When they came-three men in business suits, with false smiles and cold, pitiless eyes-Nico kicked and bit and scratched.

"Go away!" he screamed, and they actually fell back a couple of steps before making another grab for him. "I want my mother!"

"Shut up," said Bianca tightly. Part of her wanted to roll on the ground howling with Nico. But that was babyish behavior, and she wasn't a baby, and what did it matter who wanted to take them where, anyway? Their mother was dead. Bianca had seen the explosion, could still see the flash of light behind her eyelids when she closed them, but that wasn't how she knew. She had felt her mother's spirit slip from the world of the living to the world of the dead. Nico had felt it too. But he was too young to understand.

"Miss Di Angelo," said one of the men appealingly, like he expected her to help him with Nico, like she was on their side. Fat chance. Maybe she wasn't biting him, but-he thought he could handle Nico? Let him try. "Your father wants you two to come with us."

"That's a lie!" Nico yelled. "He wouldn't send us off with strangers, without even talking to us-"

"He's very busy," said the man. "He told us to take you to a place where you'll be safe, a good place, and he'll come for you later."

While the man was talking one of his associates got Nico around the waist. Nico twisted, and the man's arm tightened-tightened and changed, the nails growing long, and Nico started screaming in real pain. Bianca could feel the difference in her gut, the same way she felt the difference between alive and dead, and before she knew what she was doing she charged the man, head-butting him in the side so that he dropped Nico, if only in sheer surprise.

"You don't touch him," Bianca panted. "You don't-" The-it wasn't a man, it was a thing-clapped its hand over her mouth, stopping her words, and lifted her off her feet.

Nico cried out, "Help! Somebody help us!" But they were both captured, and the creatures, not bothering to pretend anymore to be people, unfolded their wings and took off into the shadows.

It was cold, and darker than any shadow Bianca had ever known. The dead pressed in on all sides, souls on their journey from life to death, hurrying Bianca and Nico and the three creatures along with them. The souls drank all light, swallowed Nico's cries for help without leaving an echo.

It was like a nightmare. The sort where Bianca knew what was coming, but couldn't shake herself awake, and no one heard, and no one helped, and there was nothing to do but live through it until it ended the way it always did, headfirst in the river with the water filling her nose and mouth.

Only this time someone came. A soul, traveling in the opposite direction. It burned so brightly Bianca could hardly stand to look at it, but she could see it was a boy a few years older than herself, and he was smiling like he thought he'd done something really smart.

And Nico reached for him, gave a great wrench and tore himself free from the arms of his captor-and fell. She heard his terrified scream in the silence of the shadows, high and faint and suddenly, sickeningly cut off-

Bianca woke up, shaking and breathing hard. She couldn't remember what she'd dreamed, but she knew she wanted hot chocolate. And maybe some of those chicken wings with the tangy dressing. So she called room service.

While she was waiting, the last scraps of the dream fled, and her terror with them. All that was left was an ache right behind her breastbone, like she had misplaced half herself somewhere. There was no reason for that she could think of, and she felt so stupid about it that she nearly called the room service people back and canceled her order. But then they'd have gone to a lot of trouble for nothing, wouldn't they, and Bianca would look even stupider, and anyway she wanted those chicken wings.

She was looking for some change to tip the room service lady with, and finding nothing in her bedside table but a small rectangle of stiff plastic, when the knock on the door came. There was steam rising off the hot chocolate and marshmallows floating on top, and the wings smelled great. "I'm sorry," said Bianca, "I don't have any-"

"You can charge everything to your Lotus Cash Card. You're holding it right there," said the lady in a friendly voice, like it was a mistake anyone might have made. Bianca still bristled.

"I know what a credit card is." She did, too. She wasn't a baby, like-

Like who?

And were these the pajamas she'd worn when she'd gone to bed? She'd thought those had stripes, but-no, they were printed with some sort of blue cartoon animal, of course they were.

She went back to bed, snuggled under the blankets and watched a movie as she ate her snacks, which were just as delicious as they'd smelled. The Lotus Hotel and Casino was a good place.

But somehow she couldn't get back to sleep, so she went down to the arcade. She had nearly beat her best score in a shooting game when she felt a presence behind her.

Rattled, she missed her next shot and got blown up by the bad guys. She wasn't in a very charitable frame of mind when she turned around. The man standing there was wearing some sort of tunic and a gold circlet on his head, and his beard was pointed like a spear. None of that bothered Bianca-you got a lot of weird types at the Lotus-but there weren't many people at the arcade at this hour, and they mostly kept to themselves.

"I'm sorry to trouble you," said the man, "but I can't figure out this game, and you seem so at home with these machines. My daughter was always better at this sort of thing than me."

Bianca looked around, and was reassured by the sight of a solid-looking security guard by the door. She could always call him if this guy turned out to be a creep.

"Okay," she said, and followed him to a corner of the arcade. There was a curtained booth there, like an old-fashioned nickelodeon-Bianca thought she'd seen one before, but she sure had never seen it in the Lotus, where they always had the latest stuff.

The man seemed to blend into the shadows in the dark corner, and Bianca realized something-something that weirdly made her feel safer with him. "You're dead, aren't you?"

"For many years now, Mistress," said the ghost with a thin-lipped smile. "I might have known that you wouldn't be easy to fool. Most gods, you know, favor their sons, but your father always saw the potential in you as much as in your brother."

None of that made any sense, and part of it made Bianca feel like she'd swallowed a lump of ice. The ghost slipped inside the booth and Bianca pushed the curtain aside and followed him, whatever caution she'd started out with forgotten. "I don't have a brother," she said.

"Don't you?" said the ghost.

A movie was playing on the screen. A black and white one, naturally. There was a woman sitting on a couch, and a man standing and talking with her, but there was no sound, and Bianca couldn't see them well. The woman's face was hidden by a veil, and the man stood with his back to the camera. Bianca's attention was arrested instead by the two children playing around their feet. She caught a glimpse of the girl's face as she ran between the couch and a table, and recognized herself with a jolt. She didn't look much younger-it couldn't have been that long ago-but she didn't remember-

And the boy, tumbling over the top of the couch. "Nico," Bianca whispered. Her throat felt so tight she could barely get the word out. She never cried-she didn't think she ever cried-but there were tears running down her face that she didn't remember starting.

When you got right down to it, there wasn't much Bianca did remember.

The ghost was watching her watch the movie, the same faint smile on his face. At that moment it was only the knowledge that he was already dead that stopped Bianca from trying to kill him with her bare hands. She tried to tell herself that it was some trick of his, some lie, but she knew it wasn't.

"Nico died," she said. "There was-"

The movie changed. It was in color this time, the warm colors of a Mediterranean summer, and that was achingly, inexplicably familiar too. Bianca wondered if she knew the couple walking along the rocky beach-teenagers, a dark girl and a tall, wide, boy-but she didn't feel the jolt of recognition until they came up to another boy.

Bianca's breath caught. He'd shone so brightly the last time she'd seen him, and now he was just ordinary-looking. Small and skinny, with dark skin and darker hair, sticking-out ears poking through his curls. But the light Bianca had seen in him was still there, hidden beneath the surface. He was so-

He'd let Nico fall to his death. If he hadn't been there-if Nico hadn't reached out for him-well, probably whatever had happened to Bianca would've happened to Nico too. And she was okay. This boy had as good as killed Nico.

"Who are they?" said Bianca.

"They should be dead." Until now, the ghost had spoken in a careless drawl, as though nothing he said mattered very much, but now Bianca heard the steel underneath. "And your brother should be alive. Now I ask you, is that fair?"

Bianca knew the answer to that one. "Life's not fair."

"Isn't it fortunate," said the ghost, pronouncing the word like a curse, "that neither you nor I has anything to do with life? There is a way to restore the balance. I could teach you."

"Tell me," said Bianca. "Tell me everything I need to know."

In the shadows of the little movie booth, Bianca thought for a moment she could see another presence, small and solemn-eyed, shaking its head and mouthing wordlessly at her. But when she turned to get a better look, it was gone.

Over the next while-Bianca hadn't noticed before, not until she had a purpose, how hard it was to keep track of the days at the Lotus-the ghost told her about her father, Hades, lord of the dead, and about her own powers. When she asked about her mother and Nico, he was more evasive, but those memories were slowly starting to come back on their own. He never told her anything about himself except his name, which was Minos.

It sounded familiar, like Bianca really should have known it, and she tried to look him up in the library-it turned out the Lotus had a really nice library. But it was creepy to go in there and always see the same people sprawled in the same comfy armchairs, never looking up from their books. Didn't they ever have to go to the bathroom or anything? Anyway, the library didn't have any books on Greek mythology.

Minos taught Bianca how to travel through the shadow, and how summon the dead, and slowly she grew more skilled at bending them to her will. She trained against skeleton opponents in the gym-the Lotus' gym was even creepier than the library-and learned the ritual that would bring Nico back. A life for a life.

It was hard to leave the Lotus when the time came. If Minos hadn't been pushing her, she probably wouldn't have been able to do it. And as soon as she went outside, she felt disoriented and gross all of a sudden, like she'd just woken up from an unplanned afternoon nap on the couch, and now it was midnight.

But gradually her head cleared, and she realized: she could do whatever she wanted. Minos had warned her that there were monsters outside the Lotus, eager to kill demigods, but Bianca had never completely trusted him. Even if there were monsters, Bianca knew how to fight. She could handle them. She could find her father, ask him her questions. She could even do what ordinary kids did. Go to school, make friends. Grow up.

But not without Nico.

"Move quickly, Mistress," Minos muttered by her ear. "Every moment you hesitate increases the danger."

"I know what I'm doing," Bianca said. She set her teeth and stepped into the shadows. They were as cold as ever, and Bianca had to remind herself that she wasn't a scared, helpless little kid now. She was in control, and she knew where she was going.

The bank of the Lethe, where Nico had fallen, where her powers were greater, close to her father's realm. Bianca made her offering, poured her libation, and chanted the spell of summoning. At the end of it, she raised her arms. "Leo Valdez, appear!" she intoned.

He had been dead, Minos had explained to her, and part of him was still dead. Like any other dead soul, he would come to her call.

It hadn't worked when she'd tried to call Nico or her mother. But it worked on Leo. He came-and he brought friends.

Bianca wasn't sure what the girl was, but she wasn't mortal; there was no part of her soul Bianca's powers could touch. And the dragon was a dragon, and also an automaton. Bianca had thought the summoning would be the hard part, but it looked like she had a fight ahead of her. And Minos-like she'd suspected he might if things started to go wrong-had disappeared.

But it was easy to call spirits to fight for her this close to the underworld, and the siege she laid slowly wore away at their defenses, while they still didn't know who it was they were fighting.

They couldn't get away, but somehow they managed to bring in reinforcements. Bianca recognized the man who joined them from the movie Minos had shown her, and although she wasn't sure why he was grown up when the rest of them weren't, she knew he was another one who'd cheated death.

She also wasn't sure how the immortal and the dragon managed to escape without her minions stopping them. But that didn't matter; Bianca wasn't after them, and by the time they came back with help, it was too late. Bianca's army of the dead drove Leo and his friend into the shadows, and then she had him.