WINGED ₁

5

THE FIELDS OF ASPHODEL SEEMED TO STRETCH ON FOR ETERNITY. Millions of spirits were packed everywhere, bumping into one another and whispering without words. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew through the air. Black poplar trees grew in clumps.

The cavern ceiling was so high that it looked like a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faintly gray and were sharply pointed. Around the fields, several had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass. Madeleine cringed at the thought of being another casualty.

Annabeth sidled up to her. "Are you okay?"

Madeleine glanced at the other girl, surprised. "I should be asking you that."

Annabeth smiled wanly. "I think I can manage leaving a monstrous dog." She still sounded unsure, though. "It's just... Grover and Percy and I, we signed up for this. You didn't."

Madeleine looked at the bleak, dusky sky. "Better than spending a whole life in that casino, Annabeth."

Madeleine looked for faces among the dead, but it was hard. The spirits shimmered. They all looked slightly angry or confused. They would come up to Madeleine's group and speak, but their voices sounded like chatter, like bats twittering. Once they realized that none of the demigods plus satyr understood them, they frowned and moved away.

Madeleine saw only one girl who seemed slightly brighter than the others. Her skin was brown, a darker shade than Annabeth's. Her curls were dark brown and tinged with gold. They spilled over her shoulders and brought out the golden flecks in her pupils.

She met Madeleine's eyes for a moment before the crowd swallowed her up, her expression wistful and warning.

The dead weren't scary. They were just sad.

Madeleine and her friends crept along, following the line of new arrivals that snaked from the main gates toward a black-tented pavilion with a banner that read:

JUDGEMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION
Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punishment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. Even from far away, Madeleine could see people being chased by giant black dogs she knew were hellhounds, burned at the stake, forced to run naked through cactus patches or listen to opera music. She could just make out a tiny hill, with the ant-size figure of Sisyphus struggling to move his boulder to the top. There were worse tortures, too―people with the flesh being eaten out of their stomachs, people writhing and screaming as hot coals were scattered over their nude bodies, people with blood on their cheeks and pits for eyes.

Madeleine couldn't look away until Grover grabbed her arm and tugged her along.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls―a gated community, which seemed to be the only part of the Underworld that wasn't morbid. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. Madeleine could hear laughter and barbecue cooking, a man's voice that sounded so familiar her heart squeezed painfully.

This must be Elysium.

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium.