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the sun hadn't set yet.
the shadows from the trees were large, and made it feel like it was the middle of the night. it was cold, too. i shivered in my leggings.
fortunately, we found tracks almost immediately. scuttling marks made by something with a lot of legs. we began to follow the trail. we jumped a creek and heard some twigs snapping nearby.
we crouched behind a boulder and peered over, but it was only the stoll brothers tripping through the woods and cursing. i rolled my eyes. their dad may be the god of thieves, but they were about as stealthy as my dad on a surfboard. i let out a small giggle at the memory.
once the stolls had passed, we forged deeper into the west woods where the monsters were wilder. we were standing on a ledge overlooking a marshy pond when i tensed in realization.
"this is where we stopped looking," i muttered.
nico diangelo. son of hades from the 1940s. we grew close, and i adopted him after he called mr. d 'the wine dude', a nickname that remains to this day. it's been six months, and we're no closer to finding him.
it made my heart hurt.
"i saw him last night," percy said.
i looked at him confused, "what do you mean?"
he told me about the iris-message he got last night. nico had been burning mythomagic cards and was talking to a spirit. they were talking about a soul-exchange to bring bianca back.
i stared at the shadows the trees created. "he's summoning the dead? that's not good."
"the ghost was giving him bad advice," percy said. "telling him to take revenge."
"yeah..." i agreed. "spirits are never good advisers they've got their own agendas. old grudges. and they resent the living."
"he's going to come after me," percy said. "the spirit mentioned a maze."
