The Labyrinth breathed.

Its stone walls shifted with low, grinding groans, passages stretching and folding in on themselves like a living thing that could never decide where it wanted to exist. Torchlight flickered sickly yellow against carved symbols and half-erased runes. The air was damp, cold, and tasted faintly of dust and old magic.

Nico di Angelo moved through it like he belonged there.

At eleven years old, he already looked nothing like the boy who had arrived at Camp Half-Blood a year ago. His hair had grown long—dark curls brushing his shoulders, usually falling into his eyes. His skin was pale to the point of translucence under the torchlight, and he wore black from head to toe: an oversized jacket, dark jeans, scuffed boots that echoed softly against the stone. He walked with quiet confidence now, but there was something hollow in the way his shoulders sloped, something tired in the way his gaze stayed fixed forward.

A year since Bianca died.

A year since the world had cracked open and never quite fit back together.

“Careful, boy,” King Minos’s voice echoed through the corridor, disembodied and sharp with authority. “The Labyrinth does not take kindly to hesitation.”

Nico stopped at a branching path, eyes narrowing as he studied the shadows. “It’s shifting again,” he said flatly. “Left passage collapses in thirty seconds.”

Minos appeared beside him, spectral and regal, his ghostly crown glinting faintly. “You are learning,” the king said, satisfaction laced through his voice. “Few living souls can sense its moods as you do.”

Nico didn’t respond. Praise meant nothing to him anymore.

Minos watched him for a moment longer than necessary. “Remain here,” he ordered at last. “I must attend to another matter. Do not wander.”

Before Nico could reply, the ghostly king dissolved into mist, his presence fading into the stone.

Silence rushed in.

The Labyrinth seemed to exhale.

Nico stood there alone, torch crackling softly in his hand. Without Minos’s voice filling the space, the quiet pressed in—heavy, suffocating. His chest tightened. He leaned against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold stone floor, knees drawn up.

“I hate this place,” he muttered, though his voice held no real heat.

The shadows stirred.

At first, he thought it was just the Labyrinth adjusting again. Then the air changed—warmer, softer, carrying something achingly familiar. The torchlight flickered, dimmed, then steadied.

“Nico.”

His breath caught.

Slowly, he looked up.

She stood a few feet away, faint but unmistakable. Bianca’s form shimmered, translucent and pale, her dark hair tied back the way she used to wear it. She looked exactly as she had the last time he’d seen her—older, steadier, wearing the same jacket she’d had when she left him.

For a moment, Nico couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.

“Bianca?” His voice cracked on her name.

She smiled sadly. “Hi, piccolo fratello.”

The sound of her voice shattered something inside him.