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He sensed them before he saw them. It was the same sensation he’d felt on the stairs past the Door of Orpheus. And on the plains overlooking Erebos. He recalled the passage through the stone cliffsas they passed down the Acheron, Will asleep at his feet, all those eyes observing him.
Now shadows moved out from behind Nyx’s chariot, and he saw them again.
Those eyes.
Theyglowed.
There were so many of them. Ten? Twenty? He wasn’t sure. At first, they looked like little blotches and smudges, like someone had taken a brush with black paint and dabbed it against a canvas. But as they got closer, Nico saw arms. Legs. Spikes. Some had protuberances from their backs; another had tusks jutting from the sides of its mouth; yet another had something like antlers growing from its head, its body long and sleek like an otter.
They approached with jerky, unsure movements, hesitant to be near Nico, and he felt his knees go weak, his stomach pitch downward. He could hear Will next to him, asking him what was going on, but Nico couldn’t answer, couldn’t do anything but fall to his knees as the shadow creatures snapped at one another, jostled and shoved and snarled, and Nyx seemed to tower over them all.
‘Nico,’ she said, ‘you should finally meet your children.’
‘I literally do not understand what’s happening,’ said Will, and he knelt in front of Nico. ‘What are those? She can’t be serious about the whole “children” thing, can she?’
Nico swayed.This can’t be real.
But it was.
Bob raised his broom. ‘I can destroy them in a heartbeat,’ he said. ‘Just give me the word, Nico!’
But the son of Hades rose quickly, his hands up. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘You can’t!’
‘Why not?’ said Will, his eyebrows stitched together in confusion. ‘Nico, we have toleave.’
‘You know what they are, don’t you?’ said Nyx softly, and she cast her gaze down upon the baby demons at her feet.
Nico looked up at her face.
A fragment of a memory struck him then. He had no context, no details – just a gut feeling that he’d seen this before: Maria di Angelo staring at him like this when he was much, much younger.
‘Cacodemons,’ he said.
‘Cactus what?’ said Will.
‘I told you about them,’ said Nico. ‘That’s what Nyx creates – cacodemons.’
‘Oh, right,’ he said. ‘Her children. Personifications of negative emotions and feelings.’
Nico glanced over at Nyx’s other children.
Hypnos, who could put anyone to sleep in an instant.
Epiales, who had filled both Nico’s and Will’s minds with the most horrible of nightmares.
Nemesis, who was obsessed with retribution.
And now …
‘She made more,’ said Nico.
‘I can see that,’ said Will.
‘Fromme.’
Will’s mouth dropped open. ‘I’m sorry,what?’
‘You knew without me having to tell you,’ said Nyx. She lowered herself to the ground and contracted until she was just barely taller than Nico. ‘You knew exactly what they were.’
