Nico di Angelo was ten years old when he ran away from Camp Half-Blood.

He didn’t tell anyone. Not Percy. Not Chiron. Not the campers who looked at him with pity or fear or whispered his name like it was something dangerous. He left in the dead of night, clutching his Mythomagic cards so tightly the edges bent, his skull ring cold against his finger.

Bianca was gone.

The camp felt wrong without her—too loud, too bright, too alive. Every laugh felt like an insult. Every sunrise felt unfair. Nico didn’t belong among heroes who still had families, still had futures.

So he let the shadows take him.

They peeled open beneath his feet like a mouth, swallowing him whole. The air grew colder, heavier, pressing against his lungs. Nico stumbled through tunnels of black stone, guided by grief more than skill. He didn’t know how he knew where he was going—only that something deep and ancient was pulling him downward.

The Underworld.

When he emerged, the ground was obsidian and the sky was ash-gray, stretching endlessly above him. Rivers murmured in the distance. The dead watched silently as the small boy walked past, his face streaked with tears he refused to wipe away.

“Bianca,” he whispered, voice breaking. “I just want to see her.”

The throne room loomed ahead—vast, shadowed, impossibly tall. Nico’s legs shook as he stepped inside.

And there, upon a throne of black stone and bone, sat Hades.

The god’s presence filled the room like a storm held perfectly still. His eyes—dark as the deepest grave—locked onto Nico instantly.

“So,” Hades said, his voice echoing like the closing of a tomb. “My son finally comes to me.”

Nico froze.

“…My what?”

Hades stood, shadows rising with him. He descended the steps slowly, stopping a few feet away from the trembling boy. For a moment, his expression was unreadable—ancient, weary, something dangerously close to sorrow.

“Niccolò di Angelo,” Hades said. “Son of Maria di Angelo. Son of the Underworld. Son of me.”

The world tilted.

Nico’s breath came out in a broken sob. “You’re lying. You’re a god—you’re all liars. You let her die. You let Bianca—”

“I did not,” Hades said sharply, then softened. “And I have watched you suffer for too long.”

Nico dropped to his knees, grief pouring out of him like blood from an open wound. “I just wanted her back.”

Hades knelt too—an act that would’ve shocked the dead themselves. He placed a cold, steady hand on Nico’s shoulder.

“I cannot return her,” he said quietly. “But you are not alone anymore.”