LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE . . . hoo

XI.

MIA MISSED BOB.

She'd gotten used to having the Titan on her side, lighting their way with his silver hair and his fearsome war broom.

Now their only guide was an emaciated corpse lady with serious self-esteem issues. Then again, Mia probably shouldn't be talking.

As they struggled across the dusty plain, the fog became so thick that Mia had to resist the urge to swat it away with her hands. The only reason she was able to follow Akhlys's path was because poisonous plants sprang up wherever she walked.

If they were still on the body of Tartarus, Mia figured they must be on the bottom of his foot — a rough, calloused expanse where only the most disgusting plant life grew.

Finally they arrived at the end of the big toe. At least that's what it looked like to Mia. The fog dissipated, and they found themselves on a peninsula that jutted out over a pitch-black void.

"Here we are." Akhlys turned and leered at them. Blood from her cheeks dripped on her dress. Her sickly eyes looked moist and swollen but somehow excited. Can Misery look excited?

"Uh . . . great," Percy asked. "Where is here?"

"The verge of final death," Akhlys said. "Where Night meets the void below Tartarus."

Annabeth inched forward and peered over the cliff. "I thought there was nothing below Tartarus."

"Oh, certainly there is . . ." Akhlys coughed. "Even Tartarus had to rise from somewhere. This is the edge of the earliest darkness, which was my mother. Below lies the realm of Chaos, my father. Here, you are closer to nothingness than any mortal has ever been. Can you not feel it?"

Mia knew what she meant. The void seemed to be pulling at her, leaching the breath from her lungs and the oxygen from her blood.

"We can't stay here," Percy said.

"No, indeed!" Akhlys said. "Don't you feel the Death Mist? Even now, you pass between. Look!"

White smoke gathered around Mia's feet. As it coiled up her legs, she realized the smoke wasn't surrounding her. It was coming from her. Her whole body was dissolving. She held up her hands and found they were fuzzy and indistinct. She couldn't even tell how many fingers she had. Hopefully still ten.

"You're — uh—" Percy stuttered, making Mia look up so she could glance at Percy and Annabeth.

They looked dead.

Their skins were sallow, their eye sockets dark and sunken. Annabeth's hair had dried into a skein of cobwebs. Percy's eyes dulled so they weren't the bright green Mia was used to seeing. They looked like they'd been stuck in a cool, dark mausoleum for decades, slowly withering into a desiccated husk. Percy's features momentarily blurred into mist as she turned to look at him, and so did Annabeth's when she looked up.

Mia's seen dead people before. She's spent multiple months in the Underworld, of course she has. But it was painful to see Percy and Annabeth look dead when they weren't.

"Oh, gods," Annabeth sobbed. "Percy, Mia, the way you look . . ."

Mia studied her arms. All she saw were blobs of white mist, but she guessed that to Percy and Annabeth she looked like a corpse. She took a few steps, though it was difficult. Her body felt insubstantial, like she was made of helium and cotton candy.

"I've looked better," Mia decided. "I can't move very well. But I'm alright."

Akhlys clucked. "Oh, you're definitely not all right."

Percy looked seriously angry for some reason — maybe it was just the Death Mist. "But we'll pass unseen now? We can get to the Doors of Death?"

"Well, perhaps you could," the goddess said, "if you lived that long, which you won't."