Page 40 of The Sun and the Star

He shifted his head just a bit, his breath even and slow, and his gaze fell upon …

Will.

Nico’s pulse quickened. He would have recognized that bushy blond hair anywhere. Will was splayed on the ground about six metres away, completely still aside from the gentle rise and fall of his back as he breathed.

And that shadowythingwas looming above him, its appendages – almost like tentacles – swaying over Will’s body as if casting some kind of spell. ‘Sleep, demigod,’ it said in a slimy, slippery voice.

Nico acted without thinking. He pushed himself up with one hand, and with the other he drew his sword.

‘Get away from him,’ said Nico.

His dark blade glowed fiercely as he held it towards the monster, pointing the tip towards … well, this creature only had the vaguest shape of a body, so Nico just guessed where its head might be. For all Nico knew, he was targeting one of the being’s armpits.

Nico probably didn’t look all that threatening anyway.

The creature shifted towards him, pulling in all its appendages. As it did so, the darkness encasing it drifted away like birthday-candle smoke, leaving somethingbehind. A vaguely humanoid shapewith arms, legs, a chest, a head (whichwasin the place Nico had guessed) and …

A face. Beneath a black spiked helmet of Stygian iron was a visage as shiny and slick as tree sap. Other details fell into place: half a dozen milky-white eyes, a chiselled V-shaped jaw and a triangular bone-like protrusion that might have been a beak or a nose. Their emaciated body was wrapped in inky, form-fitting cloth, and their appendages folded elegantly behind them so it looked like they were wearing a cape.

Nico didn’t want to tell the creature that they were supercool, but …

They were supercool.

‘Nico di Angelo,’ they said, and their words seemed to slither under his skin. ‘Finally, you might put up the kind of struggle I was expecting.’

‘I’ll do more than that.’ Nico jabbed his blade towards the creature, though it was hard to look intimidating when he was propped up on one arm and his legs felt like wet sandbags. ‘What have you done to Will?’

The creature smiled – at least Nico assumed that’s what the jagged line of pointy black teeth indicated. ‘I only pushed him towards what he wanted. His mind did the rest.’

‘What he wanted?’ Nico’s stomach twisted. ‘If you hurt him, I swear … Who evenareyou?’

The creature’s smile shrivelled and died. ‘WhoamI?’

‘Well … yeah. I don’t recognize you. Do you work for my father?’

‘Asif!’ the creature roared. ‘Ew, why would Ieverdo that?’

‘I don’t know. You’re down here, you aren’t in Tartarus, and I’ve never seen you or your kind before. You haven’t exactly given me a lot to go on.’

‘Honestly, I’m offended,’ they said. ‘I know whoyouare. Do you not do your own research into demons?’

‘I – What? Research?’

The demon dropped and sat cross-legged in front of Nico. ‘It’s ludicrous,’ they said. ‘Just ludicrous. Here we are, roaming the Underworld, sending our choicest monsters and spirits back to the upper world to give you demigods something todo, and you can’t even muster up the slightest bit of interest in who we are?’

Nico blinked. ‘I’m so lost,’ he said. ‘ShouldI recognize you?’

‘I would hope so!’ The demon threw their hands up in despair. ‘I visit youallthe time.’

‘No, you don’t!’

‘I just did!’ they hissed.

Nico lowered his sword.Justvisited him?

The answer came to him suddenly, and it was soobvious.

‘The time loop on the stairs,’ Nico said. ‘None of that happened. That was you.’

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