Let me tell you guys how great it was to come back to all those reviews last night. Really made my day! So thanks to all of you! I tried to respond to all the ones I could, but to all the unsigned reviewers, thanks so much since I can't tell you directly! Love you guys!

So of course after seeing all the love when I got home, I'm updating today. Hey, keep it up and I'll try to up my speed. I just got done writing chapter 45 (finally; this one's taken me foreverrrr haha) so I'm making decent progress. Long as I can keep up, we'll be solid.

Thanks again, everybody! Enjoy this chapter! (And try to bear with me. I promise I have a plan. ...You'll understand.)

XXXIII
LEO

Before Leo turned around, he realized he had company. And sure enough—there was Nyx, standing in front of the stairwell door with her pale hands clenched into fists and her piercing, white-gold eyes glowing with malice.

Now that he had a second to look at her, he realized that Reyna hadn't taken all the damage from their fight. Her gown was torn in places and dotted with specks of golden ichor that dropped from various cuts on her arms, shoulders, and stomach. She didn't look anywhere near as pristine and perfect as she had before. And what's more, now her hair was tangled and charred—a good few inches shorter than it was minutes ago.

"Whoa," Leo said in a good impression of a calm voice. "Talk about a bad hair day."

Nyx shrieked incoherently and thrust out both arms, sending a powerful blaze of Nightflame from her fingertips. Leo yelped and copied her, summoning a column of fire that collided with hers midair and both were wiped from existence. She reached her right arm to the side and that same thin, black sword appeared from the shadows. At the same time she made a pushing gesture with her left arm and a thick wall of dark energy slammed into Leo and threw him to the ground. He looked up and rolled sideways as Nyx swung her blade wildly at his head, jumping up to dodge her immediate follow-up swing. She spun with lightning speed and precision and her sword grazed the front of his shirt as he leapt backward. He stuck a hand in his tool belt and pulled out the first thing he could find, using it to block the next sword-strike. It turned out to be a wooden mallet, and her obsidian blade passed right through it with little resistance. If he hadn't ducked at the same time, he'd be about a head shorter.

"Aw, come on," he complained, dropped the useless halves of the mallet and glaring down at his tool belt. Now really wasn't the time for it to get smart with him.

He backed up quickly, deflecting another orb of Nightflame, and reached both hands into the belt, this time producing a twelve-inch lug wrench and a steel screwdriver. "That's more like it," he said appreciatively. He used the wrench to block Nyx's sword at the last second and threw the screwdriver, not really sure what he was hoping to accomplish with it. Miraculously, it hit the goddess squarely on the forehead and she stumbled backward, cursing in a very unladylike way.

Taking the chance, Leo turned and bolted away from her, heading toward the back of the audience chamber. He needed to get her blood somehow and, as Hypnos had said, burn it into the castle wall. That would bind her to the place, buying him time to get out of there and—ideally—collapse the building with her inside. That should definitely count as a defeat.

Leo reached the back of the chamber and veered off through a doorway against the back right wall, behind the throne. It led into a long hallway with more unlit torches adorning the walls. Hardly thinking about where he was going, he sprinted down the hall and turned left at the end, leaping up a short flight of six stairs that curved to the right. At the top landing, the hall swung around and he followed it into a wide walkway with huge, vaulted windows along the right wall. Below them, he could see a dark courtyard, probably in the middle of the castle's wings. At the end of the line of windows, the hallway split in two directions—straight or right. He took the right path into another hallway lined with more windows. He'd only gone about halfway down it, however, when something solid slammed into his back and knocked him off his feet, his momentum sending him rolling across the floor.

Leo blinked the stars from his vision and looked around to see Nyx at the other end of the hallway, coming toward him fast. He scrambled to his feet and darted through a doorway to his right—into a dead-end. The room looked like a fancy bedroom, with a huge, four-poster bed hung with black curtains in the corner and a wardrobe the size of half the Hephaestus cabin across from it. A round table with two chairs was against the left wall, next to a tall window covered in heavy drapes. He might've had time to take note of the rest of the room's strange clutter, but at that moment Nyx appeared in the doorway, barring the only exit.

Looks like it's now or never, Leo thought with a nervous jolt as Nyx glowered at him, looking pleased. He reached slowly into his tool belt and rummaged around, praying for something sharp. The first thing he produced was a cow hammer—nope. Next came a handful of size three washers—negative. A box of breath mints—was this thing kidding? Finally, it seemed to take pity on him and produced something useful—a four-inch wood-carving knife. Bingo.

"Nowhere else to run, Leo," Nyx said with a cold smile, and he cringed involuntarily at the sound of his name.

"Who's running?" Leo shot back with a smirk. She glared and opened her mouth to reply, but before she could he darted straight toward her. Luckily he seemed to have caught her off-guard, because otherwise that probably would have been a very unimpressive suicide. As it was, he had a brief second before she was able to react, and by the grace of some god somewhere he dug the knife across her side, just below the ribs, tearing her gown and causing her to cry out in surprise and twist reflexively to the side. He leapt backward as she wildly swung an arm at him and spun out of her reach, driving the small gold-stained blade into the wall beside the doorframe. He raised a hand, about to light the knife on fire, when suddenly a ball of Nightflame hit his right arm below the shoulder, catching his jacket sleeve on fire. He stumbled backward with a startled yell and barely dodged a swing of Nyx's sword as she appeared between him and the bedroom door.

Leo quickly used his own fire to extinguish the Nightflame before tearing the charred sleeve from his jacket. He glanced up and saw that he was now in the center of the room, with Nyx blocking his way to the door and also, subsequently, the bloody knife he'd lodged in the wall. But distance didn't matter. He just needed to burn it, and for that all he needed was a clear shot.

"Enjoying the feeling of being burned?" Nyx taunted him in a slightly shrill voice. "You may be able to stop my Nightflame, but you cannot beat it. It will consume you. My vision was wrong—you are nothing."

"Vision?" Leo repeated, trying to keep Nyx distracted. "What vision?"

"The vision of you—of your pathetic fire overpowering the Night! But it was mistaken. See how easily a few nightmares frightened you! Your fire is weak."

Leo momentarily lost focus, intrigued by her outburst. "Wait—you gave me those dreams to try and scare me off? Because I'm supposed to beat you?"

The goddess scoffed, glancing at the ceiling. "It was much easier than I envisioned."

A sudden irritation flared inside Leo. He finally was staring straight at the reason for all the pain and anxiety he'd felt over the past few weeks, and no matter what it took, she was going to pay for it. "Yeah, well, didn't anyone ever tell you not to fight fire with fire?" he said smartly, a smirk stretching across his face. "You just get burned."

Nyx's nostrils flared. "We will see who's burned when you're dead!" she shrieked, before darting forward with her sword outstretched. Leo leapt to the side and reached out, firing a thin blast of orange and yellow flame past Nyx, his eyes fixed on the wood-carving knife still stained with her immortal blood. The same instant, he felt an intense, stabbing pain in his side and he cried out through clenched teeth, hunching forward as his muscles seemed to seize up as though charged with electricity. He looked down and saw the narrow, obsidian blade of Nyx's sword impaling the right side of his stomach—he hadn't dodged her quickly enough.

For a brief second, Nyx began to laugh. But then she stopped abruptly and her eyes widened in anger. She twisted her sword and pulled it back, eliciting another sharp yell from Leo, and spun around as though searching for something. Leo staggered backward unsteadily, wrapping an arm around his stomach as blood started to soak from the stab wound and trying hard to keep his legs from giving out. This wasn't over yet.

But he'd done it—the carving knife lodged in the wall was burning bright red and gold. Nyx growled in fury and started toward it, arm outstretched, but in a second the fire had blazed and disappeared. An odd, warm breeze swam through the air, like someone had opened a window, and vanished as quickly as it had come. Strange as it was, Leo knew it could only mean one thing: the spell had worked. Nyx was trapped.

"Blood magic," she snarled, her voice dangerously low. She turned back toward Leo looking positively livid. "You dare imprison me here? This is my palace! If I must stay here forever, then so will you!" She leaned her head back and dropped her sword, raising both hands above her head. Worried but smart enough not to miss a chance like this, Leo ran forward, darting around Nyx and heading out into the hall. Suddenly the entire castle rumbled and shook like an earthquake had struck. Leo stumbled and fell sideways against the wall across from the bedroom door, warning lights flicking on in his head. What was she doing?

A second later it stopped. Nothing appeared to have happened—at least, he thought not. Not until he started down the hall and noticed that something was different.

Hadn't there been windows there a few minutes ago?

Leo's throat suddenly felt extremely dry. No way…

He ran down the hall, letting adrenaline take over and distract from the pain in his side, and retraced his steps from earlier. As he moved, he dug a hand in his tool belt and felt around, hoping he'd remembered to stock up his supply of god food back at the bunker before leaving. He could really use some right about now.

"Come on, come on…" he muttered distractedly. His hands were slick with blood, which made it harder—not to mention the fact that his belt was fastened to his waist just below where Nyx had stabbed him and was now uncomfortably damp. "Ha-ha!" he said as he found what he was looking for. He yanked the chunk of ambrosia from inside and bit off a mouthful—as much as he thought he could eat without exploding or something equally unpleasant and lethal. A renewed sense of energy spread through his tired body and he picked up speed.

Finally, Leo ducked through a doorway and found himself back in the audience chamber. He lit a fire to provide some light and tossed it at one of the empty torches on the walls—seriously, why bother having them if she wasn't going to light the place? He dashed across the chamber, but before he reached the front end he saw it—or rather, didn't see it. The entrance doors had vanished.

"Aw, no…" he said in dread, running up and placing both hands against the stone wall that was now erected right where the doors they'd entered through had been. The windows, the doors… everything was gone. Nyx had said that if she was going to be stuck here, then so was he. Now he saw what she'd meant. The crazy old witch had gone and erased every one of the castle's exits.

Leo's mind was racing. He could whip up an explosive and blast his way out, but that would throw a wrench in his plans to demolish the palace. He knew for a fact he didn't have enough materials for more than one device—not if one of them had to be large enough to take the building down. He would have to find a way to get more, and that would take time. Nyx had broken a blood magic seal before. Who was to say she couldn't find a way to do it again? Especially if she contacted Erebos for help. No, he needed to defeat her now, while he had the upper hand and before she had time to call her brother. Otherwise all this will have been completely useless.

Briefly, Leo wondered what had happened to Nico and Reyna. Nico had said he'd be back as soon as he could, but so far Leo hadn't heard anything from them. Had they made it somewhere safe—a nearby city or something? He was worried about Reyna, mostly. She'd been hurt pretty badly. Would a mortal hospital be able to help her? Ideally, if she could get back to Camp Half-Blood, it would be her best chance. But Leo had no idea if Nico could manage shadow-traveling over two thousand miles with another person. And even if he did, there was no way he'd be coming back, which meant that Leo was pretty much on his own.

He needed a plan. And fast. Nyx would be on him any second. The trouble was, he was slowly starting to realize that he'd have to choose between escaping and defeating her—he couldn't do both. And what was more, the effects of the ambrosia were already starting to fade. He could feel himself getting weaker by the second as if all his energy was seeping out of the stab wound below his ribs, and the chances of his crossing paths with a paramedic or a surgeon anytime soon were slim to none. Yet another uninviting fact Leo had to face: he was dying.

But that sure as heck didn't mean he wasn't going out with a bang.

Trying to steel his nerves into resolve, Leo pulled off his jacket and tore a strip from the bottom. He gritted his teeth and tied it tightly around his stomach in an effort to slow the blood loss. He needed his mind as sharp as it could be for the next few minutes. Just then, Nyx entered the audience chamber from the back at a slow, leisurely walk. She clearly wasn't in much of a hurry anymore—as far as she was concerned, they had all the time in the world.

"Looks like we're stuck here," Leo said lightly, jerking his head toward the conspicuously door-less wall behind him. "Know any good games to pass the time?"

Nyx raised her dark eyebrows as she strode across the chamber. "How about 'kill the bratty demigod'?"

"Bratty? Now that's just rude. I aim for 'annoying' and not a step above."

But the goddess didn't seem to be in the mood for witty banter. She flipped her sword in her hand and thrust out her left arm, calling a wall of darkness that attempted to slam sideways into Leo. He jumped and leapt away from the door and out of harm's way—or rather, directly into harm's way, as the movement placed him within slicing distance of Nyx. She twirled around and swung her blade, and Leo jerked backward away from it. He shot a basketball-sized fireball at her, which she evaded as she aimed another attack. He knew he needed a way to distract her so he could get to work. The longer this dragged on, the harder it would be.

An unexpected opportunity presented itself very soon after, when Leo dodged a vicious swing of Nyx's obsidian sword and she instead managed to grab his arm with her free hand. She smirked and called a blaze of Nightflame, but he'd guessed half a second earlier what she was thinking. Immediately, he lit his arm—shoulder to wrist—on fire before hers could burn him, consuming the Nightflame in a wash of heat. Her white-gold eyes widened as the orange fire spread up her own arm in an instant and she stumbled backward with a shriek of alarm.

Seizing his chance, Leo turned and bolted for the basement door he and Nico had escaped through earlier. He pulled it shut behind him reflexively, even though he knew it wouldn't deter Nyx at all when she decided to follow him. Bounding down the spiral stairwell, Leo started reaching into his tool belt and yanking out materials—a casket of water softener, strips of sandpaper, an open package of mechanical insecticide, and three fireproof phials of nitroglycerine. Barely even focusing on what his hands were doing, he quickly dropped a pinch of water softener and half a handful of insecticide into one of the phials, swirling it just enough to mix the three ingredients. He pulled a six-inch cut of PVC piping from his belt and slid a quarter and a wad of fabric in one end as a stopper before dumping the contents of the phial inside. He then wrapped the entire thing in sandpaper, keeping it upright. He repeated the process twice more until he'd thrown together three crude sticks of high-explosion dynamite.

Next came the wiring and detonation cap. He tied the three sticks together as he reached the dark hallway at the bottom of the stairwell. Hands moving so quickly his eyes could barely follow, he rigged together an external heat-powered detonator and wired it through the top of each stick. He cut the joint wire and peeled back the last inch of plastic coating, attaching a three-inch flammable wick to the end of it.

Leo skidded to a halt near the end of the hall and chose a door at random, pulling it open and peering inside. Thankfully, no strange creatures were there to greet him—only a small, dark room with a stack of square tables against the back wall. He set his device on the floor just inside and to the left of the door, pulling a stopwatch from his tool belt as he did so and setting it for ninety seconds—exactly how much time he'd have once the fuse was lit. He didn't want Nyx to know what he was doing, meaning that she couldn't see the bomb before it had a chance to go off. If she did, then who knew—she probably could stop it somehow or protect herself at least. But if he hid it down here and led her away, she wouldn't be any the wiser. And that was key to this whole thing working out.

He heard her voice yell something from a marginal distance away and shot an anxious look over his shoulder. He was out of time. Hands shaking and heart pounding, he snapped his fingers, summoning a tiny tongue of fire and holding it against the fuse. It sparked and lit immediately and he pressed a button on the stopwatch, starting the clock. Then he stood up and left the room, snapping the door shut behind him. The trap was set. All he had to do was make sure Nyx didn't find it.

The instant he saw the hem of Nyx's gown descend the stairs Leo set off at a run like he'd never stopped. At the end of the hall, the path veered to the left to show another stairwell leading up and he followed it without a second thought. It bent to the right halfway up and Leo stumbled at the landing, the adrenaline in his veins weakening and no longer able to replace the energy he'd lost. He wouldn't be able to run much farther.

Just to the top of these stairs, he told himself firmly as he gripped the handrail and kept going. He could hear Nyx behind him now. He chanced a glance at the stopwatch—fifty-three seconds.

At the top of the stairs was a back hallway. Leo threw himself through the first door he came to—which turned out to be the entrance to a sort of dining hall. A long table rested in the center of the tall chamber, set with eighteen chairs. Deciding this was as good a place as any, Leo ambled across the hall and pulled back the chair at the head of the table, dropping heavily into it. He hung an arm loosely across his stomach, barely registering how wet the fabric he'd tied around himself had gotten. His entire body ached like he'd just been subjected to electric shock therapy. The ambrosia had helped heal a lot of the burns, but the pain in his side had spread. His arms and legs were starting to feel numb and weightless, his head unusually heavy. He couldn't ever remember being this tired in his life. Sluggishly, his eyes fell to the face of the watch in his hand. Twenty-six seconds. Twenty-five. Twenty-four.

At last, Nyx stepped through the doorway. The anger in her face seemed to fade, replaced by a sort of calm triumph. She thought she'd won. Boy, was she in for a surprise.

"Tired of running, Leo?" she said tauntingly as Leo glanced again at the clock. Seventeen seconds. "Ready to give up this pointless game of cat and mouse? I must admit it's growing tedious."

Her smirk faltered when, for no apparent reason, he laughed. "Aw," he said in mock disappointment, resting his head against the chair's high back. "You mean you're not having fun?"

Nyx raised an eyebrow. Six seconds. Just enough time for one final joke.

So Leo looked directly at the Queen of Night, grinned, and finished, "I'm having a blast."

Thanks-for-reading-don't-kill-me-see-you-later-bye!

-oMM