Ari's PoV

Holding up Elysium long enough for everyone to escape took up a lot of energy. Even the extra power Dad gave me through the necklace didn't stop me from fainting as soon as I let go. Luckily, Ethan came back even though I told him not to, and he was able to drag me back to safety.  According to him, I slept for twelve hours. I immediately asked him if he's seen my brother in which, thankfully, he said no. I also asked him if he had seen Esra, and he hadn't seen her either. Hopefully that meant her curse hadn't killed her yet.

When I finally got up and started walking around, I had a massive migraine. I managed to stumble my way through a crowd of ghosts who wanted to thank me and into the throne room which was thankfully empty except for Lizzy, Ethan, Beckendorf, Selena, and a boy I didn't recognize. The boy was doing a check up on Lizzy. After a few minutes, he stepped away from her and shook his head. "I don't know why you have a headache. I can't find anything."

"Are you sure there isn't something you missed?" Selena asked quietly.

"I checked her four times. There's nothing." The boy said.

"Excuse me? Who are you?" I asked as I walked up to him.

He turned around to face me, and when he saw me, his face broke into a tired grin. "You must be Ari! Thank you for letting us stay in the castle. My name is Michael Yew."

I waved off his gratitude. "You're the son of Apollo Selena and Beckendorf were talking about?" He nodded. "Can you please check her again? There has to be something wrong with her."

Michael sighed and turned back to check her again. I turned away from him and started pacing, rubbing my temples to try and get the headache to go away. There was no way to tell if Nico was going to be okay. I had no idea how close the rift might be to being closed. No one knows who is going to sacrifice themselves to close the rift or how they were going to do it. I was still ignoring Iris Messages from camp, but this time it wasn't on purpose. I've just been really busy.

"I can't find anything that could be wrong!" Michael said exasperatedly, pulling me from my thoughts.

"But my head still hurts a lot! It hurts even worse than before!" Lizzy whined.

I stopped pacing and looked over at the two of them. "Michael, are you sure you can't find anything wrong?"

"You've had him check five times now, Ari." I looked over and Ethan walked toward me. I glared at him as he hesitantly laid his arm across my shoulders in what I assume he thought was a comforting gesture. "There's nothing we can do."

"There has to be something we can do," I said, shrugging his arm off me as I resumed pacing. "Why can't-"

I was interrupted by a shrill scream. Everyone spun around to see the Lizzy's eyes roll up into her head, and she fell forward with a crash onto the ground. "Lizzy!" I screamed and rushed forward to check on her.

Michael pushed me aside and checked her pulse. He looked at her in concern and took out his stethoscope. "Her heart rate is up, but she's breathing normally." He took her blood pressure and did a couple of other things before he stood up and shook his head in bewilderment. "Besides the fact that she just fainted, she's completely normal. I don't get it!"

I looked at her in bewilderment. There was nothing I could think of that could explain any of this. "Maybe... Maybe she just needed some sleep," I said, unable to convince myself. "Beckendorf, can you carry her to one of the spare bedrooms so she can sleep there?"

"Yes, of course." He picked her up gently and carried her into a side hall and out of sight.

I turned to Selena and Ethan. "Have either of you seen or heard of anything like this?"

They shook their heads. A few minutes went by, and I was about to break the silence when the doors opened slightly and a ghost cat and little boy ran in followed by what I assumed to be his parents. "Kitty!" The boy exclaimed happily as he chased the small thing under Persephone's throne.

"Sean no!" His mother cried and she picked up her son from the floor as he was trying to crawl under the throne. She turned to look at me with a little fear in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Ari. He doesn't know better. That's not even our kitten-"

"It's fine. It's fine." I said with my hand raised as if I were going to wave the problem aside. "Who's cat is it?"

"It's a stray as far as we know. It used to walk around the street we used to live on." The dad said.

"Well, we better be going because you must be busy," the woman said. "Thank you again for letting us stay here."

"It's no problem. Really." I sighed. The family left and closed the door behind them. When they had left, the kitten crawled out from under the throne and looked up at me. He meowed, and I picked him up and cuddled him. He started to purr, and he made himself comfortable in my arms. "Well, he's mine now," I said with a shrug. Selena laughed, and I smiled slightly as I looked down at him. "I think I'll name him Phantom." It seemed to suit him. He was a ghost after all, and it also may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I was obsessed with The Phantom of the Opera.

The door burst open again, and Beckendorf came running in. "Charley! I thought you were-" Selena started to say, but he cut her off.

"Ari! You'll never believe what just happened! You have to come and see this. Now!"

Hello again! Sorry it took forever to write this chapter. What do you all think is happening to Lizzy? What do you think Beckendorf is talking about? *licks a tootsie roll pop* The world may never know.