The camp had never sounded like this before.

Even after the alarms stopped screaming and the last echoes of battle faded into the trees, Camp Half-Blood stayed loud in the worst possible way—groans of pain, shouted names, the frantic scrape of stretchers being dragged across gravel. Smoke still clung to the air, sharp and bitter, mixing with ambrosia and blood until Nico felt sick just breathing it in.

He’d been ordered back to his cabin hours ago.

“Rest,” someone had said. Maybe Will. Maybe a counselor. Nico didn’t remember. He remembered shadows pulling at him, his body drained from shadow-traveling reinforcements into the fight, his head pounding hard enough to blur the edges of the world. He remembered asking—once, twice, more—where Will was.

“In the infirmary.” “Still there.” “Too busy.”

So Nico waited.

He sat on the edge of his bed in the Hades cabin, fingers dug into the hem of his jacket, shadows coiling restlessly along the walls. He tried lying down. He tried standing. He tried convincing himself that Will was fine—that Will always was. He was the golden boy of Apollo, the healer who smiled through chaos, who fixed the impossible.

But hours passed.

Then more.

Night fell, and still Will didn’t come.

Nico pressed his palm to his chest, the familiar ache of worry twisting into something sharper. He hated this part—being shut out, being useless, being told to wait while the person he loved ran himself into the ground for everyone else.

By the second night, Nico was barely holding himself together.

The infirmary was a war zone.

Beds lined every available inch of space. The air buzzed with magic and desperation, Apollo kids moving on instinct alone, hands glowing weakly as exhaustion ate through them. Will hadn’t slept. He hadn’t eaten. He wasn’t even sure how long he’d been standing.

Time had stopped meaning anything.

He was running on pure adrenaline when they brought the last patient in.

Critical. Barely breathing. Too much blood lost. Chest crushed, lungs filling fast. Someone shouted stats Will couldn’t process, and suddenly he was there—hands pressing down, glowing gold, trying to force life back into a body that was already slipping away.

“Stay with me,” Will begged, voice breaking as he worked. “Come on—please—”

The glow flickered.

The heartbeat stuttered.

Will screamed for help, for more ambrosia, for anything, hands slipping in blood as he started CPR, counting breaths through tears he didn’t realize were falling.

Nothing worked.

The light in his hands died.

The flat, merciless tone cut through the infirmary like a blade.

Dead.

For a second, the world went silent.

Will stared down at his hands—red, shaking, useless. His chest locked tight, breath coming too fast, too shallow. Someone touched his shoulder, saying his name, telling him he’d done everything he could.

He couldn’t hear them.

He’d never lost someone like this. Never had life slip through his fingers no matter how hard he tried to hold on. The reality hit all at once, crushing and unbearable.

“I— I just—” His voice cracked apart.

Before anyone could stop him, Will pulled away.

He ran.

Barefoot, bloody, breathing like he was drowning, Will tore through camp, past cabins and shattered lanterns, past demigods who barely had time to register him. He didn’t think. He didn’t plan.

He just knew where he needed to be.

The Hades cabin door burst open without a knock.

Nico jerked up instantly, shadows flaring as he spun—

—and froze.

Will stood in the doorway, chest heaving, eyes wild and glassy, hands still stained red. His golden glow was gone, replaced by something raw and broken that made Nico’s heart drop straight into his stomach.

“Will?” Nico whispered, already moving.