Page 68 of The Court of the Dead
Nico had no dreams.
He found the silent sleep even more unsettling. When he woke for lunch, he felt like he’d risen from the dead rather than from his bunk—and Nico knew what rising from the dead was like better than most people.
He worried that the lack of voices in his nightmares meant his unknown enemies were done with threats. Now they simply intended to act. He would have preferred to believe that Asterion had overpowered the mythic-nappers. Maybe the bull-man had knocked their heads together, stabbed them with knitting needles, tied them up in yarn, and was now heading home with Arielle and Quinoa. Nico suspected that was too much to hope for.
As Will and Nico traversed the Via Principalis, they found that the mood of the legion had shifted dramatically overnight. They saw no graffiti, no troublemaking or dark glances. They heard no whispered complaints or snide comments about monsters. All five cohorts had turned out in full armor. They hustled through camp, reinforcing the battlements, stockpiling harpoons for the ballistae, preloading catapults, and making sure there was plenty of boiling oil. The Romans really knew how to welcome visitors, and they obviously didnotlike someone threatening one of their praetors.
Outside the First Cohort’s barracks, Centurion Terrence was giving his soldiers a pep talk. Standing next to him was Johan and a legionnaire who looked like…Nico had to do a double take. Yes, that was the kid who’d tried to prank Johan and gotten himself frozen with the dodecahedron a few days before. Now he stood with his hand on Johan’s shoulder/forehead, nodding along with his centurion’s speech like he was serving as a character witness for the blemmyae.
“An unknown intruder came intoour territory!” Terrence bellowed. “Stoleourguests from their beds!”
The legionnaires yelled for vengeance, banging their spears against their shields.
“Our honor as hosts, as Romans, as demigods has been tarnished!” Terrence continued. “The mythics deserve better! We will letno more harmbefall them!”
Legionnaires hooted and shouted in agreement. The former prankster next to Johan raised his fist. “I, Lucius Silver, son of Mercury, pledge my life to protect this blemmyae! He shall not be harmed while I draw breath. Who is with me?”
The entire cohort cheered. Johan looked stunned by the commotion and also moved to tears. He sniffled and wiped his enormous eyes, mumbling his thanks, and made a heart shape with his hands to show the cohort. If the blemmyae had had a throat, Nico imagined there would’ve been a lump in it.
“That’s encouraging,” Will observed as they walked on.
Nico nodded. He felt salty that it had taken the disappearance of three mythics and a threat against Hazel to change the legion’s mind, but he supposed it was better late than never. He was glad he had Will to remind him of the bright side. Nico tended to daydream about the side where he summoned an army of skeletons to smack a little sense into the Romans. For some reason, Will considered that idea “too dark.”
Orcus was enjoying a similar surge in popularity. The tiny griffin held court outside the coffee shop, recounting the story of last night’s abduction to an assembly of Lares, wolves, eagles, and fauns. In this version, though, Orcus had fallen asleep valiantly, struggling to keep his eyes open as he crawled toward the unseen intruder, determined to claw their eyes out and save Asterion, but alas, to no avail.
Maynard Thee Faun worked the crowd, holding out a hat for donations for “the defense of New Rome,” despite the fact that none of the crowd had pockets or used money.
“Little dude is a hero!” Maynard shouted. “Give it up for Orcus!”
The griffin preened. As far as Nico could tell, he didn’t fart once.
Nico and Will had lunch at the officers’ table as planned, though there really wasn’t much else they could do to prepare.
Even Semele agreed the plan was solid, though coming from a wisp of smoke, Nico wasn’t sure what that meant. He realized how hard it was to read the eidolon’s emotions without being able to read her body language. Still, he chose to believe that her approval was a good thing, especially since she had to have seen alotin her centuries of existence.
The rest of the camp seemed ready for the worst. Yazan, Deion, Savannah, and the kid from the First Cohort, Lucius, had volunteered (nay, demanded) to stand sentry outside the principia’s entrance all night, each gingerly holding a Cocoa Puff. They said it was the least they could do for the mythics. Frank would be inside the praetors’ office as a second line of defense. He’d already called dibs on the cacodemon Anger because he felt like they’d work well together.
Will and Nico would be downstairs in the vault with the mythics and Hazel. Again, everyone would have a Puff, which would serve as their canaries in the proverbial coal mine. Semele didn’t understand that reference, so Will launched into a ten-minute explanation of the phrase.
Nico knew Will was deeply nervous like the rest of them because he was talking a mile a minute. Willalsopointed out that there might be more than one mythic-napper. They’d heard two different voices now—one low and gravelly, the other a high-pitched, singsongy ball of threats—so they couldn’t be sure how many people might be working together. Nico kindly asked Will to stop bringing up facts that made everyone feelworse.
“Okay,” he relented. “I’m just saying this whole thing stinks like Mr. D’s feet on his pedicure days.”
Nico wrinkled his nose. “Dude, that was…so unnecessary.”
“But you know I’m right.”
Hazel let out a long sigh. “If this is what your conversations are going to be like, it’s gonna be a long night.”
Frank smiled. “Almost makes me glad I’ll be upstairs, but I’d still rather be at your side.”
“I know,” Hazel said. “I’ll be fine. The intruder won’t catch me off guard again.”
“I hope you are right,” said Semele next to Nico’s shoulder.
Nico dropped his grilled-cheese sandwich in alarm. He had forgotten the eidolon was there. He really needed to figure out how to explain “personal space” to a non-corporeal being.
“You are still learning to control the Mist,” Semele continued. “You will be facing an entity who likely has been using it for millennia.”
