this new world is dark and full of terrors, but so is Nico.

three

After eating, Nico fell into an uneasy sleep beside Rebecca.

He dreamed about his sister and Thalia. Away from the campers, Thalia and Bianca sat outside of Cabin 8. A sphere of dead grass surrounded Bianca. She curled herself into a tight ball. Her head rested on her knees. She wore her floppy green hat. Thalia, at her side, looked even more uncomfortable, as if Apollo had asked her to drive for a second time. She picked at the dead grass. In a low whisper, Thalia told Bianca about her brother Jason and how he disappeared from her too. Nico wanted to yell liar. They weren't like Thalia's sad story. He and Bianca weren't gone from each other forever; he was right there.

Nico shouted Bianca's name. His shout grew louder and louder with every iteration. He ran toward her and Thalia. Each step he took, it felt like he was pushed two steps backward. He reached out his hand, a shadow extended, and he roared, "Bianca!"

Bianca's head snapped up. Her big brown eyes stared at him with knit brows, "Ni—"

The dream dissolved into nothing.

Covered in sweat, Nico gasped and shot straight up.

He clutched at the heavy blanket. Blinking blearily at his surroundings, he half-understood what he saw in front of him. He was in a small space. A cabin on the island of Dressrosa where there were humans, fishmen, and toys. It was a country ruled by a man called Doflamingo, but he wasn't a flamingo; he was a pirate. Nico liked pirates. He still liked pirates, he just didn't like the pirates he had met yesterday.

Slowly, Nico checked his wound on his left side. lt was a bright red with clear indentations where Dellinger bit him, but he was already healing. He guessed with a couple more nights of sleep, he would get a cool battle scar out of it. He and Bianca were fast healers, especially if they got to sleep somewhere that was dark.

Rebecca rubbed her eyes as she sat up with him. "I have scary dreams too," she yawned.

Nico wanted to tell her he wasn't having nightmares. He didn't need to be comforted, but he couldn't swallow past the lump in his throat. He missed Bianca. Waking up in the cabin, Nico was reminded this wasn't a dream. Bianca wasn't here. Worst of all, Bianca didn't know he was in a safe place. He hated to make Bianca worry.

Rebecca glanced at the windowsill. A crease formed on her forehead. "Toy Soldier isn't here yet, it's early."

"Sorry to wake you up," Nico said, feeling bad.

Rebecca smiled at him. She rolled over and got out of bed. "Let's make breakfast before Toy Soldier comes."

It was a welcome distraction.

Nico thought he was used to hard work. For the better part of the year, he woke up to the dreadful sound of a bugle at 0-dark-hundred. There were chores and formations before breakfast. Rebecca showed him how useless he actually was. It was embarrassing for a seven-year-old to finally sit him in front of a pot of water, charging him with the super important task of watching it boil, while she flurried around him with actual breakfast foodstuffs.

"You're going to mess it up," Rebecca said baldly. "But I'll teach you later, and then you can help."

Nico groaned.

Toy Soldier knocked on the door and came in when the sun bled through the two windows and their thin curtains. He and Rebecca were already halfway through their cooling breakfast. Toy Soldier's nutcracker mouth opened in shock. He zipped straight toward them on his motorized wheel.

"Rebecca. I'm sorry to have arrived so late. You didn't have to make breakfast."

"I can do it," Rebecca said. "I woke up early and Nico helped."

Nico nodded once, his mouth full of bread and jam.

"Oh," Toy Soldier said. He set his rifle down next to one of the table's legs and hopped on a chair to sit in front of Nico. "Thank you for helping, Nico. It's nice when Rebecca doesn't have to do things alone."

Nico swallowed.

Toy Soldier did not make a plate for himself.

"About yesterday," Toy Soldier began and Nico's shoulders lowered. "Children shouldn't play so close to the ports. It's dangerous. There are pirates and young humans fetch a good price if sold, especially growing boys like yourself. You'll be strong one day."

Nico felt a chill in his bones. The pirates, Toy Soldier described, sounded nothing like the swashbuckling, mischievous pirate Jack Sparrow or the heroic and trailblazing Leif Erikson.

"I didn't know," Nico said. "But that boy, the fishman, Dellinger—"

"Dellinger is two times stronger than the average man," Toy Soldier interrupted sharply. "He can handle himself and even if he couldn't, he has a fearsome family looking out for him, unlike you."

Nico frowned. Uncomfortable digging into his insides.

"You stayed here for the night, but your parents must be worried." Toy Soldier meant it as a sentence but phrased it like an open-ended question. His voice had lowered to a tone Nico recognized as a tiptoe, and he was a field of bombs.

"No, they won't," Nico said. "My parents won't notice. My sister and I, well, our parents are important, rich, and busy. It's just been us."

It wasn't a complete lie. When Nico thought about Mammina for too long, his head hurt something fierce. He remembered how warm her hand felt when they passed the Statue of Liberty on a boat, and he remembered a fancy hotel with high ceilings and crystal chandeliers and an awful ringing in his ears. There had been a man too. A man of shadows. His eyebrows knit and there was a pounding in his head as he tried to center the particular memory.

Toy Soldier's eyes were heavy on him. His mouth opened, then he closed it with a loud snap. "It's just your sister looking after you."

"Yeah," Nico rushed out. "But, I don't need anyone else but Bianca. She makes sure I brush my teeth two times a day, nags me to wash behind my ears and eat all my vegetables, and she checks over my homework before she starts on her own."

Rebecca touched his shoulder, and Nico deflated.

"It sounds like she's doing a marvelous job," Toy Soldier said brightly. "I'm sorry if I caused any offense."

Nico nodded. He wanted Toy Soldier to know how awesome his older sister was before he did what adults did best and meddled without listening. One time in Washington D.C., a woman called the police on him and Bianca when Nico told them about how she took care of him. The lady smiled and praised his sister, but she still called the police. When the police arrived, it had been two gigantic men, each with one large blinking eye. Their breath stank like rotting goat meat. They tried to separate him from Bianca. Luckily, he and Bianca had been faster than the monstrous police officers.

"Where's your sister now?" Toy Soldier asked. "She's probably worried sick, and I'd like to ease that. Children shouldn't be sad." He clapped his wooden hands and Nico smiled.

"Last night, Rebecca told me that there are four seas and that there's paradise and this here is an island in the New World," Nico said. Toy Soldier nodded encouragingly. "But, I've never heard of those places and I don't know how I ended up here. I ate something awful... and then... and then..."

Nico blinked, tearing his eyes from Toy Soldier's penetrating blue. Boys weren't supposed to cry.

"You can stay here," Rebecca said. "I don't have my family either and Toy Soldier is always at work."

"Rebecca," Toy Soldier interrupted sternly, "that's Nico's choice. You can't decide for him, but." Toy Soldier rose and placed his hands on the table, leaning forward, his face flushed. "Until we come up with a solution to get you back to your sister, you can stay here if you would like. All children should have safe homes."

He hadn't considered what would have happened if Toy Soldier and Rebecca decided that they didn't want to keep him there. He was grateful for their generosity.

"Thank you," Nico said.

"After breakfast, I can show you around Carta," Rebecca said excitedly. She stacked their dirty plates.

"Be careful," Toy Soldier warned. "Don't stay out past sundown and stay away from the ports."

"We will," Rebecca promised.

"Where will you go?" Nico asked.

"I work a bunch of odd jobs," Toy Soldier said with gusto. "And I shall work harder with you in the house. I'll ask if they have any clothes they can spare."

Nico blushed. Despite the age difference between him and Rebecca, they wore the same size. Since his clothes were ruined from his trip in the ocean, he was forced to wear the only clothing available to him: Rebecca's. Long pants and a white long-sleeved shirt with a yellow four embroidered in the middle. Rebecca's clothes.

Toy Soldier left when he threw open the curtains and let the sunlight in. Rebecca walked him through her morning routine, which Nico guessed would become his soon enough. He followed Rebecca's cleaning routine for both the cabin and personal hygiene, then they tumbled down the flower-covered field, passing the smaller houses and into the colorful town of Carta.

"Do they make letters there?" Nico asked.

Rebecca grinned. "Carta is the mailing hub for Dressrosa," Rebecca said. With her finger, she pointed. "There's Balsa in the North. They make all of our ships and our factories are located there too. Primula is in the Northwest and that's where you go if you like-like someone. Sebio is South and they're still building after what happened with King Riku. Right there, in the middle, that's where Doflamingo lives with the rest of the family, and then, there's Acacia. It's in the Southwest and it has La Corrida."

"The bullfight?" Nico raised an eyebrow at Rebecca. "It's a town for bull-fighting?"

"What — no!" Rebecca shot him an equally confused look. "It's the name of the Colosseum: La Corrida Colosseum. It's why anyone comes to Dressrosa, to see a fight or take part and be like its legendary hero. Or, they come to Dressrosa to see its beautiful and passionate women."

Rebecca swept her arms out and twirled. "When I grow up, I will be a beautiful woman like Ms. Viola and everyone will do what I say."

Nico laughed. "Why? Because you'll be beautiful?"

"Yes!" Rebecca agreed.

Nico didn't argue with her. To him, he thought girls were pretty all right as far as people went. The gold standard being his sister. Boys his age and older, plus Grover didn't think girls were "pretty all right". Most of his peers thought girls were something special. He saw how Percy Jackson looked at the pretty girl with princess blonde curls - just like Apollo looked at Thalia, and many of his classmates looked at him when they asked about Bianca and if she had a boyfriend. Boys like-liked girls. Nico wondered when the feeling would happen to him. There was no girl he like-liked yet, or thought was especially pretty enough to compliment or hold hands with or even suffer through abuse for. Back in the silver glittering tents, he had watched as the Hunters played a game of tag with Grover. Never mind how the Hunters had turned the game deadly with their sharp-pointed arrows and knives; Grover had worn the dopiest smile.

He supposed the feeling hadn't caught up to him. Bianca told him he shouldn't worry about girls anyway as Bianca didn't worry about boys. There were much more important things, like his grades and keeping up with the school work. It was easy for him to get distracted, and the words he read often floated off the page and resembled jabberwocky. Bianca had the same issues too, but at Westover, she was at the top of her class. "I don't care about stupid boys and you shouldn't concern yourself with stupid girls," Bianca had told him over books in the library, glancing up with her glittering black eyes. "Just worry about your school books, God, and nothing else. There's a reason Father sent us to this school. We will not embarrass him."

"If you say so." Nico shrugged at Rebecca.

As Nico had glimpsed yesterday, Carta was the most colorful town he had ever seen.

All the buildings, most short and wide, were painted in blues and pinks and oranges. The roofs were an oddly appetizing candy stripe that made him think of peppermints for Christmas.

"There are a lot of toys around," Nico said. He jumped as a toy dog with wire in its middle barked at him for moving too slow. A little girl chased after the dog and a raggedy-ann Mom chased after the kid.

Name the relationship and there was a toy and human coupling. Some toys even worked storefronts and little carts. It amazed Nico.

"Yeah," Rebecca said. "I already told you that toys and humans live as one on Dressrosa. That makes Dressrosa special."

"A lot of things make Dressrosa special," Nico said. "Its women, its toys, and its Colosseum. The other islands must be boring."

Rebecca shook her head. "Toy Soldier says there is an island ten thousand feet in the sky and twenty thousand leagues below in the sea. There's an island in Paradise called Water 7 with the best shipbuilders in the world and a sea train. There are all kinds of islands. On Sunday, I'll show you when the News Coco delivers the paper: The World Economy News Paper. You'll see, it has the news on all the islands in the world. It's boring, but I like it for Sora, Warrior of the Sea. He's always fighting against his arch nemeses: Germa Double Six-Six. And he never kills anyone. That's his most important rule. "

"You would like that. You'd probably be Poison Pink," came a squeaky voice. Then came a shadow of a rock. Nico saw how it skittered in the space between him and Rebecca.

Nico spun to see a group of children, older and younger than him and Rebecca. They looked rough and smelled worse.

Rebecca curled her fists and got in front of him. "No, I wouldn't!"

"Yes, you would!" a boy with a nasty sneer shouted. "Dad says anybody that's related to King Riku is evil and should have died in the fire!"

"Yeah!" the kids chorused making mean faces at Rebecca.

Nico never liked bullies.

"Leave her alone," Nico said.

The kids paid him no mind. "The only good thing your mom's ever done was die, and your daddy probably killed himself out of embarrassment."

Nico's ears flushed red. He didn't care if the kid looked like he was on the early side of eight. He was a snot-nosed brat. Nico was going to give the kid a wedgie so bad that he'd be coughing up bits of his skid-marked underwear for weeks.

Rebecca beat him to the punch. She curled in her arm and then shoved her full body weight onto her bully. He sprawled on the ground and Rebecca didn't let him up. She punched him in the face while the other kids watched with the awe that came out of watching a big kid get thrashed by the underdog.

Nico wore a frightening glare and imitated his former platoon leader, a pimply-faced teenager by the name of Jamal, who was gentle as the sea breeze until it was time to whip them into shape. "You all better scram before I join in on the fight too."

He stepped. They ran away in all different directions.

Rebecca fell back, and her victim scrambled from under her. He took one last terrified glance at them with his pink, puffy face and joined the others. Nico shared one glance with Rebecca. Their faces were blank one moment. In the next, he let out a small laugh and Rebecca laughed too, and soon, both of them were clutching their stomachs and laughing up a storm.

"Did you see his face-"

"- he looked like he was going to cry-"

"They were so tough-"

"- then, your voice sounded like Toy Soldier and how d'you do that thing with your eyes-"

"- I can't believe you punched him in the face. I think I heard his nose crack-"

"- it was that, or down below."

Nico blanched. "That's scary. Rebecca, you can be scary."

Rebecca giggled. "It's a trick that Toy Soldier taught me."

Nico hummed. He was getting the idea that Dressrosa was a wonderland on the surface only. With anything, there were a few dark spots. It made sense while Toy Soldier was away, Rebecca needed to protect herself. From the looks of it, Nico didn't think anyone with a brain would mess with her.

"What did they mean about King Riku? He was the king before the flamingo guy?" Nico asked. "He sounded bad."

"I don't…" Rebecca trailed off, then she screwed her face up. "When he came over to visit. King Riku wasn't. Grandfather was sweet, and he told me stories. Mama always laughed when he came to visit."

Nico glanced at Rebecca from the side.

"I can't really remember what happened. One night there was a big fire and everybody was mad at Grandfather and Mama. We were on the run and I was hungry. I was five." Rebecca wiped the corner of her eyes.

Nico placed a hand on her shoulder.

"It makes sense that you're a princess," Nico said, knowing that he messed up by asking her a question but also knowing that he didn't have to dwell on it. Sometimes it was best not to talk about hard things until the other person was ready. "Only princesses have pink hair."

Rebecca blinked at him owlishly. The tears brimming in her eyes were blinked back, and there was a wobbly smile on her lips.

"I'm not a princess," Rebecca said.

"Oh, silly me, I thought all beautiful women were princesses. It must be that all princesses are beautiful women."

Rebecca glanced at him sideways. "Let's eat at a cafe. I'll tell you all about the fairies of Dressrosa."

Nico snorted. "There are fairies now? This place has more freaky things than the video I watched with Gro…" he paused with his sentence as his throat suddenly grew dry. He shivered. There was a little voice in his head that told him to dodge, so he veered to the right.

Rebecca didn't get the memo. He heard her scream, and he saw her body thrown to the side of a stone building with a sickening crack. She fell.

Anger ignited in him. Nico saw a jolly roger first.

It was the strangest jolly roger he'd ever seen. In the background, there was a tree and a slash of blue waves. Then, there was the more familiar skull with a crown. Behind the skull was a pink circle like a lion's mane or an extremely ugly feathered boa, and the skull wore a crown. The jolly roger grinned sinisterly with its big red-lipsticked lips.

Nico was on his haunches.

It took everything within Nico to not scamper over to Rebecca.

Slowly, he stood and took in the people under the strange jolly roger.

A little voice in his head, the same voice that told him to dodge, alerted him to the obvious. If their unusual appearance didn't give it away these people were bad news. They had his full attention.

"Who put these brats in our way?" screamed a guy in a yellow furry jacket. There was SNACK written in bold black letters on his back. "Is this the welcome we get from Joker? Mama won't be pleased if his citizens don't respect their betters." Spittle accompanied each word out of his mouth. Was he always so angry? Snacks usually lifted moods.

"Yeaaaah," chorused two sets of quintuplets, or were they decuplets? It didn't matter. There were ten kids his age wearing Pepto Bismol pink. Half of them were leggy brunette girls, and the other half were beady-eyed, purple-haired boys.

The youngest of the strange group was a girl around Rebecca's age. She stuck her tongue out at Nico. Nico would have stuck his tongue out as well if it weren't for the three extremely tall people hovering around Snack, the decuplets, and the girl.

The man in the middle, if he could even be called that, looked like a half-melted ice-cream cone. His beard appeared to be made out of vanilla ice cream and his body, large and round, was made out of goopy chocolate.

To the right of the ice cream man stood a woman. She was slender and wore a white, wide-brimmed hat and a pale pinstriped dress. with a wine-colored sash. Nico couldn't see her face, but there was an air around her that he didn't like. But, all of them put together weren't nearly as bad as the man completing the trio of extremely tall people.

Towering over his gang, he was the most ordinary-looking of the group. A ragged, fluffy scarf covered his mouth and he wore tight leather pants and an open leather vest. His muscled arms were folded. His eyes were an intense crimson.

Nico gulped. He wasn't sure what exactly it was about this unassuming giant of a man, but every molecule in his body told him to run in the opposite direction.

"They are of no concern to us," the man said. "We have an appointment to catch and if we miss it, that makes us late for merienda. We will not be late."

"Big Brother," they chorused and followed him. Nico read Charlotte on the man's wide and proud back as he turned around.

With each step away from him, Nico could breathe, and he found his courage.

There was no way he was going to let them get away without first apologizing. They owed Rebecca that much.

"Hey!" Nico called. "Say you're sorry for bumping into us!"

"What?" Melty hissed with a dark scowl. "You must be stupid, brat! I'll show you!" he pushed his siblings out of the way only to be stopped by the slender woman pulling her nodachi from the black scabbard hanging at her waist.

Nico's eyebrows raised. He had never seen a sword as long as hers.

"What's this, Amande?" Melty growled.

"Shirauo hungers for blood," Amande interrupted, stepping forward. "Katakuri, I will take care of this brat."

Katakuri half-turned. He inclined his head. Once more, Nico was under his unfortunate gaze. "Do what you wish," Katakuri said continuing on his way.

Melty's scowl darkened, but he did not protest. Nico was given the chance to see the back of all of them and he was relieved. If he had faced that man, Charlotte Katakuri, he was certain that he would not have survived.

His relief was short-lived. Amande took a dainty step forward and with a single slash of her sword, Nico flew backward through a wall. A brick wall.

He laid in the rubble. Dazed didn't even cover what he was feeling. Coughing up a dust cloud, he sat up and brushed the dirt and bits of brick clinging to his shoulders and clothing. So, he was a lot sturdier than he expected, which was both good and cool.

"Whoa!"

Nico tucked into a ball and rolled to the left as Amande dived forward. Her sword dug into the ground with deceptive ease. It might as well have been cake.

"That could have killed me!"

Amande's droopy fish eyes were unmoved. "You say that as if that's a bad thing. My sword has slain people mightier. You should be honored."

"Well, I'm not! I'm feeling very unhonored right now."

Dodge! pounded in Nico's head and he was doing his best to follow the single command. Sometimes, he dodged. In most of the cases, he did not. He could not. His clothing was torn with thousands of rips and he was covered in a hundred crescent cuts. Knowing when to dodge didn't help when he couldn't keep up with Amande's insane speed. If he blinked, she already surged in front of him. Smoke from her cigarette billowed in his face, her sword gleamed in the sun.

Panting, Nico was on all fours doing an awkward scuttle away from her. "If I die, I just want you to know that smoking is terrible for your lungs. It'll kill you."

Amande didn't so much as blink. She swung her sword and once more; Nico tumbled through the air into a stone building. Distantly, he heard the citizens of Carta, screaming and running away. Groaning, Nico rubbed the back of his head.

"Is this all you have to offer?" Amande asked, displeasure in her voice. "I grow tired of this cat-and-mouse game."

"You could let me go and find a better opponent?" Nico suggested.

Amande's eyes widened. "Yes, you're right," she agreed.

Nico's eyebrows knit. Amande turned away from him and she walked toward Rebecca's body. She wouldn't.

"Don't touch her!" Nico yelled.

Amande loomed over Rebecca. Her pale hands wrapped around the handle of her sword. Nico swore he heard the air sliced.

He had been behind Amande, but in his next breath, he was a barrier between her and Rebecca. Amande's sword dug under his collarbone. She twisted the sword further in. His blood draped the shining metal. Amande's expression remained unchanged, though her eyes brightened with sadistic joy.

She was one of those types. She liked to inflict pain for the sake of it. Nico hated her.

"You care about this girl," Amande said. "That's good. Very, very good." Leisurely, she cut into his flesh, slicing down his torso inch by torturous inch. Nico shrieked, nearly choking on his spit. Stopitstopitstopit. "I won't kill you. No. I'll save that for later. I will chop the girl up limb by limb and make you watch. Then, I will kill you at the height of your agony. After all, what is the point of killing another if their life ends instantly."

"You will not touch her," Nico hissed through tears.

Amande's lips curled at the corners. She yanked the sword from him. Then she threw him aside.

Her bloodied sword rested under Rebecca's neck. "Watch me," she said. She pushed the edge in and Nico let out a chilling screech.

Over the next few days, the battle came to Nico in spurts. He remembered the knell ringing shrill in his ears.

The ground under him growled with every bloodied step he took. Any sign of greenery stubbornly poking itself through the cobblestones shriveled black, and the air was cold. Frost and shadow crept over stone, toy, and person.

Still, Amande with her long neck did not look concerned with the change. "So, you are a devil fruit user. But you are young and you will learn your place."

Nico blinked. She was in front of him. He was too slow. He flung through the air with the force of her kick and he skittered across the stones before he came to a halt.

Absently, he touched the shallow hole where Amande's stiletto heel had been and he got to his feet. She came to him and he was prepared to meet her.

He thrust his right arm in front of him, his palm was wide and open. Slowly, he made a fist.

Amande, so tall and proud, dropped to her knees and clutched her sides. Her great sword clattered at her feet. Her trembling increased tenfold, but it had nothing to do with the cold. It was her bones. Nico felt all two hundred and six bones. They were his to do with as he pleased.

"What's the matter?" Nico asked. "I thought you liked pain. Maybe I'm not doing it right. You said there was no pleasure if the pain was drawn quickly."

With every minute wiggle of his fingers, he started to crush Amande's bones into dust. He began with her baby toe, then moving onward.

"Stop this! Stop this at once!"

"You know," Nico continued, "I think I'm getting the hang of this."

There were three sounds in his ears. A bell sound, his heartbeat, and the cracking sound of Amande's bones laced with her wet, gasping begs for death.

"Kill me, please, kill me!"

Nico laughed. Death was mercy. She did not get mercy until she paid for crimes. Nico demanded justice.

His hand was halfway closed. Amande's femurs and below were no more.

"Big sister Amande!" ripped through the air.

Nico paused.

Confusion bled into the cold and dark justice coursing through Nico. He had heard the horrified, maddening tone before, but when he looked down all he saw was the baby brunette girl in her pink dress rushing to Amande's side. He did not understand why he was disappointed. This girl's large brown eyes like chocolate pudding pinned Nico to the spot as tears spilled down her chubby cheeks and forehead?

"Big sister," Nico mumbled.

Cruel Amande was a big sister?

"What are you doing here? Stupid girl, go to Katakuri!" Amande commanded as she tried to shake the girl off her side and move in front of her. "Run, I'll hold him off, just go!"

"But, Big Sister, I can help-"

Nico held his head. A low, terrible moan escaped him. The air changed. Plunging to freezing temperatures, it was heavier and it carried his desperation and anguish. He missed Bianca so much. Responding to him, the earth between his feet split open and wobbled.

The girl screamed once more and clung to her sister. It was her saving grace.

Amande was a big sister. Nico couldn't take her away, though she deserved to join the nebulous, dark space of the underworld where millions of the dead chattered in his ear ceaselessly. He walked by Amande and her sister. He kept his mouth shut only glancing at them as he stole Amande's sword.

He found Rebecca. She was under the umbrella of a shadow.

Nico gathered her and the sword in his arms. He sank into the shadow, focused on getting back to the only safe place he knew, Rebecca's cabin. He didn't question how he got there so fast.

Gently, Nico placed Rebecca on the bed. He brushed her pink hair back. There was no ringing in his ears. Rebecca was safe.

Nico blacked out.

Stuck between the waking and dream world, Nico wasn't sure what was real or how much time had passed. Toy Soldier appeared before him, his cold wooden hands tight on his shoulders and he was talking to him. Trying to be comforting and not panicked. Rebecca's name clawed up Nico's throat, but he couldn't remember how to speak.

He felt somethings crawl up his body. Little, round people with threading needles held high in the air. Then, red-hot pain. Nico thrashed as he was punctured repeatedly. He was split into two and sewn into a whole. He was tethered to the blackness and shrouded in flames.

There was Rebecca's sweet voice. She whispered a story in his ear about the king of pirates. He was the only pirate worth mentioning. The best of them. He acquired wealth, fame, and power, but he cared about none of that. He only cared about his crew and adventures. When he was captured, he went to his death with an enormous smile and a cry that sent droves of people to the seas. Regret filled Nico. Why hadn't he met the king of pirates?

There was a shadow of a freckled woman holding a crying baby.

In a glittering palace of jewels, there was a man on an obsidian throne. He was long and lean like a sword and he was pale as bleached bone. His eyes were cruel and kind by turns. There was a pulse of familiarity attached to the man. Where had Nico seen him before? He tried hard to remember. Who are you? He wasn't able to ask.

It's not time yet.

It was the last push he needed.

Nico's eyes opened, and he inhaled.