Pain is an interesting thing. You think you have reached your limit and you can’t possibly feel more tortured. Then you discover there is still another level of agony. And another level after that.
Child of Hades, what more could I do to you? You are perfect! So much sorrow and pain!’ Nico gasped. His eyes flew open.
Your voice is your identity. If you don’t use it, you’re halfway to Asphodel already.
Percy grunted. “Believe me, some days I regret the choice. Oh, you want to turn down our offer? Okay, fine! ZAP! Lose your memory! Go to Tartarus!
Somebody once told me that a hero’s bravery has to be unplanned – a genuine response to a crisis. It has to come from the heart, without any thought of reward.
The whole crew sat on the deck, without a storm or a monster attack to worry about for the first time in days, and ate ice cream. Well, except for Frank, who was lactose intolerant. He got an apple.
Wrongly chosen, wrongly slain, A hero Valhalla cannot contain. Nine days hence the sun must go east, Ere Sword of Summer unbinds the beast.
For a moment, Nico felt like a little kid again. He was tempted to blurt out, That’s so cool! Even before he got into Mythomagic, he’d been obsessed with pirates. Probably that was one reason he’d been so smitten with Percy, a son of the sea god.
Piper was maybe the most impressive. She fenced with the giantess Periboia, sword against sword. Despite the fact that her opponent was five times larger, Piper seemed to be holding her own. The goddess Aphrodite floated around them on a small white cloud, strewing rose petals in the giantess’s eyes and calling encouragement to Piper. ‘Lovely, my dear. Yes, good. Hit her again!
I’m all about doing the impossible.
How did you decide when someone was irretrievably lost – when they were so evil or toxic or just plain set in their ways that you had to face the fact they were never going to change? How long could you keep trying to save them, and when did you give up and grieve for them as though they were dead?
Complaining of unfairness is like assigning blame, Percy Jackson. It does no one any good.
Nico realized how ridiculous it sounded. He’d never told anyone about Jules-Albert – not even Hazel. But he kept talking. ‘Hades had this idea that I should, you know, try to act like a modern teenager. Make friends. Get to know the twenty-first century. He vaguely understood that mortal parents drive their kids around a lot. He couldn’t do that. So his solution was a zombie.
I’M PRETTY GOOD at multitasking, so I figured I could flee in terror and argue at the same time.
I am the son of Hades. I go where I wish. The darkness is my birthright.
We only fail when we stop trying.
The darkness is my birthright.
Nico didn’t like to be touched, but somehow this brief contact with his father felt reassuring – the same way the Chapel of Bones was reassuring. Like death, his father’s presence was cold and often callous, but it was real – brutally honest, inescapably dependable.
The other thing that troubled me: Dad was clutching his workbag. Usually when he does that, it means we’re in danger. Like the time gunmen stormed into our hotel in Cairo. I heard shots coming from the lobby and ran downstairs to check on my dad. By the time I got there, he was just calmly zipping up his workbag while three unconscious gunmen hung by their feet from the chandelier, their robes falling over their heads so you could see their boxer shorts. Dad claimed not to have witnessed anything, and in the end the police blamed a freak chandelier malfunction.
It’s not how long you live that matters. It’s what you live for.