Bored and frustrated, Nico stared at the text book spread in front of him. He tapped his pen against the pages, hoping the words would unjumble themselves. It wasn't just the dyslexia, it was the language itself.

He had done well enough in the past, teaching himself to read the street signs and shop signs in English. Now that life was over and his education was sketchy at best.

He was so focused on how impossible this was that he almost didn't notice when Will came in the room.

"You said three days. It's been almost a month."

Will laughed and shook his head. "Good morning to you too."

Nico scowled at him. "Good morning."

Without waiting, Will grabbed his arm and extended it. He rubbed the inside of Nico's elbow with iodine and managed to set a new IV despite Nico fighting against him.

"What are you doing," Nico shouted. He tried to remove the IV but Will smacked the back of his hand. For a moment, Nico was too shocked to react. "You-"

Will pushed him back against the bed and stuck his finger in Nico's face, like he was a misbehaving toddler. "You barely ate last night and you completely refused breakfast. If you're not going to take care of yourself then you leave me no choice."

"Who do you think you are?"

Will ignored him. Nico watched in growing frustration as the fresh IV started to drip. "It's just saline with a few added nutrients. Some of your numbers were already tanking when I ran your blood work earlier. You should start feeling better right away."

Will looked at him waiting for an answer but Nico didn't want to admit he was feeling better.

"What are you working on," Will said. He sat down on the side of the bed, way too close for Nico to be comfortable.

"Composition," Nico told him, remembering what Juniper had explained when she brought the book to him. But he really had no idea what it was, not even being able to decipher the words on the binding.

Will made a face. "This is way too advanced." He gave Nico an apologetic look. "That came out wrong. I'm not saying you can't figure it out but this isn't a good starting point. Chiron could not have been the one who assigned it to you. "

"I prefer maths," Nico confessed.

Will gave him a curious look. "Maths... I've never heard anyone but Chiron say it like that. He always says it's the proper pronunciation but grammar isn't really my thing."

"I guess." Nico glared at the blocky golden letters that he still couldn't make sense of.

Will playfully socked him in the arm. "Don't sell yourself short. You're really good at languages aren't you?"

Nico hated being put on the spot but he could tell Will wasn't letting him get out of it so easily. "My mom made us, Bianca and me, learn to understand Latin, so we could follow along in Mass. But I can only read a few words."

"You were Catholic? I never knew that."

Nico shrugged. "She said we were on paper. I don't think we ever went to Mass unless it was mandated." He yawned. "She would send us to the temples to listen to the priests when they thought they were alone."

Will looked thoughtful and a little worried. "What did you hear?"

Nico shrugged. "I was never good at being a spy..." He traced the lettering on the book's cover. "But Bianca came home one day and told our mother something and that night we had to leave in a hurry."

"What was it?"

Nico shook his head. "They never told me. But she always blamed me."

"Your mom?"

"No. Bianca did. She didn't want to leave her friends."

"Bianca was wrong," Will said.

Nico had been ready to defend himself. It wasn't his fault. He hadn't meant to be such a weird little boy.

But he hadn't expected Will to say that. "She was my sister."

"That doesn't make everything she did right."

Nico rubbed his eyes. The conversation was getting hard to follow. He wasn't sure if it was because of Will's stubborn insistence on painting Bianca in a negative light or because he was fatigued from trying to study.

"I also know Italian and Greek, of course. High Chtonic and Lower Chtonic, enough Abyssal to survive."

"Those aren't real languages."

"Shut up. They are. Just because you've never-"

Will picked up the book and tossed it into the hallway.

"I was reading that," Nico snapped at him.

Will laughed. "No you weren't. Besides, it's like I said. That book is way too advanced for you... right now. If you start with that, then you're just going to get in over your head. But don't worry, we'll come back to it."

Nico stretched out his fingers, staring at his hands in confusion as his vision slid in and out of focus. "Did you drug me?"

"I might have added a mild sedative to your IV. Nothing too strong but don't think that no one noticed you haven't been sleeping much either."

"I hate you," Nico murmured angrily, slumping against Will's shoulder.

"That's fine. But I'm not ready to give up on you yet."

"Are you sure you want to play that card," Will said, jarring Nico out of his dreams.

He groaned, still half asleep. "Thought I was rid of you."

The room was quiet for several seconds before someone nervously said, "Um... I have this one. It looks like a centaur that forgot his skin that day."

Nico sat up too quickly, startled by the newcomer. He fought back against the dizziness until it passed.

Lou Ellen looked at him and then back at the cards in her hand. She sat at the foot of the bed.

"What are you doing here," he asked her.

"Rude," Will commented, not looking up from his cards. Nico glared at him.

"Be nice, he just woke up," Lou Ellen scolded Will. She gave Nico a nervous glance. "I'm trying to learn Mythomagic but I have no idea what any of it means." She held out her cards for him to see.

"That's not a centaur. It's a nucklavee. It's from the Highlands expansion. Wait... is that a yara ma yha who?"

"Um...I'm not sure what that is. Or how to pronounce it. What did you say it was?"

Nico sighed. "Yara ma yha who," he said more slowly. "It's from the dreamtime expansion and it works best when paired with the Bunyip and Drop Bear, but be careful when pairing it with the Rainbow Serpent. It looks like someone just picked out random cards and gave them to you and called it a deck. None of these will work well together."

Lou Ellen frowned at her cards. "Really," she said, sounding irritated.

"Even an expert couldn't win with this deck. If you're just starting to learn, you should have asked someone else to put one together for you."

"I did ask someone," she hissed through her teeth.

"Well, that person set you up for failure. These cards are useless this way."

She pointed at Will. "He did."

Will raised his hands. "Let's not jump to any conclusions here. I found these cards when I was organizing the storage rooms in the Big House. I put them together as best as I could." He looked down his own cards. "Mine probably aren't any better." He reluctantly handed them to Nico.

Nico looked at all the cards after spreading them out in front of him. He rearranged some of them. "I can make this work but don't try to play against anyone that knows what they're doing. There is enough here to make a playable deck if you add the Highlands cards with the standard Celt deck. The nucklavee can pair with the kelpie or the cu sith, which can also be used together. Airitach's daughters is really powerful but it has a negative effect that can damage friend, so be careful when putting that one into play."

"What about the yahoo thingy? It's so cute and fuzzy."

"Yara ma yha who. And no. That card works best with the rest of the Dreamtime expansion or the Outback expansion or the New Zealand expansion."

"I guess you're the expert," Will said, bitterly.

Nico glared at him. "You know, you're really not as good at this as you think you are."

Will sighed a little too long. "I don't know what you mean."

"Whatever. You keep trying to pull one over on me and it's still not working."

"You have it all figured out then. What exactly am I supposed to be up to?"

Nico didn't have an answer. "Something."

"How about both of you are being dumb and I'm actually trying to learn something here," Lou Ellen muttered under her breath. She pointed to one of the cards. "This one looks scary. How would I use it?"

"That's El Cucuy, it comes with the Brazilian or Amazonian decks. It's a pretty strong card to have but if it's ever used against you then you want to have the Encantado card available. It neutralizes the effects and bounces the effects back at your opponent."

"That's useful."

Nico agreed. He handed them both to her. "I still have some of my cards from before," he admitted. "I can put something better together with them, than with what I have here."

She shook her head. "I wouldn't know what to do. I should learn how to master something simpler, since I'm just starting out."

"That's a good plan," Will told her.

Nico looked back and forth between them. "I guess I don't have a choice but to go along with this."

"Not really," Will said, grinning at him. "You're stuck with us now."