His voice was heavy with bitterness—more than Jason could understand. He knew that Nico had blamed Percy for getting his sister Bianca killed, but they’d supposedly gotten past that, at least according to Percy. Piper had also mentioned a rumor that Nico had a crush on Annabeth. Maybe that was part of it.
Still… Jason didn’t get why Nico pushed people away, why he never spent much time at either camp, why he preferred the dead to the living. He really didn’t get why Nico had promised to lead the Argo II to Epirus if he hated Percy Jackson so much.
Nico’s eyes swept the windows above them. “Roman dead are everywhere here… Lares. Lemures. They’re watching. They’re angry. ”
“At us?” Jason’s hand went to his sword.
“At everything. ” Nico pointed to a small stone building on the west end of the courtyard. “That used to be a temple to Jupiter. The Christians changed it to a baptistery. The Roman ghosts don’t like that. ”
Jason stared at the dark doorway.
He’d never met Jupiter, but he thought of his father as a living person—the guy who’d fallen in love with his mom. Of course he knew his dad was immortal, but somehow the full meaning of that had never really sunk in until now, as he stared at a doorway Romans had walked through, thousands of years ago, to worship his dad. The idea gave Jason a splitting headache.
“And over there…” Nico pointed east to a hexagonal building ringed with freestanding columns. “That was the mausoleum of the emperor. ”
“But his tomb isn’t there anymore,” Jason guessed.
“Not for centuries,” Nico said. “When the empire collapsed, the building was turned into a Christian cathedral. ”
Jason swallowed. “So if Diocletian’s ghost is still around here—”
“He’s probably not happy. ”
The wind rustled, pushing leaves and food wrappers across the peristyle. In the corner of his eye, Jason caught a glimpse of movement—a blur of red and gold.
When he turned, a single rust-colored feather was settling on the steps
that led down.
“That way. ” Jason pointed. “The winged guy. Where do you think those stairs lead?”
Nico drew his sword. His smile was even more unsettling than his scowl. “Underground,” he said. “My favorite place. ”
Underground was not Jason’s favorite place.
Ever since his trip beneath Rome with Piper and Percy, fighting those twin giants in the hypogeum under the Colosseum, most of his nightmares were about basements, trapdoors, and large hamster wheels.
Having Nico along was not reassuring. His Stygian iron blade seemed to make the shadows even gloomier, as if the infernal metal was drawing the light and heat out of the air.
They crept through a vast cellar with thick support columns holding up a vaulted ceiling. The limestone blocks were so old, they had fused together from centuries of moisture, making the place look almost like a naturally formed cave.
None of the tourists had ventured down here. Obviously, they were smarter than demigods.
Jason drew his gladius. They made their way under the low archways, their steps echoing on the stone floor. Barred windows lined the top of one wall, facing the street level, but that just made the cellar feel more claustrophobic. The shafts of sunlight looked like slanted prison bars, swirling with ancient dust.
Jason passed a support beam, looked to his left, and almost had a heart attack. Staring right at him was a marble bust of Diocletian, his limestone face glowering with disapproval.
Jason steadied his breathing. This seemed like a good place to leave the note he’d written for Reyna, telling her of their route to Epirus. It was away from the crowds, but he trusted Reyna would find it. She had the instincts of a hunter. He slipped the note between the bust and its pedestal, and stepped back.
Diocletian’s marble eyes made him jumpy. Jason couldn’t help thinking of Terminus, the talking statue-god back at New Rome. He hoped Diocletian didn’t bark at him or suddenly burst into song.
“Hello!”
Before Jason could register that the voice had come from somewhere else, he sliced off the emperor’s head. The bust toppled and shattered against the floor.
“That wasn’t very nice,” said the voice behind them.
Jason turned. The winged man from the ice cream stand was leaning against a nearby column, casually tossing a small bronze hoop in the air. At his feet sat a wicker picnic basket full of fruit.
“I mean,” the man said, “what did Diocletian ever do to you?”
The air swirled around Jason’s feet. The shards of marble gathered into a miniature tornado, spiraled back to the pedestal, and reassembled into a complete bust, the note still tucked underneath.
“Uh—” Jason lowered his sword. “It was an accident. You startled me. ”
The winged dude chuckled. “Jason Grace, the West Wind has been called many things…warm, gentle, life-giving, and devilishly handsome. But I have never been called startling. I leave that crass behavior to my gusty brethren in the north. ”
Nico inched backward. “The West Wind? You mean you’re—”