ENTRAPPED ₂

85

MADELEINE HAD NEVER HAD ANY PARTICULAR REASON TO BE SCARED OF THE DARK (EXCEPT FOR NIGHTMARES, REALLY) UNTIL NOW.

Nyx was forty feet tall. She had black wings, a whip made of stars, and a shadowy chariot pulled by vampire horses.

Truthfully, she 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 Madeleine feel heavy and sleepy, her eyesight dim.

The goddess's chariot was made of the same material as Nico's sword―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 the demigods. 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."

Madeleine noticed Percy eyeing the horses as they nickered. Madeleine couldn't make out his face very well through the Death Mist―clearly not a very good disguise, if Nyx could see them―but she didn't think he liked what 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 Akhyls kill you. Such fine prizes, I will kill myself!"

Madeleine didn't feel particularly courageous, but her wit was what defined her as a child of Hermes. Compared to her friends, Madeleine didn't feel particularly scared, either―she felt sad and tired and shattered, and incredibly reckless.

"Don't kill yourself," she called.

The silence was heavy. Madeleine glanced at her friends, like: Please, help me.

Annabeth cleared her throat. "Yeah!" she said. "We're not that scary."

Gods bless Annabeth Chase, honestly. They would be dead ten times over if not for her.

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

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

"Ha, ha," Percy said weakly. "No, we wouldn't."

"Understandable if she's nervous, though," Ethan said, in a voice that was definitely stronger than Percy's. "I am pretty intimidating, you know."

"Very," Madeleine agreed sagely.

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.

"You're a little hard to see," Ethan called, "but that might just be my lack of eyeball."

"I think she's Night, Ethan," Annabeth said―she sounded like she was smiling. "I mean, I can tell because she's so dark and everything, though the brochure didn't say much about her."

"Nothing at all, if I remember," Madeleine noted.

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

Annabeth patted her pockets. "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 his friends' lead. Now Madeleine just had to hope that they weren't making things worse―though she didn't see how things could get much worse, at this point.