Nico di Angelo shouldn't be alive.

After a fire that claimed the life of his sister the previous winter, fingers point to him as the culprit. Use of destructive powers is forbidden outside the classroom and the student body is out for blood. He gives them what they want and slips into the shadows.

Will Solace craves a power he can never have.

He knows that Nico refused the patronage of his own father, the famously exclusive deputy head of the university. The son of a family with a tenuous link to their godly powers, Will brims with potential that will take all he has to reach. Nico doesn't want to return. Will wants nothing more.

As Nico searches for answers to his sister's death, Will ensnares him in a net of university politics and magical hierarchy. He'll be his ally in this den of vipers if Nico will secure him Hades's patronage, pulling Nico deeper into a world he thought he had clawed his way out of.

All the while, something whispers in Nico's ear. Something that crackles like a flame.

— Or, Nico di Angelo tries to put out fires. Will Solace starts them.

"Must beauty blossom, rooted in decay,

And night devour its flaming hues alway?"

― Clark Ashton Smith, The Dark Eidolon and Other Fantasies

From the flame, Nico di Angelo was born anew.

He gasped in the gripping cold of the dark December night, steam rising, up, up, up into the moonless sky. He remembered that, the lack of moon. He thought it strange even then, even as his mind was smoke-ridden and his throat was marred with beautiful burns that took the shape of a phantom hand. There was a moment, however small it may have been, where he thought he was dead.

Nico di Angelo was no stranger to death. He cloaked himself in it when he sunk to his lowest form; he shed it when he rose above the surface, taking in deep gulps of air before plunging into the icy depths once again. He had died, once, twice, a thousand times. This time would be no different. Except, it was. It had to be. This time, he didn't think he had come back, and he didn't want to. As he lay on all fours, as his arms held him aloft, he heaved in breaths of moonless air, his back bare to the stars.

This time, he couldn't come back, for neither had his sister.

Bianca. His body wracked with shudders as the cold seeped to his bones. Her face came to him in flashes; a beautiful mirage that he could almost feel if he deluded himself enough. A half of him had perished in a roar of flame and he might as well have thrown himself on her pyre for all his life was worth now. She shouldn't have gone under a moonless night, the stars obscured by a cover of clouds that hung thick and low over the university. She shouldn't have gone so quickly— it wasn't like her. She was the one who was made to live. Nico was made to die.

A sob passed through his body and he collapsed onto the bare earth. Snow encircled him, the closest drifts melting and steaming from the heat of the fire. Steps away from him burned the remains of the ancient building, dark stone crumbling under the heat of the blaze. It illuminated the field where the moon did not. The orange glow pulsed over the endless drifts of snow.

He dragged his body up to sitting and stared out at the fire with unfocused eyes. His clothes crumbled into ash around him, dirtying the melted snow. There it went: his past, his present, and his future. The act of living felt futile now. He was the least of them, and yet he was the one chosen to live.

Remember, my little shadow, we have work to do.

The voice spoke only in a rasp. It charted its way through his mind like the tendrils of a flame, wicked and wanting. It pushed itself deep into the core of him and took up roots like it had always lived there, like it was only being awoken from an ageless slumber.

Remember.

Nico opened his mouth and out came a scream— a scream that, moment by moment, turned into a roar.

And I'm back! This time, we're delving into a dark academia spin on Nico's story, with horrors and terrors abound. Gone is the friendly camp facade: prepare to enter the hallowed halls of Veritas University. For there is always truth, is there not? The university serves both Greek and Roman gods in a world where godly heritage is the norm. If you're going to be anyone in the godly world, you have to study at VU. Why even bother with New Rome State?

A basic rundown in minor character changes is in order. Nico is 23 and finishing up his final year. Will is also 23, but has entered directly into a graduate program. Percy, Annabeth, Rachel, and Leo are all 26; Percy working with his father around the grounds, Annabeth getting her PhD, Rachel undergoing Oracle training, and Leo an eternal fourth year with no degree in sight.

Inspired by classic gothic horror from Algernon Blackwood, Bram Stoker, and Sheridan Le Fanu, as well as more modern pieces from Shirley Jackson and Donna Tartt. Also Rick Riordan, probably. I dunno. There's a good chance.