Plapper: Sorry, sorry, sorry for taking so long! I had a rough weekend, but here I am : ) writing you some yummy goodness. To answer some questions that came up: Yes Nico is younger than Percy, yes two years and no I never said that Percy's 18. That's Kyra. So Nico's also 18. Hope it makes more sense now : ) Awesome cake! Enjoy and let me know what you think!

Expectations. I think they're the cause of all emotional pain. Wouldn't you agree? Because isn't emotional pain disappointment? And doesn't disappointment come when our expectations aren't met? We want people to be a certain way, we expect them to act a certain way and they usually don't, leaving us shattered. Expectations.

They suck!

Nico and I spent over a week in that hotel, changing rooms ever so often so we wouldn't be caught. We weren't exactly paying to be there after all.

So here we were in Cairo, my one and only lead, looking for a lost city. Speaking of needles in hay stacks… Oh well. It was my only lead and I was determined to follow it through. I was still confused by my dream and all my father had told me.

The Lost City seemed to be connected to my father somehow, he had called it my heritage, but I didn't understand how. I was beginning to doubt that Atlantis and the Silver City were one and the same, just because of that dream, but I couldn't give up on my only lead now.

"What are you thinking?", Nico asked.

We were in standing in front of some relicts in the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, looking for any signs of Atlantis, but so far we hadn't had any luck yet. Of course not. Why would we. Yes I was getting a little discouraged, can you blame me?

"I'm thinking that this might be pointless."

I'd spoken without thinking and regretted it immediately after. I could see the relief on Nico's face, although he was trying to hide it. He'd always though that this quest was a waste of time, even though he pretended otherwise, but I could tell. It made me angry. I hadn't forced him to come along, and I didn't need his constant negativity.

"Why did you come along?"

My voice was strained, although calm. I didn't want to make a scene here, but I was fed up with his behaviour. He hadn't really been helpful at all.

"Because this is important to you and I love you."

So he always said.

I didn't reply to that, just kept staring at some old hieroglyph stone. I was so frustrated! Why wasn't I finding anything? If there weren't any clues here, then I didn't know where else to go look for them. I was at a complete loss.

"Interesting piece isn't it?"

The voice belonged to a beautiful woman. She was wearing a blue dress that gently caressed her figure; it rippled at her movements, conveying different shades and making me think of swift rivers. Her eyes were a deep brown and seemed to swirl, like the earth, I thought. She had golden hair that fell to her waist in wavy curls. Over all wow affect. I immediately knew that she couldn't be human. No one that pretty ever was.

"It is, but it's not what I'm looking for I'm afraid."

Maybe I should have been afraid of this creature, but I didn't feel threatened by her. Nico had wandered off somewhere, probably to give me my space.

"Ah sometimes the things we're looking for, aren't the things we need. Wouldn't you agree?"

She raised her perfect eyebrow at me and I had the sudden urge to go pluck mine. I shook my head to get rid of the thought.

"Who are you?" I'd decided to cut the crap.

She laughed, an odd sound, like water rushing over rocks.

"They call me El Naddha, but if that's who I am, I do not know. I do know what you're looking for though."

The name didn't ring a bell, no greek monsters came to mind, but I perked up at her last words.

"Oh? And what would that be?"

"You seek the sunken City, Atlantis. Don't fret little shadow child, you have come to the right place. Your answers lie with the last rest of Djoser, pharaoh of the third dynasty. He'll have your answers."

Could it be true? Could I trust this being? She didn't seem to want to harm me, but who knew… It could be trick… Still, it was my only lead and I was going to follow it.

Nico was in an adjacent room, staring at some old pharaoh, something I hardly cared about at that moment.

"I know where we need to look." I felt renewed, alive. Finally I had another lead, a weak and unreliable one, sure, but a lead. I was smiling so widely that I was surprised my face didn't split in half. After all the disappointment this week, I needed this.

"Oh? Did you find something?" He sounded less than ecstatic. I chose to ignore that.

"Well… Yes and no… I met someone who told me that there are hints to Atlantis in the Djoser Pyramid."

"Who? Who would tell you that?" He was frowning, obviously not trusting this whole thing, so I decided to lie.

"A museum guide. I asked him if they have anything on it and he said that the only records had been found in that pyramid."

Now if Nico knew anything about Egyptian history, he'd see right through it, but it seemed like he didn't. Lucky me. He was thinking hard, realizing that his was a week lead and then choosing to ignore it for me sake. I felt angry again. More and more I began to feel like he was just coming along to humour me, but all the time thinking that his was a fool's errand. Why couldn't he just trust me? Believe in me? I knew that this was real; I could feel it with every fibre of my being. We were getting close… My heart hurt at the thought.

The Pyramids were ginormous and impressive. There was no way that they'd been built by humans alone, some godly figure must have been involved, but nevertheless they were amazing. Djoser's Pyramid was the first one they'd uncovered and the over 200 feet tall construction loomed over us, making me feel small and insignificant. Who was I to enter such a miracle? Kyra Mist, child of Darkness, that's who. I would pull this thing apart brick, by brick, if it brought me closer to my goal.

The only problem with that task were the guards… Crap.

"We're gonna have to shadow travel past them", I said to Nico who just nodded. He'd gotten fairly quiet, but I put it out of my mind. There'd be time to speak about our relationship later, although I couldn't help but think about how different things were since we'd left the camp.

"On three. One, two, three!"

Hand in hand we shadow travelled into the doorway right behind the guards. It wasn't hard to stay undetected in the darkness of the Pyramid. Hiding in Darkness was my speciality after all.

We ventured into the dark, hand in hand.

Yeah that sounded romantic didn't it? And it was, to some extent, but mostly it was because I could actually see something and he couldn't. To me the world had just taken on a different shade, colours were colder and darker, but not less vibrant. I could see the hieroglyphs marking the walls, the ancient runes telling stories of the world, maybe of my world.

We walked further and further, pulled by some unseen force. I knew we were in the right place, I could feel the magic in the air, real magic, not the Mist, magic as old as the world, in its own way.

"Do you even know where you're going?"

"Yes." And I did. I knew when I needed to take a turn, I could tell. Somehow the signs on the wall, although unreadable to me, gave me hints, they seemed to glow, although not visibly. Maybe I was going crazy, maybe I was losing my mind, but if I was, then I was enjoying this madness.

My entire body felt alive, on fire. I was haunting my mystery, and I was getting close.

All of a sudden the hallway opened up into a huge cavern. I stopped still and stared at it in awe. The cavern was bigger than it should have been and I assumed that we'd travelled quite some distance into the earth. Had the archaeologist ever even found this part of the pyramid? I doubted it. You could have fitted an entire football stadium in there, that's how big it was.

"Wow."

Yes it didn't really do it justice, but hey I'm a simple minded girl, how was I supposed to come up with anything else? Besides, I didn't feel sophisticated enough to say words like 'Exquisite'.

"What?", Nico sounded impatient, curious. I willed the Darkness in the cavern to subside, but I couldn't manage to make the entire room visible, it was just too big for that. Still it was impressive, and I could see on Nico's face that he was. He couldn't believe his eyes. I grinned at him.

"Amazing isn't it?"

He just nodded and looked around.

"Kyra! Look at the ground!"

I did and I nearly jumped for joy! The ground was one ginormous picture. A picture of a city with winding towers, a public place with a fountain and in its middle a gently smiling woman. All of this in the Egyptian style that made her look slightly awkward, but still! This was it! This was my city!

I walked around the room, taking it all in. Finally! I was finally getting close! The entire room was filled with images I'd seen in my dreams, and some I'd never seen before. It was telling the story, the story of what had happened to Atlantis, what had happened to the Silver City. I was so absorbed with the images that I didn't notice something was wrong until it was too late.

"Kyra!" there was genuine fear in Nico's voice and I turned around to find the room shifting. The floor was rising, the walls closing in at a rapid speed. I wanted to run towards Nico, but I knew that that would mean getting crushed by the moving walls.

"Run", he screamed and I did. His side of the room seemed to be normal, the walls were after me! I ran as fast as I could, but still the walls drew closer, they seemed to be growing out of the ground and soon was I surrounded, with nowhere to go, but a small tunnel that had definitely not been there before. I gulped and entered.

It didn't occur to me to shadow travel away; somehow I just knew that it would have been futile. The tunnel was definitely not an original part of the pyramid that much was clear. It had no hieroglyphs, no Egyptian signs, just dirty walls that smelled old and rancid.

After what seemed like forever it opened up into yet another large cavern, although not nearly as big as the last one. It wasn't empty either.