Breaking the Gods

chapter 6

Nico took Anubis's advice to heart and proceeded carefully. Or at least as carefully as he could. When he spoke to Percy later that night he made no mention of Jason Grace. And he left him out of his official report to Chiron the next night, when he shadow traveled back to Camp Half-Blood to report what he'd found out so far. He let them know the rumors about the Blue Ward, and how none of the lights in the school were strong enough to make a rainbow and get an Iris Message through, but didn't let them know that they weren't the only ones looking into the school and trying to figure out what was driving half bloods crazy.

The night after that, he went to Brooklyn House. Nothing of particular interest had happened at the Heart of Liberty Prison (which was what Nico thought the school really should be called) or else he would have gone back to camp to report it, or at least to Percy. But Nico hadn't noticed anything new that was strange, and hadn't gotten himself moved to the Blue Ward yet. He knew he had to try to make that happen soon, but not too soon, or else whoever was running the prison might realize he was there to spy on them and bring them down.

So he went to check in with Sadie and Carter, bracing himself for Sadie's wrath as he shadow traveled onto the balcony. With all the wards on the place, that was the easiest thing to do. He could have brought himself directly into the mansion, and had done it before, but it took more energy to do that than it was worth.

The other residents of Brooklyn House greeted Nico warmly when they saw him as he made his way through the mansion, and Nico paused to exchange a few words with each of them. Felix, Alyssa, and Walt he talked with a bit longer. Felix chattered happily and trailed after Nico, asking all kinds of questions. Did he know how mad Sadie was at him? Was that demigod really just mad about the Mythomagic booster packs' release date? How was Percy? Had Percy killed anything lately? Was Nico finished with whatever he was doing? How long would it take him to finish?

Jaz took pity on Nico when he saw him trying to get away from the younger boy, and enlisted Felix in helping her with something magic and complicated that Nico couldn't even begin to understand even when Anubis tried to explain it to him.

He ran into Walt in the hallway and the two exchanged a few tense words. Nico was actually left out of that conversation though. It was Anubis who needed to talk to Walt about several plans they were making for the future. Plans that involved Walt's rapidly approaching demise. If Walt was annoyed to find that Anubis had let Nico in on the secret, he didn't show it, but then he probably knew that Anubis and Nico had few secrets that the other couldn't discover if they pried hard enough.

Alyssa was the last one he ran into before he found the Kanes. He found her carrying a huge block of clay wrapped in plastic and immediately moved to help her.

"Let me get that for you," he said as soon as he saw her and what she was doing. He quickly relieved her of her burden and was rewarded with a warm smile.

"Thanks," Alyssa told him. "That was heavy."

"I – uh – yeah," stuttered Nico, not sure what the best way to respond to that was. If he agreed, he might look like a wuss, but if he claimed that it wasn't heavy, it might sound like he was demeaning her. "Uh, I mean, where are we taking this?"

"One of the rooms downstairs," said Alyssa. "I commandeered it for Path of Geb studies."

"Oh?"

"But since almost no one else has any interest in those, it's pretty much my personal pottery workshop for now," said Alyssa as she fell in step beside him.

"Oh. That's cool. That you have your own workshop I mean, not that no one else likes your path. Because Geb is cool," said Nico, stumbling over his own words again. "Earth powers are cool."