Nico wasn't entirely sure yet whether he was flattered or creeped out by the way Will was staring at him adoringly as he ate lunch with him—instead of having lunch together, since Will couldn't eat. Both, perhaps.

"Tell me about you," Will said.

"I thought you already knew all about me by stalking my Facebook?" Nico teased. He sneaked a look around as he did—nobody seemed curious that he was talking to himself. Good. Maybe Will was visible to them too. It was hard to know with ghosts, sometimes, what with their fluctuating life force. Will had always been very present, but Nico would still rather be careful.

Will grimaced. "I thought we were starting over."

Nico chuckled at the look on his face. "This is what I call jokes. Get used to it. What do you want to know? Or—maybe we could play a game? We ask questions to each other in turn?"

"Do people really do that?" Nico shrugged, causing Will to chuckle. "Okay, sure. Who goes first?"

"Well, you just asked a question," Nico said, smirking. "So the answer is: me."

A pout formed on Will's face. "I'm pretty sure that's not fair, but I'll bite."

Nico's triumphant grin nearly faded when he realized he didn't actually know what to ask. So he took the first idea that came to his mind: "Why do you always wear these clothes?" He wondered why a boy in a t-shirt and swimming trunks didn't attract more attention, but he guessed ghosts rarely did unless they were in full haunting mode.

"That's your best shot?"

"They're really offensive to…well, anyone with eyes. And that's not an answer."

"It's the…uniform where I grew up. Dad is a little odd like that. And trust me, I really had to earn the title of 'favorite haiku'." He grimaced briefly at the mention. "I wore them when I was in the apartment, because…they're comfortable and reminded me of home. And then I died in them."

Nico stared. "So you're not aware that you can change at will?"

"I can?"

"Yeah. Strictly speaking, your form has no actual consistency, so you could change anything you want about your appearance. Most people don't change their own body, because…well, they're ghosts and want to hang on to anything that ties them to life. But most ghosts I've met changed clothes."

"Huh. I should try that." He looked down at himself, and the clothes melted into a new shape, the shirt growing to a reasonable length—though it was still very tight—and turning a paler shade of yellow, and the swimming trunks became a pair of blue jeans. "Better? Wait, no, that's not my question."

Nico chuckled. "What is your question, then? And yes, for the record, this is better."

Will's face brightened instantly. "Okay. How many ghosts have you met?"

Nico stared at him for a few seconds. "You realize my day job is exorcism, right? Do you think I count?"

Will only shrugged. "Your best approximation, then."

"Definitely in the hundreds. I've been working for two years now, and practically one ghost per day, plus the occasional side thing. Plus all the ghosts I met when I was still in training…eight, nine hundred? Maybe a thousand."

"So that's how you know so much about ghosts."

"Well it sort of comes with the duties as the Lord of the Underworld's son. They don't call me Prince of Ghosts for nothing." He paused, taking note of the sparkle in Will's eye. "I'm going to regret telling you that, aren't I?"

"Maybe. And that was your question, by the way." Nico glared at him, but Will ignored it. "How many ghosts do you wish you could meet again?"

That was easier than Will had probably intended. "None so far. Ghosts are rarely…pleasant. Even the ones who aren't actively trying to hurt people are still a downer to be around. Even my mom—"

"What about her?"

Nico shook his head. "It's my turn now." He paused, raking his brain for ideas. "You said 'where you grew up'. Where's that?"

"California."

"You're not going to be more specific, are you?"

"Not if I can help it. No offense, but if Dad hid us your very existence, he probably didn't want me to tell you all his secrets."

"None taken. Just know that I'll return the favor, if you decide to ask."

"Noted." He paused. "I'm torn between two questions."

"Well, pick one."

"Okay. So if I had taken that door to the Underworld and you'd still survived somehow…would you still say there's no ghost you'd like to meet again?"

"I don't know." Will frowned, and Nico felt that he owed him an explanation. "I mean, we weren't exactly on good terms. If you were to go now, I think I'd miss you. Then…I don't know."

Will remained silent for a moment, and Nico wondered if he'd hurt him. But then again, the point was to be honest with the other, wasn't it? Maybe he'd overthought the question.

But eventually, Will shrugged. "Fair enough, I guess. I would have missed you from the other side, just so you know."

"That's why you stayed."

"I stayed because you needed my help. And it was worth it, so don't start again."

Nico managed a half-smile. "All right. Next question, then. So you grew up in California. Was your mother there?"

"For a time. Dad made her one of his singers, for a while. Then—not. As soon as your voice shows imperfection, you're replaced. It got us a few years together, at least."

"Didn't you ever try to reach out to her?" He had all but forgotten about their game, and Will didn't stop him.

"I did. She didn't want to see me anymore. Said I reminded her too much of him."

Nico could easily imagine that Will would remind people of his father, if the stories about Apollo's looks were true. "Sorry to hear."

"What about you?"

"I—yeah. My mom had two kids with Hades: my sister Bianca, then me. I was barely born when Father came to claim Bianca. Mom refused, so we were on the run from him for years."

"What happened?"

"She made a bargain she shouldn't have. Our safety, in exchange for becoming the next Pythia. Her mind couldn't take it, however. She died, and Bianca and I had to improvise an exorcism, because she was completely unable to find her way to the Underworld. After that, Father took us in and trained us, but I think he kept her out of the Underworld to punish her—and to scare us."

"The Pythia—"

"Yeah, that's your dad's oracle."

"I'm sorry."

Nico shrugged. "Don't be. One thing I learned: if you start apologizing for your godly parent's mistakes, you'll never stop. There's always more to apologize for."

"Good point." There was a moment of awkward silence, but Will eventually broke it. "You know, maybe this wasn't the best topic of conversation. Why don't you tell me what you do with your free time?"

"What free time?" Nico asked, only barely sarcastic. "You've pretty much seen all of my life in a nutshell already. Sometimes I'll have the energy to pick up a few comic books, try to catch up to my favorite series. Recently, not even that."

"That's…sad. I don't mean that you're sad, just—you should really take a break."

Nico shrugged. "Can't."

"Why not? Are your sisters also stuck in a single place with nothing but their job in their lives?"

"No. But they're famous. Well, in their own field. Bianca fights ghosts, she doesn't just psychoanalyzes them into oblivion, so she's a lot more popular than me. And our half-sister Hazel got the earth powers, and that has a lot of applications. So Hades is a lot more willing to subsidize whatever they want."

"Have you even tried, at least? To ask him?"

Nico took a deep breath to protest, then grimaced. "No."

"You should."

"Yeah. But I can't—not now. Not with New Orleans potentially under siege."

Will's eyes widened. "What?"

Nico sighed. "And here I thought you might have some information. Anyway, there's been a lot of monster movement across the country, and they seem to converge here. Lots of demigods are coming, too. Well, relatively—I've only met three so far, but they were also the first three I met. They were all dead, too."

"Does that include me?"

Nico nodded. "We thought the gods were sending you here on some sort of quests."

"Not my dad. Anything that doesn't involve singing his praises, he only marginally cares about."

"Why did you come to New Orleans, then?"

"I—don't really know. I came back after meeting my mom, fought with Dad about what he did to her, then I just left. I didn't know where to go, really. I just stumbled my way to here, and I thought, 'well, why not?'."

So. Maybe demigods were drawn here. That definitely sounded like the sort of effect Hazel's magic would have on someone. "Okay. Well, I guess I'll just hope to find out more before it's too late."

Will chuckled. "Right. So when are we going to have a regular conversation, then?"

They made some meaningless smalltalk after that. Nothing ground-breaking, no major information about the other, but in the following hour, over the rest of lunch, Nico felt like he was finally getting a better idea of who Will was. When he wasn't trying to flirt, or talking about gods and monsters. When he was just a boy having lunch with another boy, enthusiastic and funny and hopelessly incapable of being anything less than optimistic.

They went back to Nico's apartment—their apartment, in a way, he guessed, since it had been Will's first—after lunch, and Will forced him to show his collection of comic books.

"Man, you're actually a nerd," he said when Nico pulled out the trunk he kept full of them, haphazardly thrown.

"Wrong," Nico let out, searching through the piles of books. "If I actually were a nerd, I'd have time and willpower to actually sort them."

Will chuckled. "Right. Because a whole trunk of comic books isn't enough to be a nerd."

"I'm like a nerd hybrid. Too nerdy for cool kids like you, not nerdy enough for the true nerds."

"You think I'm a cool kid?"

Nico glanced at him, eyebrows raised. "Please. You're a son of Apollo. It's in your genes. You're the archetypal golden boy."

"Except for the part where I ran away."

"Then you're the archetypal brooding ex-golden boy who ran away from daddy because you have a heart of gold and realized that he was a bad man. There's still probably a thousand romcoms about guys like you."

Will paused. "Okay, I don't know which is worse, and I'm pretty sure you have a point."

Nico chuckled. "You do realize I'm kidding, right?"

"Yeah, but I was a cool kid at home. So you're not completely wrong."

He grinned at Nico, who couldn't help but return the smile, the trunk of comic books forgotten at the moment. "At home," Nico suddenly repeated.

"What?"

"People at your…camp. Don't you want them to know what happened to you?"

Will's eyes widened. "I'd forgotten."

"It's normal. You're a ghost, it does…things…to your memory, sometimes. Still, is there anyone I should call?" Will remained lost in thought for a moment, then headed outside Nico's bedroom. "Wait! Where're you—"

Nico found Will by his laptop. "You can't call them—no cell phones allowed in the presence of Dad. He says the ringtones wreck his mojo, or something like that. But you can Facebook message them. Hang on."

"Um, Will, I'm not sure a Facebook message is the right way to tell people—"

"Well it's all we have to communicate, so it'll have to do. Here, I'll—" He attempted to type something, but his fingers slipped through the keyboard. "What the—" He tried again, to no avail. "This was working fine before."

"Will, calm down. You're upset, and it's causing you to dematerialize."

"I'm not—"

Nico sat down beside him, tentatively reaching out. When he found Will was still solid enough for him to touch, he wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "It's okay to be upset, you know."

Will breathed heavily, silently staring at the screen as though it would suddenly make it work. "Can you do it for me?"

"Sure." Nico gently took the laptop from Will's lap, and found himself on a login screen. "What should I do?"

"My email's already in, just type my password. It's 'Louisa'." Nico did his best not to cast him an interrogating glance, but Will sensed his curiosity anyway. "My mom's name. Look at my friends, and find Kayla. She'll let everyone else know. And…if you could not message her from my account—"

"Of course." He found her profile, logged back into his account, and opened a new message, the paused to look at Will. "Is there anything specific you want me to say?" Telling people about a lost relative was nothing new to Nico; he knew what to say in general, even if he generally did so in person. But maybe Will wished to add something more personal.

"Just—" His voice drifted off. "No. Nothing."

"You sure?"

He closed his eyes, and nodded briefly. "And—please don't tell her about…us."

Nico wasn't even completely sure what they were, but he didn't protest. "Sent. Hopefully she doesn't think it's a prank."

"She won't; trust me." Will didn't offer any explanation.

"Will…are you okay?"

"Yeah. I don't know what came over me. I guess it just hit me that I'll never be able to talk to them again, and—I mean, I know I ran away, and a lot of them probably hate me for that, but—"

Nico set the laptop aside and pulled Will into a hug. "I know. I'm sorry."

He could feel the boy shaking with sobs, but his tears weren't corporeal enough for Nico to feel them.