LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE . . . hoo

XII.

MIA HAD NEVER been scared of the dark.

But normally the dark wasn't forty feet tall. It didn't have black wings, a whip made out of stars, and a shadowy chariot pulled by vampire horses.

Nyx was almost too much to take in. Looming over the chasm, she was a churning figure of ash and smoke, as big as the Athena Parthenos statue, but very much alive. Her dress was void black, mixed with the colors of a space nebula, as if galaxies were being born in her bodice. Her face was hard to see except for the pinpoints of her eyes, which shone like quasars. When her wings beat, waves of darkness rolled over the cliffs, making Mia feel heavy and sleepy, her eyesight dim, unlike when she was around darkness otherwise.

The goddess's chariot was made of the same material as Regulus and Sirius — Stygian iron — and pulled by two massive horses, all black except for their pointed silver fangs. The beasts' legs floated in the abyss, turning from solid to smoke as they moved.

The horses snarled and bared their fangs at Mia. The goddess lashed her whip — a thin streak of stars like diamond barbs — and the horses reared back.

"No, Shade," the goddess said. "Down, Shadow. These little prizes are not for you."

Percy eyed the horses as they nickered. He was still shrouded in Death Mist, so he looked like an out-of-focus corpse. It also must not have been very good camouflage, since Nyx could obviously see them.

Mia couldn't read the expression on Percy's ghoulish face very well. Apparently he didn't like whatever the horses were saying.

"Uh, so you won't let them eat us?" he asked the goddess. "They really want to eat us."

Nyx's quasar eyes burned. "Of course not. I would not let my horses eat you, any more than I would let Akhlys kill you. Such fine prizes, I will kill myself!"

Mia didn't feel particularly witty or courageous, but her instincts told her to take the initiative, or this would be a very short conversation.

"Oh, don't kill yourself!" she cried. "We're not that scary."

The goddess lowered her whip. "What? No, I didn't mean—"

"Well, I'd hope not!" Mia looked at Annabeth and Percy and forced a laugh. "We wouldn't want to scare her, would we?"

"Ha," Annabeth said. "No, we wouldn't."

The vampire horses looked confused. They reared and snorted and knocked their dark heads together. Nyx pulled back on the reins.

"Do you know who I am?" she demanded.

"Well, you're Night, I suppose," said Mia. "I mean, I can tell because you're dark and everything, though the brochure didn't say much about you."

Nyx's eyes winked out for a moment. "What brochure?"

Mia dug into her hoodie pocket. "We had one, didn't we?"

Percy licked his lips. "Uh-huh." He was still watching the horses, his hand tight on his sword hilt, but he was smart enough to follow Mia's lead. Now she just had to hope she wasn't making things worse . . . though honestly, she didn't see how things could be worse. She definitely just jinxed herself, but whatever.

"Anyway," she said, "I guess the brochure didn't say much, because you weren't spotlighted on the tour. We got to see the River Phlegethon, the Cocytus, the arai, the poison glade of Akhlys, even some random Titans and giants, but Nyx . . . hmm, no, you weren't really featured."

"Featured? Spotlighted?"

"Yeah," Percy seemed to be warming up to her idea. "We came down here for the Tartarus tour — like, exotic destinations, you know? The Underworld is overdone. Mount Olympus is a tourist trap—"