Page 134 of Blood of Olympus

“Be happy, Char,” Nyssa whispered, her voice breaking.

“Always.” He pressed a ghostly kiss — or tried to — against her ichor-and-tear-stained cheek, offered me a nod since I wasn’t exactly kissable, at least to him. “We’ll see each other again.”

“I hope so,” she breathed as he drifted slowly over to where his eternal resting place waited.

“Wait! I have one question before you go,” I said.

Charon turned to look back over his shoulder. “What’s that?”

“What was your lie?”

His brows crashed together, then a second later he grinned. “Nobody can beat Hermes in a footrace.” He winked, then stepped up to the arch.

At the last second, Charon turned around, facing us both. It seemed there was so much left unsaid between us, but it all really just boiled down to two: love and regret.

“I’ll see you soon enough. Both of you,” he said. “But until then, live enough for all of us. There was a checklist of things I wanted to accomplish laying about somewhere.” He winked. “Beings I wanted to sleep with⁠—”

“Char,” Nyssa groaned.

He just levelled her with that dimpled grin that looked so much like mine could sometimes, and said, “Now go send that bastard back where he belongs.”

With all the ease in the world, Charon took one step backwards and disappeared into the Elysian arch — this time, for good.

And though I’d been expecting it — though we both had — the immediate absence of Charon hit like a minotaur with a sledgehammer and all the strength a pissed off bull could possess.

Which was a lot.

Tears flowed steadily down Nyssa’s heartbreakingly ichor-stained cheeks. After a few seconds, she blinked up at me, letting me see beyond the mask she so often held in place for everyone else.

“He’s really gone, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s not coming back this time… is he?”

“No, Nightshade. He’s not. But just because Death has claimed him… just because he resides somewhere else, doesn’t mean he’s not still with you.”

Her lower lip trembled and in that moment, I felt more helpless than I’d ever been.

I placed a palm over her heart. “He lives on in here, too.”

She closed her eyes as two more tears rushed down her beautiful, broken face, and then she fell into me. It was with the juxtaposing feelings of rightness and fresh grief that I held her close.

I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, but eventually, Nyssa pulled back, her tears dried up.

“We have work to do,” she said, the steady hum of resolve pulsing along our soul-bond.

“We do.”

“Let’s get you back to Strathos.”

With little more than a twitch of her fingers, a perfect, solid doorway appeared — and then, she laughed. “What’s that face for?”

“What face?” I asked with scrunched up brows.

She tapped my lips with one long finger. “The pout.”

“I’m not pouting.” Though even as the words spilled past my tongue, I knew the lie they held within them. I was definitely pouting.