed to decide not to speak. Thalia watched Nico with an expression he could not read. Mr. D made a quiet sound that might have been boredom, or pity disguised as boredom.
Nico nodded once. “Good meeting.”
He turned to leave.
“Nico,” Chiron called.
Nico stopped at the edge of the porch but did not turn around.
“We are not dismissing your concerns.”
“No,” Nico said. “You’re just leaving without them.”
Then he went down the steps before anyone could answer.
Outside, the camp had kept moving because the world had terrible manners that way. Smoke still rose from the pavilion. The Ares kids had apparently abandoned shield-sledding and moved on to arguing over whether a frozen puddle counted as terrain advantage. Two Hermes campers hurried past with a bundle under a coat that was probably stolen and possibly alive. Somewhere, someone laughed, and Nico hated them a little for it.
He walked toward Cabin Thirteen without knowing whether he meant to go inside. The path crunched under his shoes. His breath came out white and uneven, and that irritated him, so he forced it to slow down. He was not going to cry. He had cried enough in his life for rooms that smelled like hotel soap and old carpet, for a mother whose face sometimes blurred at the edges of memory, for Bianca’s back as she walked away and Percy’s hand on his shoulder telling him things would be okay when Percy had no way of knowing that. He was not going to cry because a room full of people had decided he was too much of a child to search for his own sister.
Behind him, the porch door opened.
Nico knew the footsteps before the voice. That was unfair too.
Percy caught up to him near the edge of the green, not running, but close enough that Nico knew he had wanted to. He stopped a few feet away, giving Nico space. Percy had started doing that more lately, trying to guess when closeness helped and when it cornered. He got it wrong often enough that Nico should have been able to stay angry easily.
“Nico,” Percy said.
Nico stared at the frozen grass. “If you’re about to apologize, I’m going to throw something at you.”
Percy was silent for a second. “Would it be something big, or are we talking snowball territory?”
Despite himself, Nico almost laughed. That made him furious. He looked up. “Don’t.”
Percy’s attempt at a smile disappeared.
For a moment neither of them said anything. The wind moved through the bare trees behind the cabins. Percy’s hair was still damp, and a drop of melted snow slid from one strand near his temple. Nico noticed it before he could stop himself, then hated himself for noticing.
Percy rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t think you’re useless.”
“I know.”
Percy looked surprised, which was almost insulting.
Nico pushed his hands deeper into his pockets. “You think I’m involved.”
“That’s not exactly—”
“It is. You think I’m too close to it. Too angry. Too likely to do something stupid if I see her.”
Percy took that in. Nico could tell he wanted to argue with the wording and knew that arguing would not make it less true. “I think you’re scared,” he said. “And I think if Bianca is in trouble, you’d tear yourself apart trying to reach her.”
Nico laughed under his breath. “You say that like you wouldn’t.”
“I probably would.”
“Then why do you get to go?”
Percy did not answer.
There it was.
The real thing under all the careful reasons. Percy could be reckless because he was Percy. Annabeth could be involved because she was useful. Thalia could be dangerous because her danger had strategy attached to it. Nico was just a problem that looked like a boy.
Percy looked miserable.
Nico wished that did not matter.
“You know,” Nico said, “this is always how people say it.”
Percy frowned. “How people say what?”
“That they care.” Nico made himself look at Percy, because if he did not, his voice might shake and Percy would hear it. “They say they’re worried. They say it’s dangerous. They say it isn’t because I can’t help. Then they leave.”
Percy’s face changed.
Nico wanted to take the words back. He also wanted Percy to feel them exactly as much as they hurt.
“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” Percy said quietly.
“Then try better.”
The sentence sat between them, ugly and honest.
Percy nodded. No argument. No defense. No joke to make it smaller. He just nodded, and somehow that made Nico’s chest feel worse.
“I’ll send an Iris-message when I can,” Percy said. “Not a big heroic promise. Just… I’ll try.”
Nico looked away. “That’s better.”
Percy did not leave immediately. Of course he did not. Percy was very bad at leaving when leaving was the only useful thing he could do. He stood there, hands in his coat pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold, looking like he wanted to say ten more things and knew at least nine of them would make it worse.
Nico wished he would say them anyway. He wished Percy would tell him he was coming, that Chiron had changed his mind, that they needed him, that Percy needed him. He wished that with such sudden, humiliating force that he had to look down at his shoes.
Percy said, “We’ll do everything we can to find her.”
Nico nodded once. It was not agreement.
Percy seemed to understand that too.
When Percy walked away, Nico did not watch him go until he was sure Percy was far enough not to notice. Then he looked up. Percy crossed the green toward the Big House, where Annabeth was waiting with a backpack slung over one shoulder and her expression already focused on roads, monsters, and worst-case scenarios. Thalia stood beside her, hands in her jacket pockets, chin raised against the wind. She said something to Percy when he reached them. Percy answered. Annabeth looked briefly toward Nico.
Nico turned away before she could decide whether to come over too.
He made it three steps before Thalia’s voice said, “You hate me?”
Nico stopped.
Thalia was leaning against the side of Cabin Six now, which meant she had moved very quickly or Nico had been paying too much attention to Percy. Possibly both. Her black hair stirred in the wind. The silver bracelet on her wrist glinted against her sleeve.
Nico considered the question. “Not enough yet.”
Thalia nodded as if this were fair. “Give it time.”
That startled a short breath out of him, not quite a laugh.
She did not smile, but something in her eyes shifted. “I didn’t say no because I think you’re useless.”
“Percy already tried that one.”
“I’m better at it than Percy.”
Nico looked at her. “Are you?”
“No,” Thalia said. “But I use fewer words.”
He almost smiled again, which was becoming a serious problem.
Thalia glanced toward the Big House. “Bianca doesn’t want to be found by a rescue party.”
“You don’t know Bianca.”
“No,” Thalia said. “But I know what it’s like when people decide your life is too dangerous to leave in your hands.”
Nico did not answer.
Thalia looked past him, toward the hill where the pine had once stood and where everyone still looked sometimes as if expecting a tree to explain things. Nico followed her gaze despite himself. The hill was just a hill now. That made it stranger. Thalia was alive, so the absence should have felt right. Instead, the empty place where the tree had been still looked like a missing tooth.
“When I woke up,” Thalia said, “everyone already knew what I was. Daughter of Zeus. The girl from the tree. The prophecy. Luke’s old friend. Annabeth’s almost-dead sister. Some miracle the gods hadn’t approved in advance.” Her mouth twisted. “Nobody meant to make me feel like a thing. Most of them did anyway.”
Nico watched her.
He did not want to understand her. That did not stop him.
“If Bianca sees you first,” Thalia continued, “she might not see Nico. She might see every reason she left catching up to her with your face.”
Nico’s hands curled in his pockets. “That’s not fair.”
“No.”
“She’s my sister.”
“I know.”
“But you don’t understand.”
Thalia looked at him then, and for the first time since Nico had met her, she looked less like lightning with boots and more like a girl who had once run until she could not run anymore.
“Maybe not,” she said quietly. “Not Bianca. Not you. But I understand what it’s like to have family out there somewhere and not know where they are.”
Nico frowned.
For a moment, Thalia seemed to regret saying anything at all. Her gaze drifted toward the trees beyond the camp.
“I had a brother,” she said. “Or maybe I still do. Jason.”
The name meant nothing to Nico, but the way she said it made him stay silent.
“I don't know where he is,” Thalia continued. “I haven't known for years. Sometimes I don't even know if I remember him right anymore. Just pieces. A feeling. A name.” She swallowed. “And there are days when not knowing hurts more than knowing something terrible.”
The wind stirred her dark hair.
“So no,” she said. “I don't understand Bianca. I don't understand what happened between the two of you. But I know what it's like to love someone and have nothing to hold onto except the hope that they're still out there somewhere.”
Nico looked away.
From the Big House, Annabeth called, “Thalia!”
Thalia pushed off the cabin wall. “We’re leaving.”
“I noticed.”
“If she contacts you, tell Chiron.”
Nico gave her his most innocent look.
Thalia stared at him. “You’re worse at that than Percy.”
“Good.”
She studied him for another second. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Nico smiled without meaning it. “You’re all taking the stupid with you. I’ll have to improvise.”
That time Thalia did smile, barely. Then she turned and went back across the green.
They left without ceremony, which was probably for the best. Camp Half-Blood ceremonies tended to involve prophecies, burning food, or songs written by Apollo campers, and Nico was not in the mood to survive any of those. Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia gathered near the road with Chiron giving quiet instructions and Mr. D pretending not to listen. Annabeth checked the map twice. Thalia adjusted the strap of her backpack like she wanted something to fight immediately. Percy looked once toward the cabins.
Nico stood beside Cabin Thirteen and did not raise his hand.
Percy saw him anyway.
For a moment, across the green, their eyes met. Percy looked like he wanted to come back.
Nico looked away first.
When he looked again, they were gone.
The camp settled around the absence in the usual way. People resumed whatever they had been doing, but softer. A few campers glanced at Nico and then decided they had urgent business elsewhere. That was fine. Nico preferred people when they were elsewhere.
Will found him ten minutes later.
Nico was sitting on the steps of Cabin Thirteen with his elbows on his knees, staring at nothing in particular. The cabin door was half-open behind him. Inside, the air smelled faintly of dust, stone, old incense, and the kind of cold that did not care about weather.
Will stopped at the bottom of the steps. “You’re doing that thing.”
Nico did not look at him. “Breathing?”
“The other thing.”
“Very specific.”
“The thing where you look quiet in a way that means someone is going to need bandages later.”
Nico glanced at him despite himself. Will had abandoned the mug but kept the roll of bandages, because apparently he was emotionally attached to medical supplies. His scarf was crooked, yellow against his coat, too bright for the Hades cabin’s shadow. Everything about Will looked out of place here: the colors, the warmth, the stubborn assumption that if someone was bleeding, he was allowed to do something about it.
“I’m sitting,” Nico said.
“Suspiciously.”
“You think sitting can be suspicious?”
“With you? Definitely.” Will climbed one step but did not sit yet. That was new. Usually Will treated personal space like a medical suggestion he was planning to ignore.
“I saw Percy talking to you.”
Nico looked away. “Unfortunately.”
Will tilted his head. “And now he’s gone.”
“Also unfortunately.”
Nico looked back at the green.
Will was quiet for a moment. He was not as good at silence as Annabeth. He seemed to think silence was a patient that might stop breathing if unattended.
“Is it Bianca?” he asked.
Nico hated how gentle the question was. “Yes.”
Will sat beside him on the step without asking permission, which should have been annoying. It was annoying. Nico decided not to move because moving would make it obvious that he had noticed.
“Are you okay?” Will asked, then winced before Nico could even look at him. “That was stupid. Forget I asked. Are you injured?”
“No.”
“Have you eaten?”
Nico looked away.
Will sighed. “Sounds like a no.”
“It’s not your business.”
“That also sounds like a no.”
Nico stood.
Will looked up at him, and something in his expression changed. Less teasing now. More alert.
“Nico.”
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was about to say that whatever you’re thinking of doing, you should maybe consider not collapsing in a ditch before you get there.”
Nico stared at him. Will stared back. Sometimes Nico forgot that Will was not actually stupid. Cheerful, yes. Too talkative, absolutely. Offensively persistent. But not stupid. He watched people the way healers did, as if the body confessed things before the mouth got around to lying.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Nico said.
Will’s expression said he believed exactly none of that. “Okay.”
Nico narrowed his eyes. “Okay?”
“I’m trying this new thing where I don’t argue with people who are clearly determined to ignore me.” Will stood and brushed frost from his pants. “It’s terrible. I hate it.”
Nico did not know what to do with that.
Will held out the roll of bandages.
Nico looked at it. “What?”
“Take them.”
“I’m not injured.”
“Great. Try to keep it that way. But if you fail, wrap the bleeding parts. That’s the technical term.”
Nico hesitated, then took the bandages. Will did not smile like he had won, which was good, because Nico might have given them back.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” Will said, quieter. “And I’m not asking. But if you come back half-dead again, I’m going to be very irritating about it.”
“You’re already very irritating.”
“Then imagine worse.”
Nico looked at the bandages in his hand. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Will’s face softened, but he had the sense not to mention it. “Eat something before you do anything stupid.”
“I thought you weren’t arguing.”
“I’m not. That was medical advice. Totally different.”
Then he left, because apparently Will Solace had decided to become wise at the most inconvenient possible time.
Nico watched him cross the green back toward the infirmary. He should have felt relieved. Instead, the bandages in his hand felt heavier than they had any right to.
He went inside Cabin Thirteen and shut the door behind him with a soft scrape.
The cabin had never learned how to feel occupied. Even with two beds now used, even with Bianca’s things still in places she had not meant to leave permanently, the room felt like it was waiting for a funeral that kept being delayed. Shadows pooled in the corners, deep and patient. The walls were dark stone. The torches burned with a dim blue light that did not warm anything. On Nico’s nightstand, a stack of Mythomagic cards sat under a chipped cup full of drachmas, a habit he had started after learning that emergencies were expensive.
Bianca’s bed was made, but not perfectly. That was new.
When she had first come to camp, she had made her bed like a person trying to prove she was grateful for shelter by taking up as little space as possible. Corners tucked tight. Blanket straight. Nothing left out. Later, after the Fleece, she had not come back to explain herself. She had not stood in front of the camp or knocked on the door in daylight or said any of the things Nico had spent nights imagining. At first, the only proof she had been near Cabin Thirteen was the wrongness in the shadows by the wall and the Cerberus card left where Nico could find it.
After that, she came sometimes.
Not often. Never for long. Never when anyone else could see. A folded shirt appeared on the end of her bed and disappeared three nights later. A book Nico did not recognize sat open facedown for half a day before vanishing again. Once, one of her boots was under the frame, because Bianca always forgot the second boot before she forgot the first. Small evidence that leaving did not mean erasing herself. Small evidence that made Nico feel worse because it was almost enough to be comfort and not enough to be anything like staying.
On her nightstand sat the Cerberus card.
Nico looked at it for too long, then went to his own bed and pulled out his backpack.
He moved quickly after that, because if he stopped, he might start thinking in ways that slowed him down. Ambrosia from the hidden box under the floorboard. A square of nectar wrapped in wax paper. The bandages from Will. Three drachmas. His short sword, the one Chiron had insisted he carry even though everyone looked uncomfortable when a child of Hades walked around armed. A jacket. Gloves. The Mythomagic card on his nightstand that he picked up without meaning to and shoved into the side pocket before he could decide against it.
Then he stood in the middle of the cabin and listened.
At first, there was only silence, but Cabin Thirteen’s silence was never ordinary. It had layers. The sleeping hush of stone underground. The faint murmur of old names Nico could not quite hear. The soft pull of every shadow in the room leaning toward every other shadow, connected by tunnels too narrow for the living and too familiar to the dead.
Nico closed his eyes.
Bianca had been here three nights ago.
No one had known. Not Chiron. Not Percy. Not Will, who had been in the infirmary all night after an Ares camper broke his wrist trying to punch a frozen training dummy. No one but Nico.
He had woken before dawn with the taste of cold iron in his mouth and found Bianca standing near her bed, one hand pressed against the wall, breathing through her teeth. She had looked thinner. Angry at herself for looking tired. Her hair was shorter, or maybe just uneven from the wind. There had been dirt on her boots and a tear in one sleeve.
For one impossible second, Nico had been too relieved to move.
Then he had said her name, and she had flinched.
That was the part he kept remembering. Not that she had come back. Not even that she had been hurt and still chosen to come here instead of the infirmary, or the Big House, or anywhere with light and people and help. He kept remembering the way her shoulders jerked because he had seen her there, as if being seen by him was the thing she had not prepared for.
She had stayed twenty-three minutes. Nico knew because he had counted everything except the thing he wanted to say. She had washed her hands. Changed her sleeve. Asked if he was eating, which was so unfair he had almost thrown something. He had asked where she had been, and she had looked at the floor. He had asked if she was in trouble, and she had said, “Not more than usual,” like that was a joke either of them could laugh at. Then she had given him the Cerberus card because she said she had found it in a shop and thought of him, as if that explained anything.
Nico had wanted to ask if she thought of him every time she left too.
He had not.
She had touched his hair once, quickly, the way she used to when he was smaller and she thought he was asleep. Then the shadows behind her had opened.
Nico had felt it. Not seen. Felt.
A seam in the room. A cold pressure, like the world had been folded along a line only children of Hades could touch. Bianca had stepped backward into it and vanished before he could decide whether begging her to stay would make her leave faster.
Afterward, the room had not settled right.
The shadows had kept the shape of her passing.
Nico had told himself that was grief being stupid. He had a lot of experience with grief being stupid. Grief made you see your mother in strangers. Grief made you save cards for someone who might not come back to play. Grief made you stand in a cabin and feel the absence of a person like a bruise in the air. But now, after the map, after Annabeth saying gaps, after Chiron asking if he could sense her passage, Nico knew.
It was not only grief.
He stepped toward the corner beside Bianca’s bed. The shadows there were darker than the others. Not larger. Not moving. Just wrong in a familiar way, as if someone had rubbed charcoal over reality and not cleaned it properly.
Nico crouched and held his hand above the floor.
Cold rose to meet him. His breath caught.
There.
Not a door. Not anymore. More like the memory of a door. A path already cut through the dark. Bianca’s path. Her fear, her exhaustion, her stubborn refusal to stop. It was not a scent, exactly, and not a sound. It was more like hearing a note through stone and knowing the instrument because it was made from the same bone as yours.
Nico pressed his palm flat against the shadow.
The cabin vanished for one sharp second.
Snow. A bridge. The smell of river water and diesel. Bianca’s hand braced against a brick wall. Blood on her sleeve, not much. Footsteps somewhere behind her. Then darkness again, deeper, farther north.
Nico jerked back with a gasp.
The room swung around him. His stomach lurched, and he grabbed the bedpost until the floor stopped tilting.
Following her would hurt. Of course it would hurt. Everything useful hurt. But it would not hurt as much as opening a path from nothing. Bianca had already torn the seam. Her shadow travel left a scar, and scars were easier to reopen than skin.
Nico swallowed. His mouth tasted like metal.
“Okay,” he whispered.
The shadows did not answer.
He put on his backpack.
For a moment, he stood beside Bianca’s bed. The Cerberus card was still on her nightstand, because he had not taken that one. He had wanted to. He had almost put it in his pocket three times. But something about taking it felt like admitting she would not come back for it.
So he left it there.
Then he opened the cabin door.
Camp Half-Blood spread out in pale winter light: the paths, the cabins, the smoke from the pavilion, the Big House with its warm windows full of adults who would eventually notice he was gone and say his name in that careful tone again. The hill rose beyond the camp, empty where the pine had been. Somewhere out there, Percy was following a map.
Nico hoped he was wrong. He hoped Percy found Bianca first and said the right thing somehow, because Percy sometimes did impossible things by accident. He hoped Annabeth had a plan hidden under the plan they had admitted was not one. He hoped Thalia understood Bianca as much as she seemed to.
But hope was not a plan either.
Nico looked back once into the cabin. The shadows waited.
He stepped inside and shut the door, because leaving through the front path would be dramatic and stupid, and he was trying to be only one of those things.
In the corner beside Bianca’s bed, the dark seam pulsed faintly under his attention.
Nico knelt. His hands were shaking now, not from fear, or not only from fear. Excitement was there too, shameful and sharp. He was going to do something no one had allowed. He was going to follow the part of Bianca no one else could even see. He was going to be useful, whether they wanted him to be or not.
Maybe Percy would be angry.
The thought came too quickly. Nico pushed it away.
Percy had left. Everyone left.
Nico pressed both hands into the shadow and felt it open around his fingers like freezing water. The cabin stretched thin. The torches blurred. His heartbeat dropped into the floor, down and down, into roots, bones, tunnels, old graves, all the hidden places the world pretended were not holding it up. Bianca’s trail pulled north, faint but real.
It hurt.
Less than it should have.
Nico smiled through his teeth. For once, no one had to decide whether he was allowed to follow.
He stepped into the dark, and the shadows closed behind him.