The Curse of the Ghost Captain

by L. Monster

Merchant Will Solace and his crew rescue a man at sea, seemingly the only survivor of a terrible shipwreck, but he never expected the man to be a pirate. Solangelo Pirates AU, in which Nico has magical ghostly powers, Percy is a fearsome pirate with dubious intentions and Will tries hard not to die.

3. Oaths

The Curse of the Ghost Captain

CHAPTER 3

"Oaths"

Nico was three years old. He stood on wobbly legs inside a fountain in the middle of the courtyard of their family mansion. His tiny, pudgy feet kicked at the water with glee and abandon, knowing fully well that he wouldn't fall. Knowing fully well that his mother held him safely from under his armpits, and that she would not let go.

Nico turned and outright cackled with laughter. His mother smiled back.

"That's right, little Nico," she said. "That's it, caro mio."

She was so lovely under the rays of the sun. Her hair shiny and black, her olive skin glowing as the water reflected the sun onto her face.

Nico outstretched his arms, wanting to draw his fingers through his mother's hair. She picked him up gently, and Nico's fingers found the golden locket dangling from a thin gold chain around her neck.

Nico put the object in his mouth and his mother screamed.

Then everything went black.

Now, Nico was eight years old, he made his way towards his mother's apartments hand in hand with his sister, Bianca. He did not want to be here, not at all. The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky, it was a fantastic day for sailing, and Percy and Jason had promised to procure a small dinghy from one of the fishermen down at the port. Which meant to say, Nico realized with amusement, that they would steal a dinghy from one of the fishermen down at the port, and the idea only made him all the more excited and reluctant to remain another second indoors.

As they walked past a small window in the oppressive stone manor, Nico tried to stop in order to maybe catch a glimpse of the distant port, sure he'd be able to spot his friends slowly stealing an unattended boat, but his sister tugged him back into motion.

"Mother is waiting," Bianca explained.

Nico rolled his eyes.

"But it's so dark in here," he complained, looking around.

Indeed, their family manor in Venice was not used to seeing much light during the daytime, or nighttime for that matter, with its small windows mostly covered by satin drapes; its long, cool halls mostly illuminated by candlelight.

"I'm sure it'll be quick. You'll be able to join the boys in no time. In fact," said Bianca, stopping just outside their mother's apartment door, a mischievous smile on her face, "it's best you're not present while they steal whatever they're plotting to steal. This way, you won't be involved."

Nico's eyes widened.

"How do you know what they're doing?" he asked.

Bianca shrugged.

"Please," she said, straightening Nico's collar. "All they do is steal."

When they entered their mother's apartments, a strong smell of fish permeated the whole room, and with most of the windows covered up, it was almost suffocating. A faint scent of flowers wafted here and there, but it did nothing to overpower the everlasting smell of soup that so characterized their mother's rooms.

Maria di Angelo sat on a cushioned sofa, spread lengthwise like a house cat.

Nico very rarely saw their mother, as she tended to remain inside her own private quarters, and only ever left at night for a stroll around the city, which she did by herself, and with increasing frequency.

"My children," she crooned and motioned for them to sit on cushions on the floor set before her.

Nico did so quite unwillingly. He wanted to stick his head out the window and take a deep breath, but he refrained from doing so, afraid of the telling-off he would get if he dared.

Maria di Angelo had once been a legendary beauty in the city of Venice. People often said she had passed her good looks down to her children, and if Nico knew well his sister was beautiful, he didn't know if he himself was. But the lady sitting in front of them was a far cry from the legendary beauty she was said to have once been.

Her dark eyes were sunken and watery, her cheeks on the hollow side. Lack of sunlight had drained her of her once olive pallor, turning her pallid and sickly looking. She looked like the ghosts Nico often heard the fishermen down by the port describe in full detail, as if they had seen them with their own eyes.

"Bianca," their mother said, stretching out a hand which Bianca took.

"Mother," she replied, kissing her hand.

"Nico," she said, beckoning him closer.

Nico stood up rather slowly, not wanting to come much closer. She scared him now. She had scared him for a while now. She reached out and grabbed him by the elbow, pulling him close and planting a cold kiss on his cheek, then letting go just as quickly, allowing him to return to his cushion on the floor.

"How is your health?" Bianca asked, her eyes on Nico, who surreptitiously wiped his cheek with his sleeve.

Maria di Angelo sighed dramatically and threw herself back on the sofa.

"I am not well, my child. I am disappearing as we speak. I find myself between two worlds, floating in the middle, not belonging to either of them," she moaned.

Nico did not like listening to his mother whenever she was in one of her moods.

Bianca had explained to him that Mother's health was delicate, while Father had diagnosed her as being overly spiritual.

"Angelica, my love," Maria said, her eyes on Bianca. "You'll need to start visiting me more often."

"I'll come visit you every day," Bianca promised, ignoring the fact that her own mother had called her by the wrong name.

"Every day, twice a day. And once, at night. You'll have to come with me from now on, I feel your time approaches."

Nico stared at the draped window with longing, his mind somewhere else.

The two women continued to speak, but Nico did not take in a word they were saying.

When they left the room, Bianca had tears in her eyes.

"It all makes sense now. He wasn't lying to me, after all," she said.

"What's wrong?" Nico asked.

"You don't know?" she asked back. Nico frowned and shook his head.

"All the better," Bianca supplied, sounding relieved. "You won't need to know. I swear to you, Nico, this ends with me."

Percy and Jason had indeed stolen a dinghy. Nico had to swim half a mile to catch up. When he reached them, Percy stretched out a hand and hauled Nico onboard, his sea-green eyes brighter than the sun.

Then everything went black.

Nico was ten years old, sitting in front of his father, the two lonesome occupants of a small dinghy carried by the current down the canal. Nico had closed his eyes against the brightness of the sun and only when a shadow was cast upon his face did he open his eyes. The Rialto bridge had blocked the sunshine momentarily, and he took that moment of opportunity to gaze at his father's face.

The man looked grim as always, but his eyes shone brightly, so much so that Nico childishly wanted to shield his eyes yet again.

"You are special," his father said, and Nico felt himself blushing. His father had never paid him a compliment so straightforwardly before.

"Oh," was all he could manage in response. He was uncomfortable. He wanted to leave. Percy and Jason were in the piazza tricking beggars.

"Your mother knows too little, she carries more than she understands. And your sister, Bianca," he emphasized the words, as if to avoid misunderstanding. "she will do her share. As such, you must do yours."

"I don't understand," Nico said. The dinghy had sailed back into the sunshine, and this time, Nico welcomed it with open arms. "Can I go now?"

"You must go, and soon," his father said ominously.

"Thank you, father!" Nico exclaimed, and he was about to jump off the dinghy into the canal when his father's cold grip suddenly stopped him.

"That's not what I mean, child," he said.

Nico sat back down and looked remorseful.

"Have I done something wrong?" he asked, suddenly afraid his father had brought him on a leisurely ride just to punish him out of earshot.

"You have done nothing, you are innocent, and that is what matters," his father said heavily. "You are innocent, Nico, and you must remain so."

Nico frowned, confused and a little scared.

His father took a deep breath, and the seasoned sailor suddenly looked years beyond his age.

"Methinks I have taken enough precautions, but should the need arise, in the future, should the worst befall you, should you feel compelled, you must flee."

"Flee?" Nico was not familiar with the expression.

"From my oath-brothers. Should they approach you, should they try to lure you, you must flee," his father said, his voice carrying a tone Nico had never heard before.

"My uncles?" he asked, making sure he had understood.

"And their children," his father added.

"Perce and Jace?" Nico added, a frown on his face.

"They are not to be trusted, child," the sailor said, just as a dark shadow fell upon his face. Suddenly, large raindrops began to fall all around them, and Nico opened his mouth hungrily, his tongue sticking out as if to catch as many as he could.

"Swear to me," his father said, taking him by the shoulders.

"Father –"

"Swear to me!"

Nico was scared, but most importantly, he was mad. Percy's face swam in his mind.

"I-I swear," he said weakly.

Then everything went black.

Nico was fifteen years old, he sat on the floor behind a large barrel down in the wine cellar. He'd been secretly drinking wine while enjoying a scroll of forbidden verses with some pretty saucy illustrations he had stolen from one of the merchants who'd only just arrived from faraway lands, and needless to say, he was having a total blast. He couldn't wait to show this to Percy.

Suddenly, he heard the door creak open, and a few tentative steps towards his hiding place. He recognized the stealthy manner of their footsteps, those were two people not wanting to be found. Nico snickered, wondering if he'd be able to catch a couple of their servants in the act.

"We're safe here," said his sister's voice, and Nico's eyes widened.

"I don't like this, Bianca," said Percy, and Nico almost tumbled over. It was his voice, no doubt – deep, husky and yet a little childish – just the voice of a young sailor no older than eighteen, a voice that had never spoken to him with such surreptitious urgency.

"I know, but you need to understand. I can't tell you everything, for your own sake. Percy, I desperately need your help," she pleaded.

Nico could hear the rustling of clothes, and he drew a fist so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"Bianca, what are you -?"

"This," she interrupted. Nico couldn't see what she was showing him, but he knew it must be important, because Percy stopped breathing altogether.

"Is that," he finally spoke. "Is that what your mother… what she left you?"

"This one is mine, hers was buried alongside her body. It lost all its power when she died. Percy, I need your help, because I know a way to fix this, I know a way to break the curse. I need you to take me to someone, and you're the only one who might know where to find him."

"Find who?"

Bianca hesitated, as if afraid to say the name. In his hideout, Nico strained his neck to catch her next words.

"Captain Aides," she said finally.

"Wait," Percy interjected, stifling an incredulous chuckle. "You don't mean… Bianca, this is ridiculous. How would I know –"

"You would know, you are the only one who would know where to find him!" she said desperately, and Nico had no trouble making out her frustration.

"Bianca…"

"He sent me a letter, look!"

They didn't speak for a few minutes, Nico heard the rustling of parchment and Percy's incredulous gasps now and then.

"Bianca, stop," Percy said, with an authority in his voice Nico had heard once or twice before, when Percy gave orders to his gang. "You keep talking about a curse, you keep asking me to trust you and to believe you, and now you want me to take you God-knows where, and find… and find him, but you're not giving me the whole picture here, Bianca. You can't keep me in the dark like this and expect me to trust you blindly and leave everything behind-"

"Percy, this is more than just about me, or you. This is about keeping Nico safe, do you understand?"

"Safe from what? If anything, it's the world that needs to watch out for him."

"PERCY! Listen to me, Angelica cannot come for Nico, he is the last male, it will simply destroy him. We must not let this happen. She must end with me."

"You are not making any sense, Bianca."

"Close your eyes," she commanded.

In his hideout, Nico had tears in his eyes.

"Why?" Percy asked.

"You'll see. Or, actually, you won't."

They didn't speak for a long time, and by the time Bianca spoke, she was whispering so quietly Nico couldn't hear a word. But he didn't need to, because when Percy next spoke, Nico knew all he needed to know.

"Alright," Percy said, sounding exasperated but decided. "When are we leaving?"

They were running away together, and in the back of his mind, in the deepest confines of his heart, Nico knew for a fact that Percy understood a lot more than he was letting on.

As much as it pained him, as much as it broke him, Nico realized Percy was fleeing with his own sister, and now Percy was dead to him.

Then everything went black.

Nico was twenty-one years old.

"Maître, je vous en prie," said Jules Albert, standing outside the door. He could hear furniture being overthrown, the smashing of mirrors, objects being tossed against the walls.

"Leave me alone!" Nico yelled, grabbing the edges of his writing desk and flipping it with all his might. An ink pellet spun in the air and landed on the expensive carpet, black ink spreading on the soft material like a gunshot wound.

In his hand, he held a letter that had only just been delivered by his valet.

He held, in fact, half a letter, for the second half had been torn off.

Bianca had been missing for years, and Nico had been sick ever since.

The few lines on the paper, written in his sister's unmistakable elegant script, suddenly made his entire world turn upside down. He crumpled the paper in his hand and felt strangely tempted to eat it. He made a grab for the bottle of wine and downed its entire contents in one gulp, which made him swoon and trip headfirst into a mirror. He stopped himself with his fist, and the thing cracked into a thousand pieces, shards of glass reflecting his face rained over him and landed on the lustrous carpet.

He looked at himself in single shard of mirror left in the frame, and his expression made complete sense to him now.

Sunken eyes, hollow cheeks.

He reread the lines in the crumpled-up paper in his hand and let out a scream of rage. He picked up a satin-draped chaise and threw it out the window.

He could hear Jules Albert and other servants pleading outside the door.

He had cut himself when he punched the mirror, and fresh blood soaked up the crumpled-up parchment.

Dear Nico,

If you are reading this, my plan has failed and I am now dead. You are now the last Di Angelo left, and as so, Angelica must now come to you. Mother had her locket, and I had the pirate figurine. You must find a treasure of your own, and when you do, put it in your mouth, and Angelica will find you. If you don't do this, you will die. I now see I was wrong, the curse cannot be broken by yourself-

The letter ended there, where the page had been torn.

Nico reread it again and again until he had the thing memorized. Then, amidst tears of rage and in a drunken stupor, he placed the blood-soaked paper into his mouth and swallowed it whole. Then, it all went black.

Nico had lost count of his age, but it didn't matter to him anymore because he was going to die. He was going to take his life once and for all.

He couldn't live like this anymore. He couldn't handle the pain, the headaches, the throbbing in his chest, the acid in his veins, the ache in his heart, the loneliness in his soul. He was desperately alone; forsaken by everyone he had ever loved, forgotten by everyone he had ever known.

He stood with his feet perched on the shoulders of the mermaid carved onto the front of his ghost vessel, his ghost crew only a few feet behind him.

"Maître," said Jules Albert, but Nico ordered him to be silent with a shake of his head.

He looked at the vast expanse of ocean bathed in silver moonlight that spread before him, and his face broke into a grin just as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

"Light it," he commanded, turning his head to look at the dozens of barrels of gunpowder haphazardly piled upon the deck, and the single trail of the black powder that crisscrossed all the way to the tip of the ship, stopping almost directly beneath him.

His orders were followed without argument, and Jules Albert, bound by the curse that Nico held in his ring finger, suddenly burst into flames.

The explosion came instantaneously. Nico felt the pain of being ripped into a thousand pieces, felt his body fly into the sky, and for a glorious second, thought himself dead.

Then everything went black.

Nico woke up covered in sweat, tears strewing down his face. He quickly sat up and looked around the room, trying to discern his whereabouts. His heart beat madly against his ribcage, but his eyes quickly got used to the darkness and his breathing began to slow down.

His fingers trembled as he felt the tears on his cheeks and quickly rubbed them off with the hem of his shirt.

He felt horribly weak, like his efforts from the night before had stretched his powers thin to the point of snapping. He'd been feeling worse for wear for the last few months, feeling for his pulse and looking at the way his hands trembled, he knew things were not improving. Most of the time, he could fake it; sustain himself with his remedies and pretend that everything was going to be fine. But he found it harder as time went by, he was weaker by the day.

As his eyes got used to the darkness, he realized he was lying on a small cot with a straw mattress. In fact, the entire floor seemed to be covered in a layer of straw, some of it piling so high in the corners of the room he could have been equally comfortable lying there, if not for the smell of horse manure that lingered throughout the enclosed space.

Instantly, his attention flew to his hand. There it was, the Angelica curse, safely upon his ring finger.He sighed in relief, then his eyes landed on a second figure lying on a cot to his right.

Then he remembered. He remembered Will, and against all odds, in spite of the horrible memories he had only just relived, he smiled.

William Solace began to stir and Nico took a few seconds to compose himself.

He drew a hand through his hair, wiped his brow with his sleeve, then rubbed his teeth with the linen of his shirt. He looked around for a basin on which to wash his face but found no such thing.

Cursing inwardly, he decided to focus instead in the sleeping face of his current roommate.

Will Solace's ridiculously handsome face, even while he slept with his mouth wide open, still managed to retain a high degree of dignity and ruggedness that Nico both envied and couldn't get enough of.

Will opened his eyes slowly, lazily, like a jungle cat with nothing to fear.

"Where –?" Will yawned, then his eyes landed on Nico, and he all but jumped to his feet. "Nico!? Where are we? Are you alright? Where is Alex? Where is everyone?"

Nico smiled and rolled his eyes.

"Don't fuss, I'm here. That's all you need," he said calmly, loving the shock on Will's face.

"What is this place?" Will asked, looking around wildly.

"My guess is, someone's stables. Perhaps a vineyard or a cheese farm. I sincerely hope it's a vineyard."

"How can you be so calm?! We might be someone's prisoners! Whoever boarded your ship might have gotten hold of us! We're unarmed and on our own, and you're just sitting there, like nothing's wrong!" Will practically hissed, getting to his feet and running to the only window, trying to pry it open.

"Will, don't!" Nico warned, but too late. Will pulled the wooden window open with such force he almost ripped the thing off its hinges. Just as sunlight blasted into the room, blinding the two on the spot, Will recoiled as if he had touched scalding hot iron.

"Agh!" Will yelled, covering his eyes and cowering over.

"Will, you moron!" Nico yelled, getting up and rushing to the window with one hand shielding his eyes. He quickly managed to place the wooden window back in its place. "Why are you being so ridiculous? I told you, so long as I'm here, you have nothing to fear!"

"What the hell, I'm blind!" Will yelled.

"You're not blind you idiot, you're just hypersensitive to light. You should be fine if you get used to it little by little, but a sudden blast like that will hurt like a bitch," Nico explained, rubbing his eyes and sitting back down on the cot.

"What!?" Will moaned. "Nico, I LOVE sunlight! You're telling me I won't be able to go back outside anymore? Because I'll kill you. Does it have something to do with the ring and the ghosts and the magic and –"

"Will," Nico said, rubbing his temple. "I think you're focusing entirely on the wrong thing at the moment. Just shut up for a minute. I need to think."

"Where is Alex?" Will asked.

"I'm here," said a female voice directly behind Will, making him jump up and practically land on Nico's arms, who tumbled backwards as Will's entire frame fell upon him.

On the floor, one on top of the other, Will and Nico exchanged awkward looks, then Will got up and pulled Nico to his feet in one swift movement.

"Sorry," he said apologetically.

"It's fine," Nico replied, then he turned on Alex. "Explain," he commanded.

Alex opened her mouth, then Nico cut right back in.

"About our whereabouts. I don't need to know why you are clearly female now."

Alex shut her mouth abruptly, then began to explain so precisely and straight to the point, it didn't take her more than a minute.

"Cheese farm," Nico repeated smugly. "I was right."

Will threw him a look.

"Are we free to go?" Will asked the ghost, and Nico rolled his eyes.

"It's a cheese farm, Solace. They'll expect us to work for our meals, then we'll be off."

"Master is right," Alex supplied.

Will nodded curtly, then took a deep breath and threw himself back onto the cot.

"I feel like my heart is not made for this," he said, a hand on his chest. "Are you sure we are amongst friends?"

Alex tilted her head.

"Friends, I do not know. Idiots, yes."

Will opened his mouth to protest that she shouldn't be so generous with her insults, but Nico spoke before he had a chance.

"Idiots are good," he said. "If we are smart about it, we won't need to work a single day. We can make away with whatever valuables they possess and –"

"Hang on a minute," Will interrupted. "We are not stealing anything from hard-working people, you hear me, Mister Pirate Ghost-whisperer."

Nico raised an eyebrow, feeling utterly amused. He crossed his arms over his chest and asked, "And just why the hell not?"

"Because!" Will replied simply.

They stood in silence for a few seconds, glaring at each other. Then Nico threw his arms in the air, a bemused smile on his face.

"You have zero sense of adventure. Fine," he said. "But let me tell you one thing. Last time I milked a cow, I ripped off several udders."

"Nico!"

"By accident!"

Will opened his mouth to reply, but Alex suddenly broke into a fit of laughter that had the other two sharing a look.

"What?" Alex asked. "Master made a joke. I laugh. These idiots are all about jokes. If I don't laugh, they suspect."

Nico narrowed his eyes at the cross-dressing ghost.

"You are sounding more and more human by the day," he said.

Alex beamed. "Will ordered me to be more human."

Nico snorted. "Will?" he asked, as if he needed confirmation.

Will shrugged. "I don't like it when she calls me 'Lesser Master' and yes, please do. Don't let them suspect anything. If we blow our cover, who knows what these people are capable of!"

"Interesting," Nico said. "Alright, first things first. We need to get used to the light. Now, I'm going to crack the window open a little. Will, close your eyes, then slowly open them. It might take a few minutes, but you can't just walk out of here yelling 'I'm blind, I'm blind' like a downright idiot."

Will sneered at him, but a hint of a smile lingered on his face.

"Fierro," Nico said, resuming his nickname for the ghost. "You head back out there and tell our hosts we have awoken. We'll meet with them and see how things go. Our plan is simple. We get a meal. Will here, will pay it back with hard labor, or sell his body or something, then see what deal we can make in exchange for some horses."

"Where will we go?" Will asked, ignoring Nico's comment about hard labor and prostituting himself. "Can we go back to the ship?"

Nico shook his head. "The ship was destroyed. It will need a few days to piece itself back together. In the meantime, there's a place I must visit."

"What place?" Will asked, carefully filing the information concerning the destruction of Nico's ship for later.

"A certain monastery in the south tip of the island, I think we'll find some answers there. We'll need transportation, so we might have to work for that too, since you insist on us not stealing. Unless Fierro finds us some buried treasure around the area, we'll have to banter."

"Banter?" Will asked unsurely.

"Yes, dummy, what else?"

Will smiled confidently.

"Well, I'm rather good at that, now you mention it."

Alex-Fierro disappeared like vapor, leaving Will and Nico alone in the room.

Just as Nico cracked the window open, Will closed his eyes and walked in the direction of the glare under his eyelids. He reached Nico and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Nico," he said, his eyes closed. "About what happened last night –"

Nico placed a hand over Will's.

"Later," he whispered, squeezing slightly. "I promise."

Will's eyes fluttered open a tiny fraction, then he placed his hands on either side of Nico's head. He leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

"You listen well, Ghost-whisperer, only way in hell I'm selling my body is if you're buying," Will whispered, and Nico punched him softly on the shoulder, a wide grin on his face.

A few minutes later, Will and Nico walked towards the main house amidst a collection of quaint yet sturdy-looking houses. Nico had grown used to the light, but Will kept stumbling into him, shielding his eyes from the brightly orange glare of the afternoon sun with his tattered shirt.

Alex-Fierro stood by the door, deep in conversation with a young man of about their age, with long blonde hair and a straw hat.

"Your servants are up," the man declared, waving at the new arrivals.

Both Will and Nico came to a halt.

"Servants?" Nico asked bemusedly, throwing Fierro an inquiring look.

"My apologies. I assumed you were Milady's servants based on the state of your garments, I assure you, did not mean to offend," he said as he ran his eyes down Alex's ridiculous guardainfante and elegant corset, then took in Will's ripped shirt and Nico's charred clothes.

Nico opened his mouth to retort, but Will cut in quickly.

"We are indeed Milady's servants," he said, glancing at Nico out of the corner of his eye and enjoying the disbelieving look he received in return.

"I'm trading you for a horse as soon as I get the chance," Nico muttered under his breath, then quickly composed himself and offered the young man a blinding smile.

"We are deeply thankful for your assistance," Nico said, in a perfectly polite tone. "Having rescued us from a terrible shipwreck. May I have the honor of knowing to whom I am speaking?"

The young man raised his eyebrows. "Milady, your servants are too polite. They show good breeding. We are nothing but humble farmers here, good sir, but we do believe in paying it forward. Be sure to count with whatever help we can offer you, please," he said, motioning with a hand for them to enter the main house. "My name is Magnus. Welcome to Valhalla."

When they entered the grandiosely-named room, Nico snorted so loudly his throat hurt. The stone-walled room held nothing but a large wooden table, two benches on either side, and a pig.

"Valhalla?" Nico muttered under his breath, his tone dripping with irony, and Will kicked him in the shin.

"This is," Will cut in, speaking loudly in case he needed to drown whatever smart retort Nico had in mind, "wonderful, truly. Cozy and –"

"I know it's not much," said Magnus. "But it's home. Our ancestors were said to be Vikings, and we wanted to honor their memory by rechristening our humble farm after the Viking paradise. After all, this is our feasting area, where we recover our energies for another day of hard work."

"We?" Nico asked, looking around the empty room. "You don't mean you and the pig – ouch!"

Will stepped on Nico's foot and dragged him behind him as if to shield Magnus from his rudeness.

"Are there, ehem, others around, then?" Will asked.

Magnus smiled.

"The guys are just about done cooking, the others are bringing in the food. It's not often we have royalty in our farm," he bowed ridiculously at Alex, and Nico all but snickered behind Will's back.

"You are too kind," said Alex, curtsying in an altogether inappropriate way by lifting her skirt right over her knees. Will dragged her by the arm and pulled her behind him as well, not knowing who was worse, Nico or Alex.

Magnus's mouth hung wide open for a bit, then promptly closed it, motioning for them to take a seat around the table.

As they did so, Will in the middle between Nico and Alex, the back door was promptly kicked open and assortment of individuals walked in holding platters of food and jugs of drink.

Will's stomach grumbled loudly as the smell of different cooked meats hit him, then his eyes landed on the people carefully placing the food on the table.

He had rarely seen such a mismatched group in his life. There was a fierce-looking woman with red hair and a freckled face who placed two large jugs of wine and some goblets in front of Nico; an extremely large man with a sweat-stained shirt ripped in several places – a few scars visible on his chest – who carried a massive plate of what looked like the boneless meat of five steamed chickens; an African man who placed a large bowl of cabbage soup in front of Will, and two other men, one tall and fair, one short and dark, carrying trays of cheese and bread.

"Milady, and uh, Milady's servants, this is the gang. Gang, these are our guests," Magnus explained, just as everyone took their seats around the table.

"Mallory Keen," said the woman with the red hair introducing herself and reaching out for a wine jug. "I suggest you tuck in," she said. "Gunderson will not leave you a single crumb if you wait too long."

Instinctively, Will reached out for a piece of bread.

The giant man next to Mallory Keen grumbled just as he reached for a pile of meat and promptly placed it on his plate.

"You can call me T.J." said the African man politely, and Will was surprised to hear him speak with an English accent.

"And these here are the finest cooks in the land, Blitz and Hearth," said Magnus, introducing the last two members of his entourage.

Will and Nico nodded at each introduction.

"That over there is Milady," Nico cut in, taking advantage of the fact that Will had been munching on bread throughout the introductions and found himself unable to reply. "We are her servants, you may call me Plutarch, and this is Uranus," Nico said, pointing a finger towards Will.

Gunderson snorted and began to cough.

Will choked on his bread.

Nico smiled broadly and raised his goblet. "To your health," he toasted.

Then they began to eat. Everyone except Alex-Fierro, who seemingly did not know how to proceed. It might have been so long since she had had real food that she had completely forgotten the methodology. She stared at the members of the strange entourage one at a time, then she looked at Will. She carefully studied the way in which Will broke small pieces of bread and popped them into his mouth. She reached out and imitated him perfectly, but as soon as she popped the thing into her mouth, the bread went through her as if she had dropped it, hitting the bench on which she sat in such a discreet and quiet way only Will and Nico heard it, their backs stiffening.

Will threw her a look, and Alex refrained from eating any more.

Magnus stole glances at Alex from time to time, and it didn't take much time before he couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Milady, is the food not to your pleasing?" he asked. Beside him, Blitz elbowed Hearth and they both turned to stare at the solid ghost.

Nico cleared his throat.

"Milady hasn't been feeling well. After the shipwreck, it is understandable she does not have much of an appetite," he explained.

"Indeed," Will cut in. "Milady is also not used to eating in front of people. She is from a strictly traditional family, uh, an heiress from the New World, and it would be a betrayal to her beliefs to eat much in front of strangers."

Magnus frowned, but the cooks seemed utterly relieved at the fact that their food was not the problem.

"Well, that we can understand," said Mallory Keen in a strange accent. "Some of us come from different backgrounds, and if there's something we know a lot about, is foreign traditions. One thing is certain though," she said, lifting her goblet. "No one can say no to a toast with good wine!"

The entire company raised their goblets, their eyes on Alex.

Will and Nico looked at each other, just as Alex raised her goblet and took a small swig.

The quiet dripple of wine onto the bench upon where she sat was imperceptible for everyone except her two masters, who had very different reactions. Will, looking terrified, thought of ways to explain the fact that there would be a trickle of red liquid on the bench as soon as Alex got to her feet. Nico, biting his lower lip, tried hard not to burst out laughing.

The food was excellent, especially the cheese, and the conversation ranged from the commonplace to the absurd, unknowingly providing a few pieces of useful information.

"There is no way your ancestors were Vikings," Nico said, and Will threw him a look.

Magnus laughed, as did half of the company, while the other half looked simply affronted.

"I understand why you would think that. To be honest, we had no idea ourselves. Blitz, Hearth and I were born here in Sardinia to farming families that worked this entire area. It was prosperous living, we were told as kids, and it had been so for centuries," Magnus began to explain.

The fair one did a few complicated signs and the dark one interpreted for them.

"Hearth says it was dull, and he is right too. We were adventurous youths and we wanted to see the world, so we left," Blitz explained.

"You left?" Will asked. "What about your families?"

He had seemingly touched upon a sensitive subject, because the three friends shared a look.

"We left when we were just children, boarded the first ship we came across with, and sadly, after years of unsuccessful seafaring and one or two very dangerous adventures, we decided to return home. We had picked up a few friends on the way," he said, pointing at the other three members of his entourage.

"They promised us stability and riches," said T.J. "Just what we were looking for actually, because we had no home, no family, nowhere to go."

"The damn liars," grumbled Gunderson, and Keen snorted.

"So, you just came back and continued the family craft?" Will asked interestedly.

Magnus shrugged.

"Not exactly. When we returned, the land had been leveled. Pirate attack, most likely. There were no survivors, and everything had been either burned down or destroyed. We had to restart from scratch," he explained, trying to put on a cheerful face.

"I'm sorry about your family," said Will. He looked at Nico out of the corner of his eye and saw him staring at his fingernails, deep in thought.

"It's fine," Magnus replied quickly. "We made a point to honor our ancestors after we came back. I even made the trip to Cagliari to look for the sea historian just to find more about our families."

"Excuse me," Nico interrupted, almost knocking over his goblet. "The what did you just say now?"

Magnus blinked. "The sea historian? Ah, you wouldn't know about him, I guess. He's said to be hundreds of years old, I mean, I've met him and he's not that old-looking. But he does have the oldest collection of scrolls and books I've ever seen."

"Don't take that to mean much, he hasn't seen all that many of those," said Mallory Keen with a smirk.

"I never liked that sea historian person," said Gunderson. "Strange man with a strange name who asks for too much in exchange for old ghost stories and superstitions."

"Strange? How so?" asked Will.

"His name is Karen, for starters," said Gunderson, rolling his eyes.

"His name is not Karen," spat Magnus. "It's Carol. I think."

"You are being unfair," said Blitz. "We were lost at the time. He told us enough to go on."

Nico looked so shocked he held his goblet mid-air, his eyes going from one to the other.

"What did he tell you? How did he come to own this collection of scrolls?"

Magnus smiled. "He doesn't take payment, you see. At least, not in gold or silver. He will only exchange information for information. You ask him what you want to know and he will give you all the information in exchange for a source of knowledge. Books, scrolls, your entire family history –"

"Wait," Will interrupted. "You can just tell him your family history and he'll take that as payment?"

"That is correct, Uranus," said Magnus. Nico snorted somewhere across the table.

"Makes sense," Nico composed himself quickly after the dirty look Will threw his way. "That would make him extremely powerful in the right circles."

"Correct," said Magnus. "And so, he told us all about our ancestors and our Viking lineage. There wasn't much to be learned from the destruction of our families' farms, but we traded our stories in exchange for information and he accepted!"

"Where can we find this man?" Nico asked suddenly.

"Now, why would you be wondering about that?" asked Mallory Keen suspiciously.

Nico stared back at her with equally narrowed eyes.

"F-for Milady's sake!" Will cut in. "We were coming here looking for information, in fact. With concerns to… Milady's… ancient lineage."

Nico looked at the way Will stammered, adding a word as it occurred to him. He found it both endearing and ridiculous, he was torn between kissing him and rolling his eyes, but quickly changed his mind at the seriousness with which the rest of the company listened to him.

"I understand!" Magnus exclaimed. "The heiress from the New World is looking for her ancestors in the Mediterranean. That makes perfect sense!"

"Does it?" Nico mumbled, and Will glared at him.

"I will tell you how to find the sea historian," Magnus said, then went silent at a glance from his two childhood friends.

"But you've barely touched your food!" Blitz cut in quickly. "Eat up, talk later!"

Once they'd all had their fill, and the plates had been cleared, silence returned to Valhalla, broken only by the occasional thunk of a goblet being placed back down on the table, or the sound of pouring wine, which flowed freely around.

Magnus was the first to speak.

"Milady," he turned to Alex with a look both Will and Nico quickly recognized. "We are honored at having you as our guest. It must be the first time we have ever been graced with such exotic beauty and –"

Beside him, T.J. cleared his throat.

"Right," Magnus composed himself. "As you know, we are the proprietors and sole workers at this cheese farm. We live humble lives, but that is not from lack of hard-work. A livelihood in this part of the Mediterranean is hard to earn, and the food we are happy to place on your plates, alas, does not come without toil."

Alex-Fierro stared back at Magnus with unreadable eyes. A regular human would have understood and replied in kind to Magnus' implications, but Alex was not a regular human.

Will had been waiting for this moment to intercede, but before he knew how it had happened, he found himself in the middle of a telepathic conversation for the first time in his life.

"Fierro," said Nico's voice inside Will's head. "Repeat after me: I understand perfectly."

"I understand perfectly," said Alex out loud.

"We will be eternally grateful for the service and assistance you have provided us. Rest assured, when I return to my people, I will find a way to compensate you for your losses."

Alex-Fierro repeated the words Nico whispered to her telepathically.

Beside her, Will's eyes were wide open, as was his mouth.

"That will not do," Gunderson cut in. "We expect compensation in the form of work. How are we to make sure you will repay us once you've returned to your people?"

"Hello?" Will asked into the telepathic conversation. "Can anyone hear me?"

"Will, get out of my head," Nico hissed inside Will's mind.

"Will, get out of my head," Alex-Fierro repeated.

Nico flinched and smacked Will across the arm.

"Milady must be feeling under the weather," Nico explained, then mentally added, "Fierro, tell him you're feeling under the weather, that Will and I will take care of matters henceforth, and that you need to have a lie down or something. When they show you to your room, you are to leave the farm and scout the area. You know what to look for. We'll come meet you later."

Alex did as she was commanded, and soon enough, Mallory Keen had exited Valhalla with her to show Alex to her private accommodations, which turned out to be the only room seemingly not previously used as a stable.

With the women gone, the atmosphere in the room changed drastically.

Magnus and his accolades were not particularly hostile, but with Alex gone, and with the clouds of physical attraction cleared out of Magnus's eyes, the conversation took a business-like turn.

"We are not looking to gain from your presence," he explained. "We are just not keen to lose. Thirty hours of work per day will get you three meals for three people. Of course, we do not expect a lady to work the fields, as such, I'm afraid the burden must befall both your shoulders."

Nico bit his lip. "Thirty hours of work per day?" he asked with suppressed laughter, as if to make sure he had heard correctly. Will kicked him from under the table again.

"Ah," said Magnus, scratching the back of his head. "I mean, thirty hours of work put together by both of you, in one day. That would come down to fifteen hours each."

"What do you think of that, Solace?" he asked, his voice loud and clear in Will's mind.

Will flinched, surprised the telepathic conversation was still going on, despite Alex, whom he considered to be their mental link, having already left the room.

"I think I can do better than that," Will replied confidently after a few seconds, and to his left, Nico's smile broadened.

"Good sir," Will began. "I understand your farm is an excellent cheese producer. The products we have just sampled being irrefutable proof of your high quality, and we are, of course, willing to repay you. However, though we are not familiar with your farm's production line, our true talents lay beyond the area of working the fields. I wonder what other products you are keen to produce, or, more specifically, into which areas of business are you looking to expand?"

"That's your plan?" Nico asked in his mind. "Bore them to death?"

Will kicked Nico under the table.

Magnus exchanged looks with his gang. The cook called Blitz picked up the conversation.

"I've always thought we could do a lot more than sell the fleece of our sheep," he said with a shrug. "What? I think, if we somehow found the way to work them properly, we could produce some fine fabrics. Maybe even carpets? Shirts? Nice wool pantaloons?"

Will nodded seriously.

"How about you, big guy?" Will asked Gunderson, who frowned at his goblet.

"I don't like wine," he said, and his friends gasped.

"What?" asked Magnus, sounding horrified. "We spend a good part of our earnings on purchasing wines from local vineyards, and now you don't like wine?"

Gunderson smacked the table with his fist.

"I never liked it, okay? We should be making ale with the grains from the field, not selling the damn things to other farms. I'll take a good ale instead any day of the week!"

Will nodded in such a business-like way, Nico snorted.

"Oh. You're going to start a fight in the inner circle. Have them kill each other. I quite like that," Nico whispered in Will's head.

Will punched Nico on the leg.

"How about you, good sir?" Will asked T.J.

"I've always wanted to be a pirate," he said, and Nico burst into laughter.

"I can't, I simply can't!" Nico said between fits of laughter and gasps for breath. "This is too much; you guys are hilarious!"

Will threw him a threatening look, but Nico was unstoppable. He got to his feet and almost stumbled backwards.

"Listen, you are a lovely bunch. And we will be sure to repay your kindness, now, if you could only tell us how to get to this sea mate of yours, we'll be out of your delusional lives in no time-"

Will pulled him back down on the bench and glanced apologetically at the present company, who were sharing looks of confusion.

"Plutarch here is of a rather weak constitution. Please forgive the rudeness, after what we've been through, he's suffering from what we call 'survivor's ecstasy', and he doesn't mean a word he's saying," Will explained, putting a hand over Nico's mouth.

"You are being rude!" Will hissed in Nico's mind.

The tall, pale one who'd been conspicuously quiet the entire evening suddenly began making complicated gestures with his hands and fingers. Magnus nodded in agreement.

"You're right," he said, looking at Will and Nico. "It must be trauma from the accident. You look like you are in dire need of a wash, and perhaps a change of clothes. We can discuss details in the morning. Both the matter of work and payment, and the information concerning the sea historian."

Nico stopped laughing and as soon as he did, his face turned pale, his expression surly, while next to him, William sighed in relief. He would more than welcome the chance to wash of the smell of the sea that clung to his hair and clothes.

They left the main house together, night had fallen, and Will was thankful for that, as he had completely forgotten to shield his eyes as they emerged from Valhalla.

Magnus took them to what he called the 'washing area', which turned out to be a tiny room with a single basin. Outside the room, a large steel tub with a wooden lid stored their freshwater supply.

"Feel free to use as much of it as you want, just don't stick your feet into it, or, god forbid, take a dip, we do drink this water after all. Carry it into the basin with these buckets here, and when you're done, here are some clothes," Magus said, offering Will a small bundle of folded linen clothes.

Will nodded gratefully, then stared at Magnus's figure as he disappeared back into an adjacent house.

Once he was out of sight, Will sighed, realizing he had been holding his breath.

"Alright, you can go first if you want. But then, I want to hear all about what happened last night, can you promise me that?" he asked, but Nico grabbed him by the wrist and tugged him in the exact opposite direction, away from the farm and towards a small hill to the east.

"Where are we –" he stammered, holding on to the bundle of clothes lest he dropped them and they got soiled before they even got a chance to put them on.

"Fierro is waiting for us now," Nico explained, then pointed to a small orange dot on top of the hill. "There."

Will squinted in that direction. His eyes zeroed in on the small ghostly figure eerily illuminated by a bonfire, the only source of light in their immediate surroundings apart from the farm behind their backs, the moon and the stars. He was surprised he could see that far and with such distinct clarity. He turned to Nico smugly, as if to brag about his new set of eyes, but when he noticed how pale he looked, he forgot all about his incredible eyesight.

"Nico, are you alright? You look like death," he declared, then regretted his choice of words.

Nico looked at him with glassy eyes. "Let's go, I'll be fine as soon as we get there, trust me."

It was not a particularly long hike, but by the time they got to the top of the hill, Nico was completely out of breath, while Will had barely broken a sweat. They spotted Alex-Fierro quickly enough, squatting next to a small fire over which she stirred a golden, simmering liquid in an iron pot.

"Where did you get that?" Will asked. "Why are you cooking? And what are you cooking? We just ate not an hour ago."

"I scouted. There is an abandoned mill to the north," she said, banging the pot with the spoon and making a clunking sound. "These come from there. I am cooking because Master needs his remedy. This is turtle bone soup, and before Will asks his next question, the turtles come from the sea."

"Turtles?" Will asked, looking around and finding a few discarded turtle shells. "Uh, Nico? Do you mind explaining a bit more?"

To his surprise, Nico had all but collapsed on the floor next to the fire. He stared at the soup greedily while he held his ring hand to his chest.

"Master needs his remedy," said Alex, pouring some of the soup into a turtle shell and offering it to Nico, but just as the latter reached out, his strength failed him and he dropped the thing, spilling the scalding liquid on the ground.

Will knelt next to him, feeling his forehead and taking his pulse while Alex poured him another measure of turtle soup. He noticed a fallen tree only a few feet away. Getting up quickly, he kicked and pushed at the log, only slightly surprised at his sudden outburst of strength, until it had rolled close enough to where Nico sat. Gently, Will lifted Nico from under the armpits and righted him so his back rested on the log.

"Nico, what's wrong?" he asked, his eyes full of concern.

Alex handed the second turtle shell to Will instead of directly to Nico. Will tilted the makeshift container just so it spilled a few droplets between Nico's parted lips. Not knowing what he was doing, Will still had a feeling he was doing the right thing. In the back of his mind, he felt the strange urge to taste the soup for salt and pepper.

He hadn't realized how awful Nico's pallor had been until he had drunk half of the portion offered to him, and his face regained some of its original color.

Will remained kneeling in front of him, his eyes wide with questions.

"That was good. Thank you, Fierro," Nico said, his voice still a little weak, but at least he could talk now.

He looked up and met Will's deep blue eyes, the flames of the bonfire dancing in his irises.

"Sit down, dummy," Nico chided. "I'm not going to burst into flames or anything, I promise."

Will sat down next to him with a frown, his back resting on the log.

"Why would you burst into flames? And what's up with this remedy of yours? Is it really just turtle soup? No magic ingredient in there?" he asked.

Nico took his time to reply.

"We need to find the Seer-Historian, Will," said Nico, sounding almost out of breath with sudden excitement.

"I believe they called him sea historian. Why though?"

"Morons. He is called the Seer Historian. All these years, I thought he was a legend. I need information only he can provide," he replied simply.

Will frowned and crossed his arms over his chest.

"And you think this strange personage is going to give you anything worthy of any value?" Will asked. "You've known of his existence for less than an hour."

"It makes sense," Nico said. "The legends spoke of a man who's said to have lived for centuries. I never believed them, but most legends contain a little bit of truth. I always thought the stories referred to a monastery with a large collection of ancient scrolls. Whatever it is, I must go there. I must find everything I can about her, and I'm sure she was here! She must have!"

"You're not making any sense," said Will.

Nico sighed and sat in silence for a moment.

"I should have talked to you sooner about all this, once it was clear you were sticking with me, at least for the time being, but we didn't have much time to talk before you practically attacked me with impure intentions," said Nico, hoping to diffuse the tension with a joke.

Will snorted and rolled his eyes. He was about to retort when Nico grabbed his hand, silencing him on the spot.

The moon shone brightly upon them, almost as if it had chosen the same spot over that lonesome Sardinian hill from which to cast its glow onto the rest of the world. Nico's face seemed to absorb the silver light of the moon, making him look even more translucent than usual. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, relishing in the silence and the present company.

"Will, have you ever heard the story of Angelica's Ring?" Nico asked.

Will racked his brain, but nothing of the sort rung the bell. He would have thought Nico would begin by explaining to him the reasons behind his sudden escape, and Nico's emotional breakdown from the night before. He was not expecting him to tell him a story of all things.

"No," he replied honestly. "Should I have heard of it or something?"

"Perhaps not. It used to be quite a ghost story in the past, or so I've been told. Its popularity comes and goes," he replied.

Will nodded.

"Alright, then, tell me your ghost story," said Will, leaning back against the log and taking the shell of turtle soup Alex was offering him.

Nico took a deep breath, and for a second, Will thought he heard the sound of bones rattling inside Nico's chest.

"The legend goes that there was once a fair lady called Angelica, who fell in love with a foreign warrior. It was forbidden love, as it always is, because she was from a good Christian family, and he might have been from a pagan Gothic tribe. They fell in love nonetheless.

"He convinced her to run away with him, or he might have kidnapped her, and they married in a pagan ceremony that went against Angelica's every Christian beliefs, but she went along with it, for in the end, she had been desperately in love with the fearsome warrior. Eventually, Angelica found her place amongst his people, where she began to worship his pagan gods, and then she seemingly started to dwell in sorcery and obscure heathen traditions. In the end, Angelica's brother, who had been searching for her for years, found her and desperately tried to bring her back, but by then she had been driven so deeply into her husband's paganism that she cursed her own brother and, sources say, his entire lineage. Remember this part because it directly relates to me.

"It wasn't long before the brother returned with a small group of Christian warriors, intent on releasing Angelica from her marriage vows, which they considered illegitimate. Angelica's brother, Marcus was his name, singlehandedly defeated most of the men who stood in his way, but when he faced Angelica's husband, Marcus was killed, while the former got off with a mere stab wound. Guided by the beliefs of their tribe, Angelica and her husband then fashioned wedding rings out of her brother's bones, boiling them in their own blood."

"Why?" Will asked entranced, following the way Nico's lips moved.

"Are you asking me to explain to you the reasoning behind a pagan ritual from an unknown Gothic tribe? To seal their love? I don't know, moron. Stop interrupting," Nico said, pushing the soup-laden turtle shell that Will held suspended in the air into his own mouth. Will drank and coughed, then Nico took his hand and laced their fingers together.

"Not too long after, her husband died as a result of blood poisoning. The knife with which he had been stabbed had been previously poisoned by Marcus. The poems I've scoured tell of Angelica's grief at her husband's death, finding herself with no children, no tribe, no family except for Marcus's children. In a rage, mad with grief, she cast one final spell, a curse upon herself, swallowed the ring whole, and walked into the Danube, drowning herself. Her body was never found, but the poems end with the ring resurfacing some time later.

"Back in the years following the establishment of the Holy Roman Empire, stories were told about a certain ring with obscure powers, which could render its owner invisible and award him control over death. They were mostly told with the purpose of horrifying paganism, adding that the bearers of the curse and any others who dared to dwell in magic were known to die mysteriously painful deaths. But those rumors don't tell the half of it. For starters, it doesn't necessarily have to be a ring. Secondly, the curse only seems to run down a single bloodline."

Will shivered, afraid of what he would hear next. The story seemed about to leave the realm of the imaginary, and the thought made the hairs on his arm stand on end.

"I know this, Will, because Marcus and Angelica were members of an ancient lineage that I've managed to trace down to me. Marcus's descendants must have later adopted the name Di Angelo, as in, belonging to angels. Or, more specifically, of the Angels. Angelica, do you understand? Of Angelica. The lineage, my ancestors, are the bearers of the curse that Angelica cast upon her own blood."

Will couldn't bring himself to utter a single word. The only other sound was that of Alex pouring them more soup. Strangely, it felt a bit as if they were a normal party of explorers, enjoying the evening while sharing a meal and ghost stories around a bonfire, but Will's blood turning icy in his veins told otherwise.

Of course, Will had figured there had to be some sort of curse. These last few days had conjured up in him memories of stories he had heard as a child. Stories of wizards and wights, princesses and dragons, knights and curses. He felt like he should have been more surprised, or at least a tiny bit incredulous as Nico's storytelling began to soar over the imaginary, but as he took another sip of turtle soup offered by Alex – living proof of the veracity of Nico's retelling – he felt the liquid course through him like aquavit, and he decided he believed Nico one hundred percent. He nodded once signaling Nico to continue.

"My name is Nico di Angelo, and I am, undoubtedly, the last living bearer of Angelica's Ring, which in my case seems fitting, because, ring," he spoke softly, then stopped, as if he was giving Will the time to take in the information, or maybe laugh at him. Nico looked down at their laced fingers. He lifted his hand, raising Will's hand in turn. His skull ring absorbed the moonlight as if it had been made specifically for this purpose.

"The ring made out of Marcus's bones might have been the beginning of it, but the curse is not imbibed in a single object. It travels through blood. This ring," he said, wiggling his ring finger, "is the object in which I managed to contain the curse when it came to me. As far as I'm aware, it cannot be stolen, renounced, or destroyed. It is passed down Marcus's direct descendants, and it can only be held by one person at a time."

Nico spoke the last few words softly, thinking of Percy Jackson.

Will flinched, squeezing Nico's hand, and the latter stopped talking.

"Wait a minute, Nico. I have too many questions and my head is starting to hurt. First of all, what about me?" Will asked, his voice softer than the breeze that caressed their faces. "You've given me the ring before. You told me to put it in my mouth and I disappeared. We disappeared together, it can't possibly only be held by one person at a time!"

There was a certain anxiety in his voice, which he tried to swallow, but he knew he couldn't hide it from Nico, who sat deep in thought and did not reply for a long time.

"My mother, Maria di Angelo, had the curse. When I was just an infant, I accidentally got hold of my mother's treasure. Like I said, the curse is not contained exclusively in rings. In my mother's case, she held it in a locket that she carried around her neck on a golden chain. I must have been restless, playing around, I didn't know what I was doing."

Will's eyes grew wide. He could imagine Nico as a child, with the same brown eyes and disheveled hair, wobbling around in his innocence, in his purity. He recalled the way Nico had conjured up ghosts as if they were nothing but playmates, then commanded them to destroy an entire fleet of pirates. The sheer power he held in his hands was completely at odds with the image of Nico as a child he could see as clearly as if he stood before him. He wished they had some wine. Or ale, even. Anything to numb down the spikes of pity and anxiety that quickened his heart.

Next to him, Alex perked up.

"Would Will like Alex to collect some wine for him?" Alex asked in Will's mind.

Will flinched, but next to him, Nico did not seem to have heard. Will figured he might have been too enthralled in his memories to listen to his and Alex's tiny and ridiculous voices in his head.

"Can you do that without stealing from anyone?" Will asked back telepathically.

Alex disappeared without Nico even noticing. He continued with his story as if nothing had happened, which was virtually true.

"My mother had me in her arms. I tugged at her chain and her locket landed in my hand. I put it in my mouth, as children often do with whatever they happen to grab. My mother dropped me. She began to scream. I must have turned invisible, I know that now. By the time my father arrived, my mother had tugged the thing out of my mouth and I was back to normal. I seemed to have suppressed the memory for many years. Then, when the curse had only just befallen me, I got piteously drunk and misplaced my ring somewhere in the manor. I found it later, inside the breathing pipe of the house dog, who had been in agony for a few minutes. He had turned invisible and scared the living shit out of the servants. Thankfully, with the ring blocking his airways, the coughing and whimpering as well as him pissing on the floor all left some sort of trail. I had the presence of mind to follow the sounds that came from a seemingly empty corridor by the kitchens. When I removed the ring, the dog reappeared like nothing had happened. He never came close to me ever again though, but I'm more of a cat person anyway."

Will stared at him incredulously.

"You're telling me you put that cursed thing in my mouth based on experiences from your childhood trauma and your random drunken carelessness?" Will asked, nostrils flaring.

"I appreciate how you seem to be taking this astonishingly well. Saved your goddamn life, in case you've forgotten," Nico supplied, kicking Will on the shin.

Will continued to glare at him, making Nico squirm uncomfortably.

"You were only a recipient of my powers for a short amount of time, just like I was back when I was an infant, just like that dog. Don't be mad. I haven't even gotten to the bad part yet," Nico said, leaning in closer to Will and whispering into his ear, his hand sliding into the collar of Will's shirt. "You saved my life when you fished me out of the sea. You…"

Will stiffened at the feeling of Nico's breath against the shell of his ear.

"You saved my life, and you don't know to what extent," Nico whispered.

He lifted his hands and cupped Will's face, but instead of turning him to face him, he kissed him on the jaw, keeping Will's face resolutely away from him.

Will wrapped his hands around Nico's forearms and tried to turn his head to kiss him on the lips, but Nico kept him facing the fire.

"Stop distracting me, I'm telling you my goddamn woes here," Nico said playfully.

Will smiled, placing a hand on Nico's knee and settling back down against the log.

"I'll try to keep it in my breeches from now on," Will replied, putting an arm behind Nico and resting his elbow on the log behind him, giving Nico a sideways glance that spoke millions.

Nico smiled and nestled into him.

"I don't know why I did what I did, Will, I honestly wasn't thinking straight. There's so much more I haven't told you, so much more you need to know. I have questions too, there are pieces of the puzzle that need to be collected before any of these makes complete sense. As for saving your life, in spite of the consequences, I'm glad I did it, because having you here with me, alive and breathing, was the best decision I've ever made in my miserable life. I don't understand much of Angelica's curse, I'll take whatever information I can. That's why I want to see the Seer Historian. You, on the other hand, are an entirely different kind of enigma. I swear, Will, whatever spell you have cast upon me, I understand even less than this damn curse," said Nico, his eyes on the flames before them. Will's right had lay perched on Nico's shoulder, absentmindedly caressing the area with the pads of his fingers. Nico turned his head and placed a kiss on Will's wrist.

"If you want me to stop distracting you, you need to stop seducing me, you Venetian incubus," Will smirked, bringing Nico closer to him and whispering into his ear.

"Alex has brought wine," said a female voice behind them and they both jumped, looking around in alarm.

Without them knowing, Alex-Fierro had piled half a dozen crates of wine behind the log against which they rested.

"Where did you get these?" Will asked suspiciously, thinking of Magnus's unappreciated collection of local wines.

"Same abandoned mill, hidden wine cellar. There are many more crates and barrels of ale, if Will commands, Alex will bring them here," Alex replied.

Nico's narrowed eyes went from one to the other in quick succession.

He then stretched out a hand, beckoning his shared ghost servant to hand him one of the bottles from the topmost crate.

Alex placed a bottle on Nico's hand, and the latter studied it carefully.

"I don't know what sort of connection you've made with my ghost, Will, or how you've managed to do so. All I can venture to guess is that there must be some remnants of the curse in you, from the time you held my ring in your mouth. You show some of the signs I did, when the curse first befell me. Your eyesight is better, your physical strength has increased. But like I said, I know for a fact that the curse cannot be given away, not even willingly. I've even inquired around my ghostly crew, even though their answers go from moronic to useless," Nico explained, nodding towards Fierro, who took the bottle from Nico's hand. She made a motion as if to insert a finger into the bottle's corked neck, her index finger disappearing into it. She tugged back and the cork came popping out.

Will followed the exchange with rapture.

"Will had something in his mouth, but now it's not there anymore," said Alex, handing the bottle back to Nico.

"See?" Nico said, taking a swig straight from the bottle and offering it to Will. "Completely moronic."

Will frowned.

"What do you mean, I had something in my mouth? Nico's ring is right there, I've honestly not had anything in my mouth other than food for the past few days," Will exclaimed, sounding almost as if he was making excuses for himself.

"Not from lack of trying," Nico added with a smirk, making Will throw him a dirty glance before ignoring him and putting the bottle to his lips.

Alex came to the rescue. "Will keeps it in his breeches now," she said.

Will spat a mouthful of wine and Nico burst into laughter.

"Don't," Will panted, "say that ever again!"

Alex nodded in understanding, then sat back down on the log, pretending to breathe heavily.

Nico was on the floor laughing. When he looked up, he took in Alex-Fierro's ridiculous breathing imitations and he howled with laughter yet again.

Will's nerves were on edge at first, but seeing Nico laugh like that made his reluctance slowly thaw away. He had never seen Nico look so youthful and alive before. It dawned on him that merely a few minutes ago, they had been discussing the ominous curse that flowed through his veins, and now, as if said conversation had never taken place, Nico cackled like the careless, privileged man he should have grown up to be.

Will smiled broadly, infected by Nico's mirth, then took a swig of wine, wiping his mouth with the tattered remnants of his soiled sleeves.

"I can't pretend to understand half of what you're going through, Nico," Will said, once Nico's laughter had slightly died down. "But I'm grateful for everything that has happened to me ever since I fished you out of the sea. You've shown me things beyond my imagination, you've broadened my mind, and, like your dog, I've reappeared as if nothing had happened. Unlike your dog, though, I can't seem to get enough of your presence. So, whatever it is you've got coming for you, I'll be right there with you."

Nico's smile faded off his face faster than Will would have anticipated. He sat up from where he had rolled on the floor and snatched the bottle back from Will, taking a measured swig.

"You can't offer to follow me unless you've heard the whole story, Will. I'm not asking you to go along with me on just a random adventure at sea," said Nico with a frown. "I'm looking to do something that has never been achieved. I want to break the curse, Will. I want to be free from it; I want my life back."

Will crouched closer to Nico, taking the bottle of wine from him.

"And I will help you," he said stubbornly. "If the damn curse still somewhat lingers in me, then of course I want to help you break it, but even if it doesn't, even if it fades away tomorrow, I don't see why I can't just help you get rid of it."

Will's pulse quickened with every word. He felt exhilarated, as if he'd only just run up the hill. Why wouldn't Nico understand? He simply sat there, his eyes wide, his lips slightly parted. Will felt violently compelled to kiss him. He inched in closer, but Nico stopped him with a hand on his chest.

"Sit tight for a bit, Will," Nico said. "Let me tell you the rest of the story. You can't possibly make your decision without knowing a few facts first."

Will did as he was told, drinking some wine to calm his nerves.

"My mother had the curse. As it only ran down her lineage, my father did not have it, I doubt he even knew it existed. He believed my mother was mad, and he left us when I was still a child. I have scoured the world trying to find more information about the curse, but if I ever came across something slightly related or helpful, the trail quickly disappeared. It was as if someone was there before me, collecting every bit of information and storing it someplace else, away from my reach."

"How did you know you had it?" Will asked just as quietly. His hand reached out to Nico's, and he laced his fingers in his, careful not to touch the cursed ring more than was strictly necessary.

"My mother had been sick for many years. I was only a child at the time, so I didn't know what ailed her. I thought she had simply grown weary of her life in Venice. Now I know that her life had been slowly sucked out of her by the curse," Nico lifted his ring hand slightly, bringing up Will's hand alongside.

"In her sickness, my mother often referred to my sister as Angelica. I never thought much about it. Years later, my sister began to mention the name rather offhandedly, when she was being careless about her thoughts. But she always refrained from explaining anything to me. She simply did not want me to find out. After my mother died, the curse of Angelica befell my sister, Bianca," Nico stopped and took a deep breath. "I was still young at the time, I didn't understand why she became so distant, so detached from me. She wouldn't play with me, she wouldn't join the rest of us when we went outside."

Will remembered the words Nico kept repeating the night before.

I've killed her. I've killed my sister.

Somehow, Will found the fact that it might have been Bianca di Angelo who attacked them last night a little hard to believe. At least, he hoped it wasn't the case. He motioned for Alex to crack open another bottle, then took a swig to gather some courage for the question he was most itching to ask.

"Your sister –" Will began, but Nico shook his head.

"Bianca was fearless and incredibly smart. She was the best of our lineage, by far. She was a thief by nature, the best I've ever known. She also discovered that our father had another family quite early on."

"Wow," Will said, utterly impressed. "How did she manage to do that?"

Nico smiled fondly.

"We'd suspected for years. This was some time before he decided to walk out on us. My father was a merchant, see, and he traveled the world alongside his 'blood-brothers' at the time, or at least, that's how he referred to his mates. I don't know exactly how she managed, but I'm pretty sure Bianca boarded their ship as they were leaving Venice without their knowledge. When father discovered her, he was so mad. But in the end, he came clean and told us everything. He had a terrible argument with my mother, of course, but for a while, we were okay. A fortnight later, he left us."

There was more to that story, but Nico couldn't bring himself to speak of his father's other family, the one he had met all those years ago, and the little dark-skinned girl he had brought home with him that fateful day. The little dark-skinned girl he had murdered the night before. He took a long, painful swig of wine that had him panting.

"Did you know about the curse at the time?" Will asked.

Nico shook his head.

"I had no idea. I thought my sister had just been clever enough not to have been caught by the crew until they berthed."

Will smiled sadly, trying hard to relate.

"She must be an amazing woman now," he offered tentatively, his eyes on Nico.

Nico's face grew sour. He looked around uncomfortably.

"I can't sit here a second longer," he said, his eyes on the moon that had continued on her path across the sky and now lay perched somewhere to the south.

"Do you want to go back to the farm?" Will asked, looking at his wine with only a little bit of longing.

Nico looked at him as if he were mad.

"I'm not going back there unless you physically drag me, Valhalla my ass," Nico said, and Will snorted.

"What's the plan, then? You said we can't go back to the ship just yet."

Nico smiled broadly.

"Walk with me, I'll keep telling you the sad, sad tale of the Di Angelos."

Leaving Alex behind them to clear up their trail and taking two bottles of wine each, they descended the hill and followed the same path towards the farm.

"I thought we weren't going back there?" Will asked, recognizing the area.

"Idiot, why do you think cheese-master Magnus offered us all the fresh water we could want? There's a stream nearby. I'm not going to wipe myself with a wet rag, I need a proper bath. Listen carefully, maybe you'll be able to guide us to the stream."

Will stopped and listened intently.

He could hear the hooting of owls, the chirping of crickets, the croaking of a few frogs here and there. Then, quiet as a mouse, there it was – the distinct trickling of water – not far from where they stood, perhaps only a few yards north.

"This way," Will declared, and Nico followed him with a smirk.

Before dinner, they had been blind to their surroundings on account of the light of the afternoon sun as they walked into the main house. Likewise, after dinner, when darkness had fallen, they had failed to notice the olive orchard that bloomed behind the farm.

Now, as they walked almost leisurely in the balmy night around the immediate lands of the small cheese farm, the scent of the olive leaves perfumed the entire area, and with the occasional orange tree here and there, the entire space had an air of luxury to it, like a vast villa belonging to a noble family.

Nico inhaled deeply as he walked a few steps behind Will, who stomped with such ease one would have thought the entire island belonged to him, a bottle of wine on each hand, as if he hadn't just heard a story that would have had any other brave soul run for his life. Nico had to stifle a snort at how utterly ridiculous he found Will sometimes.

"So, tell me," Will asked in a hushed voice, as if to keep their presence hidden from any secret dwellers. "What's with the turtle soup?"

"Ah," Nico said, walking around one of the larger olive trees in the grove. "The one thing that was missing from dinner. What bunch of idiots take the meat off the bones? Not Vikings, let me tell you that. It's actually the bones that help. One of the more useful things I've discovered is that ingesting bones is a quick remedy for exhaustion from overusing the powers of Angelica. Doesn't have to be turtle per se, we use what we got. Besides, bones give a ton of flavor, if you've been at sea long enough, it quickly becomes somewhat of a delicacy."

He spoke casually, but that only made the hairs on Will's arms stand on end.

"Ingesting bones sounds unnecessarily gruesome," Will offered, thinking of Angelica and her husband using her brother's bones to make jewelry.

Nico smiled sadly at him as if he had read his mind.

"You can talk, but it has helped you just as much. I've been secretly feeding you bones for the past few days," Nico confessed.

"You what?" Will asked, coming to a stop.

The sound of water was much stronger now. The stream lay perhaps a few steps past the trees ahead, and as much as Will wanted to wash off the grime that had been collecting all over his hair and body, this new information took the first spot in his list of questions.

"That night onboard the Argo III, I shared some of the powers of Angelica with you. Since that night, you've been showing some of the usual signs I did when the curse first came to me," Nico began to explain, walking ahead slowly to make sure Will followed.

"I really don't know if I should be touched by the gesture or really upset at you right now," said Will, his voice brittle.

"I would accept both sentiments. You were unconscious for over a day, I was worried I might have done more harm than good. But the moment the first spoonful of bone-infused tea touched your lips, you began to show signs of recovery," said Nico.

"Bone-infused tea –" Will stammered. "I knew that wasn't just tea!"

After only a few steps, the stream came into view. The moonlight cast a brilliant silver light on its rippling surface, and they could clearly discern a flat stone platform, perhaps polished so by the currents during high-tide season, upon which the inhabitants of the farm must have collected their buckets of fresh water on a regular basis.

"That's impressive," Nico added. He walked up to the natural formation, kicking off his boots and rolling up his breeches. "Sit with me?" he asked Will, taking a seat and dipping his feet in the cool water.

Will had stopped only a few feet behind Nico, and his stillness had little to do with the beautiful sight before them.

It wasn't as if he hadn't thought about it, considering his newfound strength and the sharpening of his senses, not to mention his strange bond with Nico's servant ghost. He definitely was cursed. Perhaps not the way Nico claimed to be, but there was no way he wasn't, in some way, affected. But momentarily sharing the powers of the ring with him was one thing. Being healed by the same remedy as the recipient of a curse was an entirely different thing, and it made Will see things under a different light.

His hands were sweating profusely, so he put the bottles of wine on the ground and wiped his palms on his tattered breeches.

A sudden fear gripped him around the chest. He felt like running away. Or perhaps simply running would do, as if doing a few circles around the farm could settle his nerves.

If he was indeed cursed, even though he did not entirely understand what that entailed, would it all go away if he just left? If he disappeared and got as far away from Nico as possible?

Perhaps. Then there was something in the back of his mind, call it a voice or a whisper, that told him so. After two seconds of consideration, he was sure it would be so.

So then, why didn't he simply leave?

Would Nico force him to stay? Would he call on Fierro to stop Will from leaving him, keep him as some kind of living servant? Did his ring have the power to enslave men the way it could enslave the dead?

No, said a voice in his head.

Then, why stay?

He knew the answer to that question as well, and he did not require a voice in his head to hint at the obvious response.

He was smitten with Nico di Angelo, as he had never been with anyone else before. There was an unnatural power drawing him to him, Will could feel it if he focused hard enough. A part of him wanted to run away, yes; another part, the stronger one, wanted nothing but to sit by Nico's side and make him laugh one more time.

But what of the curse?

Well, that question took a bit longer to answer.

He would die one day, anyway, wouldn't he? Nobody could live forever.

He picked up a bottle of wine and broke off the neck with surprising accuracy, without spilling a single drop. He took a few steps, kicked off his boots and took a seat right next to Nico. In the space of only a few minutes, William Solace had made his decision.

Come what may, I'll stay. He thought. Angelica, do your worst.

Strengthened by wine, the imaginary voice in his head replied: Alright.

"Tell me about Bianca," Will said.

It didn't take long for Nico to retell the whole story of his childhood to Will.

Soon enough, Will came to know about Nico's mother's illness, and how his sister had slowly started to distance herself from him. He learned more about Maria di Angelo's 'treasure', which was the word Nico used to refer to the magical objects into which his family held the curse when it came to each of them individually. It traveled down through blood, to the next of kin. While there were once many Di Angelos, the power of the curse would seemingly only be held within one person at a time. After centuries, the members of the family began to dwindle, marry into other families or simply refuse to have children themselves. Soon enough, there were only a handful left. His mother had the locket he had spoken of earlier that night, and his sister had a small silver figurine of a pirate she had stolen from a shop as a child, and which she had originally given to Nico as a gift.

He also spoke of two of his childhood friends, fondly at first, but then he also resolutely refused to call them by their names. Will wasn't drunk enough to miss that little fact, but he didn't need Nico to go into details – Captain Jason Grace had been altogether too familiar with Nico when they'd been onboard his vessel; Will just knew he must have been one of them. The other friend was a bit of a mystery, but Will was not entirely too keen on knowing more about him. From the way Nico spoke of him, it sounded as if they might have been slightly more than friends, and Will's insides burned at the thought.

By the time Nico began to vaguely tell Will about Bianca's disappearance, they were both slightly drunk. He implied she had died many years ago, which confused Will, as he had distinctly heard Nico confess to killing her only the night before.

When Will asked Nico how he had learned about her Bianca's death, Nico suddenly jumped into the lazy stream, making Will curse and jump after him, paranoid and intent on saving him. It was all the more ridiculous when they realized they could have stood up and the water would have barely reached their waists.

Nico laughed again, and he laughed for a long time until his sides hurt. Eventually, Will had no further questions, his mind a blank, and he splashed around the same way a child would have done, relishing in the sounds of Nico's unstoppable laughter at one thing or another.

It wasn't long before they had taken off their shirts, or what was left of them at that point.

Most of what followed was a blur to both of them – the innocent touches, the splashing around, and later, the sloppy kisses.

"Masters are in pain," had said a voice inside their heads, Alex-Fierro, who had stood by their side the whole time, became the voice of reason once Will and Nico were too drunk to have a care in the world. "The cold will take its toil if Masters don't get out of the water and warm up with their idiot-given garments."

"MILADY," Nico had exclaimed, his breeches sticking to him as he struggled to a standing position and took an exaggerated bow, losing his balance and landing on top of Will.

Before things escalated further, Will had had the presence of mind to speak to Alex directly through their mental link. His phrasing might have been vague, but the message had been clear: Don't let us freeze and die in the water. You're in charge. As far as the farmers are concerned, you are the lady and we are your humble servants. They cannot know the truth. I command you to be as alive as you possibly can.

As the night went on, there were vague mentions of how Nico came about his current ghost ship, the Charon, which Nico himself didn't seem to fully understand, and there was something else about Jules Albert's death, but after a while, Will had been too engrossed in Nico's lips to take in much of what he was saying.

"You saved my life," Nico kept repeating, his words slurred by drunkenness. He spoke against Will's lips, which were turning purple with cold he could not feel.

"You saved mine," Will had replied, vaguely aware of the way Nico had him trapped between his body and a large rock on the river bank.

The heat that emanated from their bodies and the wine that ran through their blood did little to warm them from the chilly current, lazy as it was, and neither of them could be sure whether or not they were even fully erect anymore, but their swollen lips and the inflamed words they whispered to each other were enough to keep them from giving into the cold.

"Your face is so beautiful," Nico whispered time and time again. "I swear to you, Will, I will not let anything or anyone hurt you. Do you understand?" Nico declared, his fingers caressing Will's cheeks, then digging into Will's scalp almost painfully. "As long as I'm alive, no harm will come to you. And when I die, I will come back as a ghost to protect you. I swear, Will. I swear."

Nico's legs were wrapped round Will's waist. Their minds swam in a drunken stupor as the moon began to disappear into the horizon.

"You are not going to die, Ghost-whisperer. I'm here, and I swear to you I will help you break the curse. I swear."

How Alex-Fierro managed to extract them from the stream, dress them in clean garments and single-handedly carry them back into their assigned sleeping quarters once her Masters had lost all feeling in their bodies, Will and Nico never found out. They were unconscious throughout the journey back to the farm, but once they had been warmed up and fed a bowl of the remaining turtle bone soup, the two young men sat on a pile of straw on the floor, silently facing each other.

They didn't speak for a long time. Instead, they just sat there, quietly sipping soup and enjoying each other's company, while Alex-Fierro busied herself by mending their tattered clothes in the corner opposite them.

Will was the first to speak.

"Who was it last night? Who attacked us?" he asked slowly, not wanting to sound as if he was pushing for an answer, but in fact, he'd been waiting all night to ask.

Nico picked at one of his fingernails with a frown on his face.

"One of my childhood friends, the one who is not Jason," he clarified, all the while avoiding using his name. "He's after Angelica."

"How does he know about the curse?" Will asked, his dislike for this guy growing by the second.

"He was the one who," Nico stopped. He sighed and closed his eyes. "A few years after my mother died, he and Bianca ran away together. She had trusted him to take her somewhere she needed to go. She was looking for someone. It was like she was under the impression this person could help her. I don't know who, don't even ask. I can't remember much about it… I was… I was young, I was angry. I was jealous," he whispered, looking away from Will. "I never saw her again. He killed her in order to get her treasure."

Nico smiled cruelly while Will looked simply horrified.

"He still has it, too. He had the balls to show it to me, last night," Nico added.

Nico had been avoiding thinking about the events of the night before ever since he had woken up. The fact of the matter was that Percy had Bianca's treasure, and though the item should have lost all its power after Bianca had died, Percy had clearly used it in front of Nico – that's how he had sneaked up on him with such ease – and Nico was at a loss for an explanation.

It shouldn't have been possible, but he had seen it with his own eyes. He decided not to share this with Will for no other reason than the fact that he wouldn't know how to answer the follow-up questions that Will would surely ask.

"And now, he's after you, because he wants your ring?" Will asked, and Nico was glad for the interruption.

"Yes," said Nico, then sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "My head hurts."

"Can I get you anything? Is there some other remedy Alex can cook up or something?" Will asked.

Nico shook his head.

"My head hurts from thinking about this stupid situation. I feel like I've got it all bottled up inside my skull and it's getting murkier and murkier."

Will stretched his legs across the floor and kicked Nico on the sole of his foot.

"Then tell me about it. Share it with me and maybe I'll be able to help you make sense of things," he said with a smile that while Nico appreciated, he also felt reluctant to do exactly as Will was asking.

He had only ever discussed this with his ghosts, and now Will was asking him to trust him with this sensitive information.

A part of him wanted to pipe up or lie straight away. But another part, the stubborn one, wanted to tell Will everything he knew, even the tiny little detail of his approaching death.

He smiled and kicked Will back, hard.

"Ouch," Will complained, but Nico cut him short.

"My sister Bianca was trying to protect me. She left with him because she was looking for a way to break the curse, and she trusted him because he was a good sailor. About a year after she left, I got sick. It's like I was being mysteriously poisoned every day and we couldn't find reason or remedy. My family had means, even though my father was long gone, my mother left me a considerable sum and all the properties that had belonged to her family, and yet there was nothing I could do, no amount of money could inspire a physician to find a cure."

Will frowned with frustration. He wished he could have been there. Somehow, he was sure he would have been able to help him, somehow.

"Now, after all these years, I have a theory. I suspect he killed my sister around a year after they left, because the curse should have come to me as soon as she passed, but I didn't know about it, and without a treasure into which to channel the curse, it began to poison me. Years later, I received a letter from her. I don't know how she managed to send it, or why it took so long to reach me. In it, she told me if I was reading it, then that meant she was already dead. She instructed me to find a treasure of my own, put it in my mouth, and someone called Angelica would come find me. I thought she had lost her mind, but I couldn't get the letter out of my head," Nico explained. He skipped over the part where the letter had been torn in half.

"So, you found your treasure. The ring," Will offered.

"I did. It has… it has a rather complicated history, and it's not really worth retelling anyway, but one night, sick of my illness, tired of fighting, I got very drunk. I was ready to die, Will, I had completely given up. As I lay on the floor, I looked at the ring. I hadn't tried my sister's suggestion, see? I had dismissed it as one last cruel joke from the third family member to abandon me, the one I cared about most. I had locked myself in my rooms. Jules Albert had only just died and I felt utterly alone. As I lay there, and I swear I must have been hours from death, I was suddenly afraid – terrified – of dying. In that split second, I wanted nothing more than to live! And I did the only thing I could think of. You can imagine my surprise when I put the ring in my mouth and the damn illness disappeared as if by magic. Instead, I felt strength course through my veins, I felt alive for the very first time in my life. Angelica had found me."

"She saved your life," Will added, phrasing it almost as if it were a question.

"That's a strange way to put it," said Nico.

He wouldn't tell Will. He wouldn't tell him.

He wouldn't tell him the irony of his words. How he had been slowly dying because he hadn't found a way to channel the curse into a single object, and later on, as soon as he did exactly that, he began to die all over again, slowly, one day at a time, from decay.

As Jules Albert had so candidly phrased only a few nights prior, he was dying as he spoke.

"For the first few years," Nico began instead, "I have to admit I went a little crazy. I was drunk with power, and I was so angry. I discovered that, not only was I stronger, faster than before, and enjoyed almost superhuman senses, I was also able to summon the dead to do my bidding. The first time I summoned a ghost – Jules Albert, to be precise – I almost died of fright. I have no idea if my mother and sister even knew the extent of the powers the curse brought along, but I simply doubt they did. Otherwise, why would my mother let my father go that easily? Why not seek revenge? And why would Bianca not fight back against Per – against him? With the powers of the ring, she would not have died. She wouldn't. She would still be alive, because the powers render the bearer practically immortal, Will. I –"

I cannot be killed, you see, dear Will. Not by my own hand, not by any other's. I am destined to die from decay, from blood poisoning. Just like Angelica's husband, my death must be painful, and I am powerless against it, he wanted to say. He wanted to say it so badly. He wanted Will to know the truth.

But he couldn't bring himself to phrase the words.

"I began to scour the seas for adventures," he said instead. "I visited every port, every small settling, looking for fights, making ghosts rise from the ground and scaring people senseless. I-it was a dark time for me, I can see that now.

"Once or twice, I would come across Bianca's name, or t-that guy with whom she ran away, he would be mentioned too. And I began to gather information. That's how I came to learn that she had been trying to find a way to break the curse. I must have interviewed hundreds of people, and if they wouldn't talk, my ghosts would make them talk. I don't care about treasure or adventures or even revenge, Will. I just want to find out what happened to my sister, and I need to discover whatever it was she knew, and why she was so confident she could break the curse, before she was murdered."

Will's mouth was slightly open, his eyes unblinking.

"But if this guy is after you… is he the one who sent the attack on Bonifacio?" Will asked with a frown.

"Yes, he wants me to give up the ring," Nico snorted. "He even –" he began, but then stopped just as quickly.

"What?" Will asked.

Nico shook his head and the damn thing rattled back painfully. He'd been about to mention Hazel again. But if he did so, he would have to tell him, and his house of cards would come tumbling down.

At that moment, Nico took note of the three secrets he decided he would keep from Will – the fact that he had murdered his half-sister, the fact that he was dying, and the fact that he had been in love once before.

"He even set the ship on fire," he said instead, "just to get my attention. That's why coming with me would be dangerous. I've got a horde of pirates coming after me, and while the curse offers me enough protection to avoid detection, it wouldn't necessarily be the same with you."

Will kicked Nico again, and for a second, Nico feared Will had seen through him, as if he were still allowed access into his thoughts.

"I don't need ghosts or protection. I can take care of myself," he said stubbornly, making Nico smile in relief.

"You look like you were born to take care of nothing but cows in those clothes," he commented with a smirk.

Will looked down at his garments: tan wool breeches that ended mid-calf and a cream-colored linen shirt with a lace up collar. He snorted and rolled his eyes at Nico, who was wearing the exact same outfit.

"I can take them off, if they bother you," Will offered playfully, licking his lips.

Nico laughed, then began to rub his abdomen.

"No amount of bone soup is going to give me the energy to properly bed you tonight, so keep your clothes on, won't you? God, Will. I don't remember the last time I laughed as much as I did today," he said. "My head hurts but my side hurt even more."

"Too much wine," Will replied, feeling his own forehead as if he too suffered from a headache.

And just like that, they had come to a tacit agreement not to discuss Nico's curse any further.

"That was good wine, too," said Nico. "Maybe it would be worth exploring that mill Fierro found. I have a feeling it will come in useful after we've found out what these cheese farmers have in store for us."

Will nodded.

"I was just thinking that. We could exchange whatever we find in that mill for horses, and we'll just have to work for our meals, give you a couple of days to recover, before we're off to wherever we're going," he added.

Nico looked at Will for a few seconds, then averted his eyes.

"You're still intent on coming with me?" he asked, picking at some straw.

"I meant what I said before," Will declared, searching Nico's face. "I've made you a promise, Nico. I want to help you. If you ask me that one more time I'm going to punch you."

Nico chuckled. "You need to stop making me laugh, idiot. I'm not used to this; my side really hurts."

"Well, get used to it," Will said, getting to his knees and crawling a few steps to where Nico sat. He plopped down on the pile of straw next to him and leaned back with his hands behind his head.

"What are you doing?" Nico asked, his eyes on the stretch of Will's chest visible through his unlaced collar.

"Sleeping," he said simply. He opened a single eye and smirked at Nico. "Sleep with me?"

"You damn tease," said Nico with a smile, then leaned back on the pile of straw and closed his eyes.

Alex-Fierro kept working through the rest of the night. She had already mended most of their clothes and was now working on Will's breeches. As she stretched the garment in order to find the larger holes, a small object came rolling out of the pocket. Alex picked it up and stared at it curiously.

"I know you," she spoke to the minuscule item. "Will must not lose you."

She made sure to replace it at the bottom of Will's pocket, stitching all sides so as to seal it in place.

Earlier that night, while Will and Nico shared ghost stories over bowls of turtle bone soup, a small council had been summoned in the halls of Valhalla. Magnus and his accolades sat gathered around the large wooden table in grim silence.

The giant called Gunderson nursed a cup of wine just as Magnus threw disbelieving looks at him from time to time, while Blitz and T.J. sat dejectedly next to each other.

Mallory Keen was the first to break the silence.

"There's something not right with that lot," she declared.

"You're right," interjected Gunderson. "There's no way Plutarch is a real name."

Keen rolled her eyes and ignored the comment.

"There's a thousand things wrong with that Milady too, I tell you," she added.

Magnus shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"You always do this," he said. "Every time a woman comes remotely near us, you start with the uncalled-for suspicions."

"Don't get me started on you," Mallory exclaimed, pointing a finger at Magnus. "Milady this, Milady that, why don't you just marry her already?"

Magnus turned bright red, then looked away. "I don't know what you're talking about," was all he had to say for himself.

"I think we can all agree," T.J. jumped in, "that Magnus's infatuation is the least of our problems. For starters, if they were the sole survivors of a shipwreck, why haven't they inquired as to the whereabouts of the rest of the crew? Why are they being so secretive about their vessel's name, especially if they had members of the nobility amongst their ranks?"

The entire company nodded solemnly, as if they had only just thought about this particular fact.

"They were carrying no weapons," Magnus interjected. "When I picked them up, they were utterly pitiable, the two servants pale as death, I tell you, and how could Milady not be of good breeding? The way she held her poise amidst the tragedy that had surely befallen them –"

Mallory Keen imitated him as he spoke and Magnus fell silent.

Hearth made a few complicated signs and the entire company nodded in agreement.

"Hearth is right," Blitz said. "Innocent until proven otherwise. If they hold us no ill-will, and they carry no weapons or items of value on their persons, it is our duty to offer them the benefit of the doubt. They shall work for their meals until their dues are paid, then who knows? Perhaps they are in fact the sole survivors of a shipwreck from the New World, and in a few days, there will be an exotic rescue party knocking on our door. When that happens, we'll be able to reap our reward."

Gunderson snorted and finished his wine in a single swig.

"If you believe a word of that pile, you are dumber than you look," the giant grumbled.

Hearth made a rude gesture at him just as the rest of the gang raised their voices in indignation.

"Brothers, sister! Stop!" Magnus yelled, his voice louder than the rest. "We must think! What would our ancestors have done?"

"Held them hostage and bartered," Blitz replied.

"Poisoned them and taken their belongings," Mallory Keen added.

"Challenged them to a duel," interjected T.J.

Hearth drew a finger across his throat.

"KILLED THEM IN THEIR SLEEP," Gunderson roared above the rest.

Magnus pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.

"Alright. That's not what I was going for, but historically, you are all correct. I should have said, what should our ancestors have done?" said Magnus.

The rest of the company fell silent.

"Waited?" T.J. offered.

"Exactly!" Magnus exclaimed. "We hold all the cards here! They are basically our prisoners! They're probably back in their cabins, praying to all the gods and hoping we will be merciful with them! Just imagine, they're probably frightened to death. All we need to do is bide our time, get to know them, learn their weaknesses and as much as we can about their history. In time, we shall be rewarded for our patience. Mark my words."

"So," Blitz cut in. "You're saying we should just wait?"

"Hang on a second there, Blitzen" said Mallory Keen. "If I may read between the lines of Magnus's bullshit, I believe we can actually take advantage of their presence while we bid for them to show their true colors."

Magnus made a face as if to interrupt, but Hearth put his hands over Magnus's, signaling him to be quiet.

"Explain," said Blitz, interpreting Hearth's gesture.

Mallory smirked.

"When was the last time the field was properly sowed?"

The next morning, Magnus woke up at the crack of dawn. He rubbed his eyes and looked around their sleeping quarters. All the boys were sharing now that the two other available rooms – one for Milady and one for her servants – were occupied.

He was the first one up, but he knew the rest would follow soon enough, and this way he would have first use of the washing area. He did not want to go after Gunderson ever again for as long as he lived.

He tiptoed to the door and walked out as quietly as possible.

It was going to be a beautiful day, he knew for a fact, as the blazing sun rose in the cloudless sky and the air still felt crisp from the chilly breeze that cooled down their evenings. The rainy season had come late this year, but Magnus wasn't much too preoccupied about this, on the contrary, he was glad since it entailed that they wouldn't have to hang their clothes indoors to dry.

After a quick wash (and perhaps paying a bit too much attention to his hair), he rushed to the kitchens, where he grabbed a quick breakfast for himself – a large chunk of bread, some cheese and a cup of goat's milk, and when he was done, he began to prepare a tray with the same items, only he cut the better part of a fresh piece of bread, a considerable portion of their best-selling cheese, a cup of milk and a large peach, the very same one he had been saving for himself for the past two days. Then, his eyes landed on a rather handsome sprig of lavender that grew out of the bush by the window. Automatically, Magnus pushed the window open and plucked it, placing it inside the small jug they used for keeping honey, and was now empty, giving the tray of food one final touch of flair.

He wasn't very aware of what he was doing, walking out of the kitchen towards the cabins in which their guests slept, and right when he had to make a choice to go left or right, he stopped.

"What am I doing?" he asked himself, suddenly nervous and feeling like he was treading uncharted territory.

They'd been working so hard for so many years, in fact, that only whenever they came across new people, did Magnus realize how much he missed traveling the world.

The strange party that had come into their lives reminded him of his time as a stowaway, traveling alongside his two best friends and looking for adventures, dreaming of riches.

And then, there was Milady – an heiress from the New World, no less – with her mismatched eyes and extravagant clothes unlike anything he'd ever seen before, and she was looking for her family.

The breakfast tray shook in his hands, and Magnus cursed inwardly, trying to reign in his nerves. He wondered if it would be inappropriate to carry the tray to Milady's cabin himself. Would he not be expected to call on her servants instead, and have them take the tray to her according to their own customs? What if it was against their beliefs to have a tray brought to them? What if they didn't eat breakfast? No, that couldn't possibly be the case.

He turned left, then right, then stopped, his eyes going from Milady's door to her servants' door. Magnus closed his eyes and bit his lower lip.

"Do what feels right," he said to himself, then stepped forward.

Alex-Fierro answered on the first knock.

"G-Good morning," Magnus gasped, surprised at her promptness.

"Good morning," she replied automatically. She looked as if she'd been up for hours.

"This is for you," he said stupidly. "Breakfast."

The solid ghost looked at the items on the tray with curiosity, as if trying to recognize each one individually.

"Thank you," she said, stepping aside so Magnus could come in.

Magnus knew his face had turned bright red. He'd never been alone in a room with a woman before. He set the tray down as quickly as possible, its contents clinking due to his shaking hands.

"I wasn't sure if it would be okay to bring you this personally, I thought maybe I should have called on your servants first," he said nervously, looking away from her.

"My servants are still sleeping," she said. "They like to sleep."

"So you've said," Magnus laughed. "We discussed the issue of work last night, and though we understand how traumatic the past few days must have been for all of you, seeing as they appear to have no external injuries, we humbly expect them to put in some work for us in exchange for meals and clothes as have been provided."

Alex-Fierro did not reply. She stared at Magnus and tilted her head, as if trying to understand someone who spoke in a language they hadn't used in decades.

"Um," said Magnus, suddenly self-conscious, "I am not very familiar with customs from the New World, I hope I haven't offended Milady in any way."

"Your face is red," she pointed out, and Magnus's mouth fell open.

"N-No, it's not," he argued back weakly.

"Yes, it is," Alex-Fierro insisted. "Your face is red and your palms are sweaty and your heart rate is elevated."

Magnus felt his face, wiped his hands on his breeches and pressed a hand to his chest, as if trying to make sure she was telling the truth. He shook his head in shame and mumbled an apology before rushing towards the door, but Alex-Fierro stopped him just as he reached the threshold.

"Are you attracted to me?" she asked bluntly, making Magnus choke.

"W-Why would you, I mean, I don't –"

"You can speak frankly," she cut in. "It's a simple question. Would you say I am a beautiful woman?"

Magnus stared at her and found himself utterly enthralled by her eyes.

What the hell, right?

"I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," he whispered almost to himself, then he ran out of the room and disappeared from view.

He did not see Alex-Fierro's face breaking into a wide, incredibly human smile, and he altogether missed the way she reached for the peach, took a hesitant bite, and closed her mismatched eyes in ecstasy as the sweetness of the fruit sank into her taste buds, a wayward drop of juice running down her chin.

Just as the sun rose over the horizon, four small ships were berthing on the shores only a few miles from the cheese farm, in the same spot onto where Will and Nico had washed only a few nights before.

A crew of around three dozen pirates began to carry the ships inland, hiding them amongst the prickly bushes, piling sand on top to cover them entirely.

Frank Zhang supervised from the sidelines, his arms crossed over his chest, his expression sour.

Next to him, looking extremely full of himself stood Octavian, his eyes alight with malice, a man who simply could not believe his luck.

"Hurry!" he yelled at the men impatiently, unrolling his whip from his belt and brandishing it out threateningly.

"You will not whip my men," Frank said in his deep, threatening voice.

"Of course I will not whip my men, sailor," Octavian replied. "I am in charge of this mission, do not forget your place."

Frank bit the inside of his cheek and turned to the sea, looking longingly at the pirate ship that had dropped them off a few miles away.

"I will not forget my place, Captain Octavian," said Frank just as scathingly. "I will remind you of our mission as often as you require."

"I don't need reminding, I know exactly what the mission entails, thank you very much," said Octavian. "Won't be too hard, not if these men follow my orders."

The pirates looked at Octavian with eagerness, and Frank could not understand, for the life of him, why Captain Jackson had ordered the mission to be manned by the most insubordinate men onboard. He closed his eyes and thought of the dark-skinned beauty onboard the Argo II.

"I will begin scouting the area now," he said, if only to get away from the newly appointed Captain, a title he took too seriously for a man who had been promised a ship in return for a successful mission that was looking to have a rocky start, middle and end, at best.

Octavian, still bearing signs of torture, stood his ground, waiting for Frank Zhang to disappear amongst the thorny bushes. When he knew for certain the gunner was out of sight, he beckoned a man he had previously befriended on deck.

They had spoken in hushed whispers for the past few days, and Octavian knew the man had understood his orders. The mutineer Captain ripped off the leather necklace he bore around his neck – the sign of a thunderbolt cast in bronze – and whispered a message into the man's ear.

"It is him, without a shadow of a doubt. Petite, long dark hair, fair skin. A ring in the shape of a skull. Answers to the name Nico Di Angelo, travels with a fair youth, unremarkable, answers to the name Will Solace."

The man nodded quickly, then made a grimace of pain, as if he had been expecting a violent whipping which never came.

As if on cue, Octavian began to lash out with his whip, hitting the rocks beside him, taking care not to hit the man who now cowered on the sand before him.

"Insubordinate! Traitor! Coward!" he began to rain insults on the man who dug himself deeper into the sand.

The rest of the crew stopped and stared at the commotion Octavian had started.

In seemingly perfectly choreographed moves, Octavian collected his whip with one hand and drew it around the neck of the man on the ground, intent on choking him to death to all appearances. The man barely struggled as Octavian stepped on either side of him and began to tug on his whip, putting on a magnificent show for the rest of the crew.

"Garbage! Scum! Weakling!" he wailed as he pretended to forcefully squeeze the life out of the insubordinate sailor.

A few seconds passed, and when Octavian felt satisfied with his theatrics, he stepped on the man's head for good measure, sinking his face deeper into the sand, then commanded the crew to begin their march inland, ordering them to search for their scouting gunner.

Frank Zhang only ever heard of a misbehaving crewmember who had found his death under the foot of temperamental Captain Octavian.

The man with his face buried into the sand waited for as long as he could until he breached for breath, gathered himself, and began to make his way southbound, towards Cagliari, to deliver an important message.

"You want us to what?" said Nico, shielding his eyes from the sun as they stood in front of an enormous, barren field adjacent to the farm.

"Well," Magnus chuckled a little uncomfortably. "We understand you cannot possibly finish the job in a day or two, this will be more of a head start for us. Once you've left, we will continue the work ourselves, so your efforts will not go to waste."

"You really expect us to do this on our own?" Will asked unsurely, pulling up his borrowed breeches that kept sliding down his hips and keeping his eyes firmly shut against the sunshine.

"Just do your best!" said Magnus, trying to sound cheerful. "We've provided our best tools, as well as Jack, our trusted mule. The job is pretty straight forward. Sow the field to the best of your ability, with the right attitude, you can perhaps do one-sixteenth of it in the next few days, and be sure to plant as you go along. We'll be eternally grateful and your meals will be hot and waiting for you when you finish your shifts."

"You want us to do this with a few blades and a single mule?" Nico asked despairingly, staring at the field that seemed to stretch endlessly before their eyes.

He looked at Will threateningly, but Will's eyes were shut and did not see him.

Alex-Fierro stood next to Magnus, looking around the field as if she were staring at an army of soldiers that she was expected to defeat single-handedly.

"We will return to the farm now," said Magnus, motioning to Alex to follow him. "A meal will be served when the shadows are shortest, so be sure to return on time."

Once Magnus and Alex-Fierro were well out of sight, Nico rounded up on Will. He forcefully tore Will's hands away from his face and forced Will to slap himself with his own palms.

"Ouch, hey, stop!" Will complained.

"Moron!" Nico yelled, his hands wrapped around Will's wrists and slapping him with his own hands. "I should have sold your body when I had the chance! Just what the actual fuck are we supposed to do now!?"