Page 132 of Blood of Olympus

“Right in front of us.”

Her cerulean eyes flitted around, uncertain, landing on something about six inches above Charon’s head. “I miss you, old friend,” she whispered.

Charon’s face cracked into a dimpled grin. “I’m right here.”

Aphrodite huffed an amused breath when I relayed his message.

“Tell her I love her,” Hades said. “Tell her we are both so proud of every decision she’s made thus far, and that she has the key to stopping him already.”

“And that, though we cannot wait to be reunited, we hope that day is a very long, long way away,” Persephone added with a small smile. “Charon, are you coming?”

The ferryman in question shook his ghostly head. “Not just yet.”

She nodded once. “Don’t dawdle, my dear. It’ll only make it harder in the end. For both of you.” Her eyes locked onto her daughter once more, as if committing her form to memory.

Then they both stepped up to the archway leading to the Elysian Fields, looked back just once, smiled, and vanished.

Two tears dashed down my cheeks, landing on Nyssa’s face, looking horrifyingly like she was crying herself.

What must it have been like, to have grown up being so completely loved for exactly who you were, not who you would one day become, or what you could one day do for someone?

I nearly scoffed aloud at myself when I realised — I already knew.

Nyssa loved me like that. Just as I was.

It was the greatest gift I’d ever been given.

“They’re gone,” I said around a lump in my throat.

Aphrodite’s lower lip trembled. “Goodbye, Charon,” she whispered, looking up at the starry night sky now visible — and devastatingly beautiful — on the Isle.

“Until we meet again, Aph,” he replied softly, looking up at the goddess of love and desire with stars in her tear-filled eyes.

“Take Arch back to Aegis,” I said, conjuring a wobbly shadowgate out of thin air. “Go with them, Evie. I’ve got her from here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she nodded, spinning on her heels to collect our shellshocked friend. All three figures disappeared into the darkness.

Nyssa chose that moment to rejoin the living. She cracked one eyelid open, then the other, and two shattered irises stared back at me. A heartbeat later, she jolted upright, almost smacking me in the face in her haste.

“Mama? Papa?” she called, looking around for them wildly. “Charon, where did they go?”

When Charon could not answer, she turned to me. “Caelus, please tell me. Did I do it? Did the arches get fixed?”

I nodded.

Horror flooded her. “Please tell me that was a horrible nightmare and I didn’t really steal Hephaestus’ soul to finish it…”

I shook my head, relief slumping her shoulders for all of a second before I told her the truth of it. “You didn’t steal anything. Hephaestus gave it up willingly⁠—”

“No,” she sobbed, her gaze landing on the place where he’d lain.

“Aph, Arch, and Evie are waiting for us in Ephemeron. Your parents are back where they belong in the Elysian Fields” — tears tracked freely down her cheeks now — “and Aros is waiting for me back in Strathos.”

“I didn’t even get to say goodbye…”

Visibly stowing away her devastation, she straightened, and made to get to her feet.

“Easy there, Deadly. You just passed out.”