Where You Go ― Jason Grace

xi. the gentle west wind

EVEN AFTER TWO MILLENNIA, Diocletian's Palace was still impressive. The outer wall was only a pink granite shell, with crumbling columns of arched windows open to the sky, but it was mostly intact, a quarter-mile long and seventy or eighty feet tall, dwarfing the modern shops and houses that huddled beneath it.

Ophelia caught glimpses of the winged dude flitting in and out of the pink granite windows, but it was like trying to look directly at one of those squiggly things that appear in your peripheral vision.

"We've got to catch him," Jason said. "Hold on."

Ophelia sighed, double-checking that her shoes were tied. Once she saw that they were, she activated them, watching the wings flutter out from the sides of the converse. 

She had to admit—it was a pretty useful gift. 

"But—" Nico started.

Jason grabbed Nico and lifted him into the air, Ophelia close behind.

Nico made a muffled sound of protest as they soared over the walls and into a courtyard where more tourists were milling around, taking pictures.

A little kid did a double-take when they landed. Then his eyes glazed over and he shook his head, like he was dismissing a juice-box-induced hallucination. No one else paid them any attention.

On the left side of the courtyard stood a line of columns holding up weathered gray arches. On the right side was a white marble building with rows of tall windows.

"The peristyle," Nico said. "This was the entrance to Diocletian's private residence." He scowled at Jason. "And please, I don't like being touched. Don't ever grab me again."

Jason tensed. "Uh, okay. Sorry. How do you know what this place is called?"

Nico scanned the atrium. He focused on some steps in the far corner, leading down. "I've been here before." His eyes were as dark as his and Ophelia's blades. "With my mother and Bianca. A weekend trip from Venice. I was maybe... six?"

"That was when... the 1930s?" Jason asked.

"Thirty-eight or so," Nico said absently. "Why do you care? Do you see that winged guy anywhere?"

"No..." Jason answered. "I just... can't imagine how weird that must be, coming from another time."

"No, you can't." Nico stared at the stone floor. He took a deep breath. "Look... I don't like talking about it. Honestly, I think Hazel has it worse. She remembers more about when she was younger. She had to come back from the dead and adjust to the modern world. Me... me and Bianca, we were stuck at the Lotus Hotel. Time passed so quickly. In a weird way, that made the transition easier."

"Percy told me about that place," Jason said. "Seventy years, but it only felt like a month?"

Nico clenched his fist until his fingers turned white. "Yeah. I'm sure Percy told you all about me."

His voice was heavy with bitterness—more than Ophelia could understand. She knew Nico blamed Percy for getting his sister Bianca killed, but they'd supposedly gotten past that, at least according to Percy. Piper had also mentioned a rumor that Nico had a crush on Annabeth. Maybe that was part of it.

Still... Ophelia didn't quite get why Nico pushed people away, why he never spent much time at either camp, why he preferred the dead to the living. She really didn't get why Nico had promised to lead the Argo II to Epirus if he hated Percy Jackson so much.

Ophelia let her eyes scan over their surroundings. There were dozens of ghosts—maybe a hundred or more. There were so many that their translucent forms sort of blurred together. And none of them looked particularly happy—though, ghosts rarely looked happy.