See what a few extra reviews will get you guys? And it was easy, right? You're gonna review all the time now, right? Right? Haha, worth a try :D

Anyway, all kidding aside, thanks bunches to all of you who read my note and reviewed last chapter! As promised, I'm updating before I go away. Ready to find Hypnos? Enjoy, everybody!

XXXII
LEO

The spiral staircase was so dark Leo had to summon a blaze of fire in his hand to provide himself and Nico with enough light to avoid falling headfirst down the steps. They couldn't have been descending for more than a minute or so, but for some reason it felt like an hour. At first they could hear shouting and clanging above them—the sounds of Reyna's battle against Nyx. But soon those echoes were swallowed up by the dark stone walls, leaving Leo and Nico with only the sounds of the fire in Leo's hand and their own footsteps to break the otherwise eerie silence.

Eventually the stairwell opened up into a long, narrow hallway. "Now what?" Leo asked, reaching out and touching a nearby wall. It seemed unremarkable.

"I guess we start looking," Nico suggested. "How far do you think this hallway goes?"

Experimentally, Leo thrust out his arm and sent a small ball of fire down the hall. It illuminated the walls as it went, showing a number of identical shiny, black doors, before colliding with a stone wall some sixty feet away, where the hallway turned a corner to the left. "About that far," Leo reported with a groan. That was a lot of doors to go through. "Better get started. Let's see what's behind door number one." He stepped up to the first door on the right and turned the knob, pulling it open. Inside was a wide, low-ceilinged room that his fire only lit the front half of—but it was enough to see the giant nest of sleeping lizard monsters. Startled, Leo scrambled backward and shut the door tightly, leaning his back against it. "Wrong door."

Nico shot him a pointed look. "We can't check every door, that'd take forever. Besides, we don't even know what might be in these rooms. Just follow my lead." He turned away from Leo, not waiting for confirmation, and started slowly down the hallway. He glanced to the right or left every few seconds, and Leo assumed he was using that weird life/death sense thing he had to try and find the god by his immortal aura, or something. Whatever. Leo didn't need to understand it. As long as it worked and they made it back to Reyna before it was too late.

They were almost to the end of the hall before Nico stopped abruptly—so abruptly that Leo ran into him and set the sleeve of his jacket on fire. A moment of brief panic and a lot of wild movement later, Nico placed a hand flat against the stone space between two doors and said, "Here."

Leo frowned, eyeing the doors that lay about ten feet on either side of them. "You know that's a wall, right?"

Nico glared at him. "There's a room," he said curtly. "There's just no door."

"Oh, of course. Good thing I can walk through walls, then."

Rolling his eyes impatiently, Nico grabbed Leo's arm. "Who said anything about walking? Put out that fire." The second Leo did as he was asked, darkness flooded around them and Leo was yanked by the arm into a black wind tunnel that seemed to suck the air from his lungs. Thankfully it lasted barely three seconds before the shadows thinned and they came to a sudden and complete halt. Nico let go of Leo and he stumbled backward against a wall, coughing as he caught his breath and flinching at the strain to the burns on his chest.

"Nico di Angelo," a slow, steady voice said suddenly. "And Leo Valdez. Isn't this a surprise?"

Leo looked up to realize that Nico had been right—there really was a room on the other side of that wall. It was small, maybe twenty square feet, and plain. Empty torches hung from the black stone walls. The room was lit instead by a flickering blue glow coming from the back of the room—where the god of sleep, Hypnos, was locked in an iron cage burning with dancing, black fire.

Leo froze. He may not have been afraid of his own fire anymore, but Nyx's still brought an immediate sense of fear and pain that he couldn't control. Ahead of him, Nico stepped forward and said, "Lord Hypnos. We came to ask your help."

Hypnos regarded Nico with interest. He was dressed in the same gold silk pajamas he'd been wearing when they had first met him over a month ago at the Cloud Nine Hotel, but he looked a good deal worse for wear. His black hair, streaked with gray, was untidy and tangled. His golden eyes looked tired, and the lines on his face seemed to have deepened. "You wish me to free the other gods," he guessed almost sadly. "Believe me, my boy, I wish nothing less myself. But as you can see, at the present I am powerless."

"Why?" Nico asked with a frown. His eyes reflected the dark fire. "What is this stuff?"

"Nightflame," Hypnos explained. "An ancient, dark magic invented by the primordial shadow gods—Nyx and Erebos. It feeds on immortal energy, casting our power into the void. It burns eternal unless snuffed by its creator or cleansed by the purest fire—fire only the god Hephaestus can summon. It is… an inescapable prison."

"The prophecy," Leo said suddenly, walking forward. "'Sleep entombed in fiery jail'. It wasn't… It meant you." This had to be what that line was referring to—not 'sleep' the action, but 'Sleep' the immortal being, trapped in a prison of Nightflame. Despite the dire situation, Leo couldn't help feeling partially relieved. It wasn't about him after all.

"Yes," Hypnos agreed with a weak sigh. "It seems I have the honor of a line in our newest Great Prophecy."

Leo felt a lump rise in his throat. "So this is a Great Prophecy."

Hypnos nodded, his eyes strangely sad. "There must always be a Great Prophecy."

Before Leo could think too hard about what that meant, Nico turned to him and said, "He said Hephaestus's fire can stop this stuff. Does that mean you can, too?"

Hypnos's eyes sharpened. "You're a pyrokinetic?"

Mouth extremely dry, Leo raised a hand and willed it to catch fire in answer, blending a warm, orange light against the eerie blue shadows on the stone walls. He glanced at Nico, who shrugged as if to say Give it a try. Hypnos only watched with a serious expression. Leo thought back on his last dream, how his fire had consumed Nyx's and beaten it. The same thing had to happen now, didn't it? Wasn't that the whole point of his father's showing him that it was possible? For this moment, so they could set Hypnos free?

Leo took another step forward and stretched out his arm, throwing a stream of fire at the cage bars. The orange flames collided with the black—and nothing happened. Leo's fire crackled and burned out, and Nyx's fire blazed on.

Nico cursed in ancient Greek. "Guess it's gotta be the god. It was worth a shot. We need another plan, though—some way to trick Nyx into getting rid of this fire."

"But why would he…?" Leo muttered absently, not listening. He raised a hand and narrowed his eyes at it, thinking back to the dream. He couldn't be certain—you never could with gods—but Leo had a feeling his father had meant for him to do more than just beat the dream. It couldn't be a coincidence that he'd found himself up against the Nightflame in real life, or that getting rid of it was so important. Somehow, Hephaestus had to have known that his and the other gods' freedom would hinge on this moment—on Leo overcoming Nyx's fire. What had he done differently in the dream? Well, there was one glaring alteration—in the dream, he'd been the one on fire. He'd overwhelmed Nyx's flames from the inside.

That gave Leo an idea—and idea he really hated. But they were at war, the gods were trapped in an enchanted sleep, the one who could wake them was locked up tight, and Nico was busy babbling about what it would take for Nyx to extinguish the Nightflame herself. At this point, anything was worth a try.

"Wait a sec," Leo said aloud, interrupting whatever Nico was planning. He strode purposefully toward Hypnos's cage and Nico turned to him in alarm.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

Leo didn't answer. He stopped in front of the prison and stared into the swirling black and blue flames, trying not to focus on how much they burned and instead on how he'd beaten them last time. The fire he had inside was stronger than them; his father had told him as much. He could do this. He had to.

Before he could lose his nerve, Leo shoved both hands out and grabbed the bars of Hypnos's cage. Instantly the hot metal scorched his skin and he yelled through gritted teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. He threw all his concentration into memories of the dream and his desire to make Nyx pay for everything she'd done, turning it into the fire he was so used to. On cue, his arms and hands blazed with orange flame, and this time it didn't flicker out. It swelled in seconds and consumed every inch of the cage, brightening the Nightflame and throwing a warm, red light across the entire room.

The burning sensation vanished, but pain still spiked up Leo's arms. His hands felt glued to the iron bars. He willed the now-familiar fire to die down and it slowly flickered and faded, leaving the bars of the cage glowing red-hot but no longer ignited. He pried his stiff fingers from the bars and staggered backward with a low groan, feeling slightly sick at the sight of the rough and boiled skin on his hands. That had better heal. What good was a mechanic/electrician/engineer who couldn't use his hands?

"How did you do that?" Nico asked, staring at the fire-free prison in awe. He reached out and touched one of the bars, yanking his hand back immediately with a pained grimace.

"With mad skill, how else?" Leo responded. He gripped the hot iron—no longer bothered by the temperature—and pulled the cage open easily, stepping back to give the god some space. Realizing that they were now standing around in the dark, he also proceeded to light a few of the empty torches on the walls.

"Impressive," Hypnos offered with an appreciative nod as he straightened his shoulders and stepped out of the cage. "You have my thanks. Now we must leave quickly. My mother can still control me if she comes too close. We must return to Olympus and free the gods before it's too late."

"We can't," Leo argued at once. "We've got a friend upstairs. We aren't leaving without her."

Nico nodded in agreement. "You go," he told Hypnos. "Besides, somebody's still got to deal with Nyx. I'm sure we'll… figure something out." He didn't sound too convinced, a fact which Hypnos seemed not to miss.

"There may be a way," the god said thoughtfully, frowning. His tired, golden eyes seemed to darken when he looked from Nico to Leo and said, "Blood magic."

"Blood magic?" Leo repeated with a grimace. He didn't like the sound of that.

"Yes. Blood magic is a powerful, arcane technique—a barrier spell of sorts. It has been used to imprison immortals for ages—since the time of the Titans, who first developed it. It was how Erebos was locked deep in the Underworld, and why Nyx required Kronos' blood to break him free."

"So you're saying you could trap Nyx here?" Nico said, eyes widening earnestly.

"I can't," Hypnos said, shaking his head. Leo felt his heart sink in disappointment—until Hypnos looked straight at him and said, "But you can."

"Me?" Leo said in surprise.

"Blood magic is enacted through fire—not dark fire, like Nightflame, otherwise I'm certain my mother would have used it on me. Pure, light fire. The Titan Prometheus provided Kronos with the immortal fire necessary to imprison Erebos. Your father's fire is just the same."

"But… I can't do magic," Leo argued lamely. The idea was a bit too wild even for him.

Hypnos only quirked an eyebrow. "You can create fire at will, and you wonder about magic?"

Leo hesitated, conceding the point. "Touché. Alright, so… what do I have to do?"

"For its power," Hypnos explained, "the spell is rather simple. All it requires is that you burn Nyx's blood into the walls of this castle. Then you would only need to find a way to defeat her—she would not be able to escape on her own."

It sounded too good to be true. Was it really possible? Could they actually trap Nyx in her own palace and escape safely, with Hypnos free and the gods possibly minutes away from waking? Could they seriously win?

"It may be simple, but it will not be easy," Hypnos warned as though reading Leo's mind. "Nyx knows of this magic and will not fall for it readily. You will need to be fast and wait for the right opening."

"An opening we may never get," Nico added. Always the optimist.

Suddenly Hypnos looked sharply toward the ceiling, expression turning stony. "She is coming," he said darkly.

"Wait—what?" Leo stammered.

"I must go before she catches me. Good luck, demigods. I sincerely hope we meet again." And with that, Hypnos vanished in a burst of white light, leaving Leo and Nico alone and a little stunned.

But they weren't alone for long. Barely a few seconds later, there was flash of blue light and Nyx materialized in the center of the room, her back to them as she faced the now empty cage. Before either of them could react, she let out a furious scream of rage and spun around so fast her hair and gown whipped like they were caught in a tornado.

"You," she growled, glaring fiercely at Leo and completely ignoring Nico. She threw herself forward and Leo scrambled back in alarm, trying not to envision getting his eyes clawed out by her three-inch fingernails. He dove clumsily to the side and fired a thin column of flame in her direction, igniting the end of her midnight-blue hair. She shrieked angrily and reached for it, probably about to extinguish it with some kind of god-magic, but at that moment Leo felt a hand grab his wrist and everything around him vanished into cold blackness. The next thing he knew, he was standing at the foot of the spiral stairwell.

"Come on!" Nico yelled as he set off at a run up the stairs. Leo didn't need telling twice. He leapt after Nico, both taking the stairs three at a time, with only one horrifying thought in his head—what happened to Reyna?

They had to have seconds before the Queen of Night caught up with them. Hypnos's advice about blood magic had been all well and good, but Nico was right—finding the right opening to use it wouldn't be as easy as they thought. They had to find a way to put some distance between themselves and Nyx, enough to come up with a plan.

When they burst into the audience chamber, the place was dark and quiet. Leo summoned fire to give them light, and the first thing he saw made his heart stop cold—Reyna was lying on the floor ahead of them, and she wasn't moving.

"Reyna!" Leo yelled, running forward and sliding to his knees beside her. Her clothes were sticky with blood that stemmed from a stab wound in her left shoulder and a thin slice below her ribs, and more dripped from a cut on the side of her neck. Her right cheek was badly burned, dotted with tiny boils. Her arms and legs bore numerous scratches, and her braid was messy and singed at the edges. She was breathing—thank the gods—but barely.

"This isn't good," Nico said unnecessarily, looking anxiously over his shoulder toward the door they'd just broken through.

Suddenly Reyna groaned and her eyes fluttered open. Leo leaned over her as she said in a weak voice, "Hypnos…"

"We found him," Leo told her. "He's free—he's gone."

Reyna breathed out shortly, possibly in relief. "Nyx…?"

"—Is coming!" Nico answered, staring at the door to the stairs. He looked back at Leo and Reyna with wide, serious eyes. "We've got to do something. Should we fight or run?"

"If we run now, she'll just go after Hypnos again," Leo pointed out, thinking fast. "No, we've gotta beat her here and now. Otherwise all of this will be for nothing."

"But…" Nico said, eyes sliding down toward Reyna. Leo understood what he didn't say—she needed help right away. Defeating Nyx now was important, but so was saving Reyna's life. And when Leo looked back at Nico's dark eyes, he suddenly remembered another important factor—his promise to Hazel. She'd asked him to keep her brother safe. There had to be a way to accomplish all that in one fell swoop.

Making a quick and probably stupid decision, Leo said firmly, "Alright, you take Reyna. Get her somewhere safe and get help."

"What?" Nico said sharply. "No, you're right. We have to stop Nyx now—"

"I know. I'll do it."

"If you think I'm leaving you here—"

"If Reyna stays much longer, she'll die. As you can probably imagine, I would really like to prevent that from happening."

Nico glared at Leo, who stared back just as adamantly. He'd been through the options. This was the only one that had even the slightest chance of accomplishing everything Leo wanted to accomplish. Sure, he was scared out of his mind. But Hypnos believed he could do it, so he had to try and do the same.

"There's no arguing with this, is there?" Nico grumbled.

Leo shook his head. "Nope. The Supreme Commander has decided. So go on, Walking Dead. Get going!"

The look on his face must have shown that he clearly wasn't changing his mind anytime soon. Nico growled in frustration and defeat, looking like he was fighting the urge to tear his hair out. "I'm coming back for you as soon as I can," he promised angrily. "Don't do anything stupid."

Leo grinned. "Wouldn't dream of it," he replied cheekily.

Nico lingered just long enough to glare at Leo, shooting him an unspoken 'If you die, I'll kill you' threat (which Leo didn't take idly; Nico was the son of the Lord of the Dead—it was entirely possible). Then he swore harshly under his breath and turned away. He knelt down, hooked his hands under Reyna's arms, and started pulling her toward the nearest corner of the chamber where the shadows were thickest.

Reyna's heavy-lidded eyes fixed on Leo, but he couldn't read the emotion in them behind the pain and exhaustion. He might have hazarded a guess, though, when the words she forced out were "Don't… die."

He gave her a weak smile. "You either."

And with that, the darkness folded over Nico and Reyna and they vanished, leaving Leo alone with the evil goddess of night.

DUN DUN DUNNN! As you can probably imagine, the next chapter is pretty crazy. I'll get it up some time next week. Hey, who knows? More reviews might prompt me to update more quickly ;)

Thanks, gang! Have a good weekend! Later days!

-oMM