The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

Nico wakes up at the bottom of the stone stairs to the Underworld. His body is exhausted, and his mind is even more so. He sees Will on the floor asleep. A shadowy entity is above him, its pulsating tentacles spread out over Will.

As Nico confronts the shadow, it coalesces into the form of a demon, Epiales, who has stuck Nico and Will in a recent time loop. Epiales tries to lure Nico to sleep again. Will rouses just enough to plead for Epiales to let Nico go. The demon holds both of them in place, trying to please “Mother” (later revealed to be Nyx). Epiales reveals that they are the demon of nightmares and wraps both boys in darkness again.

In the nightmare made by Epiales, Nico relives the moment he learned about his sister Bianca’s death. He accuses Epiales of sending him his bad dreams, but Epiales only started manipulating Nico’s mind after the boys entered the Underworld. Meanwhile, Will dreams that Nico is injured; when Will can’t heal him, Nico grabs his wrist and drains Will’s energy like he’s a “spare battery” (116).

Nico manages to escape the nightmare and begins fighting Epiales. Will also wakes, realizing he’s been seeing nightmare versions of Nico. Will summons a burst of light to eliminate Epiales, who is made of darkness. Afterward, Will faints.

As Will sleeps, Nico contemplates their relationship. Will made Nico understand love and affection in a way Nico didn’t think was possible as a young man born in Italy in the 1930s. Nico can’t help but think about how every time he finds happiness, someone he loves is taken away from him.

When Will wakes up, they briefly talk about his new power before beginning their trek through the Underworld, taking care to escape Hades’ sight. Nico is leading them to the new home of the troglodytes, frog-like subterranean humanoids that helped Nico, Will, and Apollo in The Tower of Nero. They enter the troglodytes’ home in a large cave that branches off of the River Styx.

A trog named Screech-Bling welcomes Nico and Will and shows them the trogs’ cave city, which diverts the Styx for hydropower. The couple eat a meal and regale the trogs with information about their quest. Screech-Bling says he’s been able to smell that something is different in the Underworld, and he smells that same smell on Nico and Will.

Nico tells Screech-Bling to summon his council for a meeting. Nico knows why the Underworld is changing, why Bob is in danger, and who has been sending Nico the dreams.

With the trog council assembled, Nico says that he thinks the cause of the new smell is Nyx, the goddess of night and “pure darkness” (143). Nyx is not an Olympian goddess or a Titan, but a protogenos, or primordial deity.

Nico admits he’s met Nyx before. Will is hurt that Nico continues to hide such big things from him, but Nico counters that he hadn’t been able to talk to anyone about his previous time in Tartarus. Will softens, saying that only Nico can decide if and when he is ready to share something.

Nico decides to tell Will and the trogs what happened.

Nico describes his previous descent into Tartarus (during the events of The Son of Neptune). Outside the entrance to Tartarus, he encountered a chimera named Echidna, who previously fought Percy and who wanted to witness Nico’s descent.

The gravity of Tartarus sucked him into the hole, and he fell. When he hit the ground, he saw the forces of Gaea—the primary antagonist of the Heroes of Olympus pentalogy—arrayed before him. He ran, chased by wolves, and found haven in the house of the goddess Nemesis. Nemesis told him about her role in finding justice for those who need it, though her actions may look like injustice in the short term. She gave him three of Persephone’s magical pomegranate seeds. As a child of Hades, he could eat them to enter a “daylong death trance” (156). Nemesis warned Nico to stay clear of “Mother” and deposited him near the River Phlegethon, which he could follow to the place he sought: the Doors of Death.

As he walked, Tartarus “sanded off the edges of his sanity” (160). He thought he felt the land breathing under him. He saw blisters in the ground, where the monsters killed by demigods regenerated. The air burned with every inhale and he had fantasies of jumping into or drinking the fiery Phlegethon. When he drank the river water, unable to fight the urge, the Phlegethon restored him and gave him the ability to continue. After an indistinct amount of time, he saw the archway of the Doors of Death but was captured by a being who radiated pure and infinite darkness: the goddess Nyx. Nyx recognized him and insisted that he, like her, was a being of darkness. She told him not to fight his nature. Right when her darkness threatened to overwhelm him, they were interrupted by a pair of giants.

The giants, Otis and Ephialtes, were sent by Gaea to take Nico hostage and trap him in a large jar. Gaea intended to use him as bait to trap and kill the seven demigods prophesied to challenge her rebirth. While the giants argued with Nyx, Nico ran. He saw a house made entirely of insects that was undulating and looking at him—Nyx’s Mansion of Night. The sight broke Nico. Nyx appeared: She would hand him over to Gaea, and threatened that if they met again, she would make him accept his true nature.

Once Otis and Ephialtes imprisoned Nico in the jar, he knew that his only hope of survival was the pomegranate seeds given to him by Nemesis.

In the present, after telling his story, Nico cries while Will holds him. Nico thinks Nyx’s plan is to turn everything into “their purest possible form—personifications of a single negative emotion, or feeling, or state of being” (180). This is why she hates Nico, who tries to overcome his darkness, and Bob, who was reformed after being submerged in the River Lethe.

Nico doesn’t understand why Nyx cares so much about him. The trogs say it is because Nico appreciates people who are forgotten and overlooked, like the trogs or Bob. Will adds that Nico represents change. He then jokes that maybe Nyx can keep some of Nico’s darkness; this joke doesn’t sit well with Nico, who wishes he could stop being “dark and scary and sad” (186) and wonders if those things make Will like him less.

In Nico’s dreams that night, Nyx appears to him in the form of Bianca. She taunts Nico about revealing who he really is to Will. When Nico refuses to engage with her, she shoots an arrow into his chest. Nico awakens, his sternum throbbing: somehow, Nyx’s dream has affected him in real life. He decides not to tell Will about the dream.

In a flash forward, Nico and Will tell Gorgyra about how they knew they were more than friends. For Nico, it was after their friend Leo cheated death without telling Nico about his plan. Will took Nico to the woods to scream into the trees and release frustration. This marked the first time Nico felt understood by anybody. Will’s moment came earlier, after their fight with Gaea, when Nico dedicated himself to helping in the infirmary even though he was often lost and confused. Nico admits that he knew Will’s moment came first because he caught Will staring at him; this gave Nico the courage to come out to Will and ask him on a date. Gorgyra is thrilled by these stories of connection; Nico realizes they’re winning her over and helping each other survive the Underworld by reliving happy memories. He asks Gorgyra if he can tell her the story of how he asked Will on a date.

In the present, Will dreams of the moment he learned he was a demigod. He was in Washington Square Park with his mother when pigeons attacked them. Monsters often disguise themselves as other entities and attack demigod children. A satyr named Maron appeared and saved Will and his mom. Instead of explaining his heritage to Will and showing him to Camp Half-Blood like Maron did in real life, in this dream, Maron warns that Nico will leave Will behind. When he wakes up, Will worries about Nico. Since they entered the Underworld, Will has felt like he’s walking on thin ice around his boyfriend.

As the trogs lead Nico and Will to a shortcut to Tartarus the next morning, Will tells Nico that the trogs are special, getting a real smile out of Nico. When they reach the tunnel, Will gives his sunlamp to a timid trog named Hiss-Majesty, who is empowered by wielding the power of a child of Apollo. Nico is touched by Will’s gesture. The darkness and close quarters make Will disoriented. He has trouble continuing and forgets where they’re going.

Will starts humming to keep his spirits up and finds that he’s emitting light. Nico warns him to conserve his energy and so Will stops, even though it was making him feel better. The trogs warn that once they leave the tunnel, there is one more obstacle to face before Tartarus. Will and Nico join hands and proceed.