A week has gone by since Gaea got defeated by Leo and Octavian, with the help of Leo's bronze dragon, Festus. Even though it was mostly Leo, Nico thought, Octavian just didn't want to be the bad guy. Something was wrong about Leo's death, though, Nico didn't feel the soul entering the underworld. He told Hazel about it but it seems like she either did not want to talk about it or she just wasn't as sensitive as Nico. He did spend a lot of time with ghosts to learn one or the other trick from his half-siblings, who were mostly dead, though, about following and tracking people's souls, and their bodies if they decide to be reborn. All that commitment was mostly for Bianca, Nico admitted, but now he was glad to have done that in his past. He was happy to be away from the dead for some time, the boy actually enjoyed being under the living, especially now that somebody new was in his life: Will Solace.
Feeling that he was drifting away from his thoughts, As always, Nico muttered to himself, he tried to focus again on Leo. For the past few nights he had been looking for Leo's soul in the underworld, even if he himself did not feel the son of Hephaestus entering it. How could he be dead then?
After what felt like several minutes in trance, Nico opened his eyes and looked at the clock in his cabin. 3:27 am. He spent almost four and a half hours in meditation and it only felt like a maximum of fifteen minutes. The first time, Nico had been shocked but now he was used to it, still being puzzled why his body betrayed him even with the knowledge that time goes by faster in real-life as his group of friends called life at Camp Half-Blood or just not being in the underworld. Nico remembered the situation Percy using this word in a meeting and therefore throwing Hazel off track. She still didn't know everything in our modern world; heck, she haven't even played on an XBox yet!
Normally, the group just did not explain the word at all and let her simmer in her lack of knowledge, all grinning and watching Hazel trying to figure out what it meant. Eventually, either Annabeth or Frank would explain it to her, Frank because he just couldn't let his girlfriend down and Annabeth because she couldn't stand to let down the opportunity to teach somebody something new. For the other crew members it was a silent betting game- some thought that Annabeth would break down earlier, others gambled on Frank. For everybody's surprise, Leo explained "real life" to her with a story and some medical facts which he probably looked up on his Wii to impress his friends. He compared it to their life, bringing the underworld as an example. Since then, they teasingly referred to real-life when they were talking about being in the world of the mortals, to remind Hazel of her inexperience.
Tracking Leo, Nico felt a strong emotion filling his friends soul this time: Love. But how could this be? He had never felt a dead person experience Love before. That was impossible. There was only one possible reason: Leo was not dead and Nico was right about his guess that his friend did not enter the Underworld. But what could have happened then? Nico set his goal for the morning to tell his friends and find Leo.
