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The voices hissed and cried out.
You can’t leave.
You can’t escape what you’ve done.
Failure.
Join us.
Come join us.
Nico stumbled, and Will spun around. He needed to land the canoe, moor it to something, so he could climb out. All he had to do was stick out an oar and …
The oars.
No!
He had completely forgotten them. They must have fallen out when he had flipped the boat to make a shelter for Nico!
Panic filled Will. He looked back at his boyfriend, whose figure was getting smaller on the riverbank.
So Will grabbed the gunwale and he, too, jumped out of the boat, keeping a tight grip as the Acheron’s freezing waters ran over his bare skin. He was finally ready to admit that wearing shorts had not been the brightest idea. An unbearable pain ripped through his body, and this time it felt like the souls of the punished were clinging to his legs. The boat was being pulled downstream by thecurrent, but Will held on to it as he took a tentative step towards the bank. Then, with a scream of frustration and agony, he heaved the canoe onto the shore. He dragged it with jerking movements until it rested completely on the mossy ground.
Only then did Will allow himself to collapse.
He lay there, staring up at the diseased sky, his every breath a painful rasp. Thankfully, Nico soon arrived.
‘Will,’ he breathed out. ‘Will, you’re okay.’
‘I hate this place,’ said Will, struggling to sit up.
Nico actually laughed. ‘It’s really terrible, isn’t it?’
This time even Will couldn’t resist. He fell into laughter with Nico until the son of Hades was doubled over, coughing into Will’s chest.
‘We look hideous,’ said Will. ‘Like Aphrodite’s worst nightmares.’
Small Bob trotted up to them, and Will was suddenly overcome with emotion at the sight of the cat. He held out his arms, and Small Bob crawled into his lap, where he promptly curled up and started purring.
‘Thank you, Small Bob,’ said Will.
The three of them sat there while Will and Nico caught their breath, which still hurt from the acidic air. But it wasn’t as bad as it had been a few minutes ago. By the time Will felt rested enough to rise from the ground, he’d noticed that the greenish-yellow mist only hung lightly in the mangrove forest. He could make out the twisted roots of the trees and now saw there were other plants, too: thin reeds with puffy ends shooting out of the ground; a leafless clump of bushes, their branches covered in thorns. Dark vines with small grey flowers hung from the mangroves.
‘So this is the swamp,’ said Will. ‘It’s sort of … peaceful here.’
‘Peaceful?’ Nico spat out some more phlegm. ‘Really?’
‘I don’t know! In its own way. It’s so quiet here. And the longer I’m in the Underworld, the more I have to accept that it’s nothing like what I thought it would be.’
Nico raised an eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’
He gestured to the mangroves. ‘It’s like in Persephone’s garden. There’s no sunlight at all, and yet these plants all seem to bethriving.’
Nico fidgeted in place. ‘Well … yeah. Like I said before, life finds a way, even here.’
Will stepped closer to Nico. ‘I’ve been kinda closed-minded, haven’t I? That bothered you,’ he said. ‘And so have a lot of other things I’ve said, right?’
Nico shrugged. ‘It’s not a big deal.’
