The longer they walked, the heavier Serena's bag felt on Nico's shoulder. Nico knew, objectively, that they hadn't been following the tracks for very long— it had been twenty minutes at most— but that didn't stop him from feeling like it had been an eternity.

They walked in relative silence. Eclipse was focused on listening for any odd sounds with her strong hearing, and the boys wanted to give her the best shot they could, though they hadn't been super talkative to begin with. Will was on lookout duty, gaze continually sweeping the trees around them, while Nico had his eyes trained on the tracks in the mud. He was supposed to be keeping an eye out for any changes in the patterns, but he couldn't stop thinking about the drawing he'd seen in Serena's sketchbook.

Bianca. Serena knew what Bianca looked like. Could it have just been a fluke? Just a doodle that happened to look like his sister? Or was he only imagining it; seeing similarities because he can't shake the gut-wrenching familiarity of realizing he might have seen someone for the last time without even knowing it?

He hadn't known Serena long, but Nice had grown accustomed to her and Will chattering as they walked all the same. Their voices carried a brightness into their quest that he never thought he would look forward to, and yet…

And yet.

He was the son of Hades. He enjoyed the quiet, enjoyed the stillness of having no living bodies around, of being completely alone with his thoughts. He preferred being alone. But this? Not knowing if Serena was even still alive?

This was unbearable.

In some act of divine mercy, Eclipse quietly broke the silence with a quiet murmur, "...I don't like this. I don't like this one bit."

"You can say that again," said Will with a sigh and a shake of his head. Nico couldn't remember seeing him on edge quite like this before, but he could hardly be surprised by it with how his own chest had the same uncomfortable tightness.

Nico huffed. "Who would? Serena's been kidnapped right from under our noses. Anyone sane would hate this."

"Not that. I–I mean, yes, that too, but…" Eclipse stuttered as she elaborated, realizing the poor choice of words. "...it's too quiet. At this time of day, there should be so much noise here, but I can't hear a thing. It's like the wildlife knows something is wrong here."

"Well, that's reassuring," Nico muttered sarcastically.

Eclipse seemed to shrink into herself a little at the vitriol in his voice, raising her shoulders with an uneasy expression. "Sorry. I don't mean to make us more on edge than we already were."

"No need to apologize, Eclipse," Will said, pausing in his lookout of the woods to briefly look at the girl in question. He put a comforting hand on her arm, trying to get her to relax her shoulders again. "It's good information to have."

He was right. Nico hadn't even noticed the birds going quiet, lost in his own frustrations, though he didn't want to admit it out loud.

With a short huff to refocus himself, Nico looked back down at the tracks in the mud they were following.

Nico stopped short. The tracks, when they'd first found them, had seemed to be in two patterns: one a set of footsteps from a person, if a large one, and another set of tracks like something being dragged. When he looked down at his feet now, though, the footprints had disappeared, leaving only the drag marks curving suddenly to the right. Nico looked over his shoulder, trying to see how far back the footsteps had taken a different direction, and he heard Will and Eclipse stop their hushed conversation as they noticed him stop walking.

"Nico?"

He had to squint a little to spot it, but from where they had stopped, he could see the footsteps curve off into some bushes a few meters back the way they came. Nico lifted a hand to point it out to the others.

"The footsteps stopped back there."

Nico hesitantly looked back down to the drag marks; they weren't imagining them, and it wasn't some animal— the upturned soil around the tracks had been clearly moved recently, and the indentations were far too deep to have been some creature playing in the muddy slip-and-slide.

Slowly, cautious that something (or someone) may have been watching their movements, Nico stepped towards where the drag marks veered to the side. Though the thicket made it more difficult to see the tracks, he could see the vague route they followed; through the bushes, then stopping at a small, dilapidated stone well a few meters away from where he was standing in the thicket.

"The others stop over there," Nico said, gesturing towards the well. His unease, while not having disappeared at all, reintroduced itself as his thoughts started to race about what the tracks stopping at a hole in the ground could mean.

Eclipse makes a nervous sound. "She…she didn't get thrown down there, did she?"

Nico didn't want to think about it. Serena had to be okay. They had to believe that.

"We won't know unless we look oursel–"

Snap.

Nico froze at the sound of a twig snapping, quickly looking over his shoulder at Will and Eclipse. Both had frozen as well, neither being responsible for the sound. Eclipse had wide eyes shining with fear, and while Will was a little more composed, he clearly heard it as well.

Another beat of silence, then the faint, barely-there sound of leaves rustling.

"Run," Eclipse whispered suddenly, voice strained and urgent. "Run."

They made a break for the well just as something large and furry burst from the brush behind them.

Drip, drip, drip.

Serena was losing her mind.

She didn't know how long it had been since the ghost disappeared, but the silence, broken only by the drip, drip, dripping of drops hitting the water's surface, was growing to be unbearable. Were her friends okay? Were they looking for her at that moment?

A silly question. Of course they were. That was the problem, wasn't it?

They would be better off leaving her behind, Serena thought. What was the point of their quest in the first place? Some quest leader she was; she didn't even know what they were looking for. She supposed they had found the cause of the inexplicable series of ship crashes in the harbor, given what the ghost they'd met had claimed the first time they'd spoken to him. That was something, at least, but she still felt so lost.

Drip, drip.

"Come on, Serena. Calm down and think this out," she mumbled to herself. Maybe a pep talk would help. "You're stuck in some sealed room in the middle of who-knows-where, slowly filling up with gods-know-what water. You can't just sit here and stew in your feelings."

She smacked her cheeks with her hands to wake herself up, with only a pinch of instant regret for the sting from the cut along the side of her face. With a hiss, she gingerly looked down at her hands to see that yep, her cheek was still bleeding.

"...great."

With a hefty sigh, she hefted herself up to her feet, the chain around her ankle clanking awkwardly at the motion. She didn't remember when she had sat down, but she fought to keep herself present in the moment.

"You already tried to magic the water," said Serena, shaking out her hands to warm herself up, "how about the stone?"

She reached out, focusing as hard as she could muster on the rocks and water around her, but it was like trying to grasp a fish from a riptide. It felt as if it was just barely out of her reach, slipping from her fingers no matter how many times she tried.

"Come on!"

Again. She had to try again.

"Deep breath. In, out. Now, move! Move, you stupid rocks!" She yelled. "What's the point of having these stupid abilities if I can't use them when I want to?!"

Nothing. Nothing but the echo of her own voice ricocheting from the walls that felt like they were closing in on her.

With one last cry of frustration, Serena dropped back down onto the floor with a loud splash. The water level had risen to be at her waist while sitting, which was far from reassuring.

Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, eventually starting to spill over down her face. It burned when they met the still-bleeding gash across her cheek, but she couldn't even bring herself to care as sobs bubbled up unbidden. She pulled her knees into her chest, hugging them tight for even the slightest form of comfort. The room felt smaller and smaller with each passing second as the fear and claustrophobic feeling settled in, coiled around her chest and squeezed her heart in an iron grip.

"Let—let me out," she sobbed against her knees. "Let me out!"

And then, something. A warmth pulsed in her chest; small, faint, but there. Serena gasped at the feeling, desperately trying to hold on to it, but she could feel it slipping.

"No no no—please–"

There it was again. The sensation of something joining when she spoke, thrumming with quiet power alongside her words.

Songbird. He'd called her a songbird, hadn't he? She had thought the ghost had just been likening her to a bird in a cage, but he clearly knew more about her powers than she did.

It could be something more—a power someone would covet, Serena thought, mind racing with possibilities. Enchanting songs with words powered by Mist.

An idea sprang forth from the possibilities the magic could be. It would be a gamble, for certain. She still didn't know for sure if she was right about the magic itself, and if the ghost had managed this much already and had more in store that she couldn't even conceptualize at the moment, it was entirely possible (and likely) that he would be able to counter it. But it was the best shot Serena could think of to get herself out.

Drip.

She wouldn't die here, cold and alone. She couldn't. Wouldn't. If it was a gamble she needed, it was a gamble she would take. As soon as the ghost returned, it would be time for the performance of a lifetime.

Serena took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. She would be ready.