Nico regained hope after he was able to talk to Will again. He felt stronger, more like he had a purpose. He looked back up at the sky again, a reminder of the snow that would not fall.

Nico now had a new job to do. He knew full well that Jack would not just abandon his snow job like that and that something was wrong and he needed to help.

So after catching up a bit with Will, Nico just had to leave to help Jack. He didn't seem to have any other choice anyway.

Nico bit the inside of his cheek, looking desperately for some kind of clue as to where Jack could be. He actually considered going to Australia for the sake of checking the weather there, then he remembered that the weather there was always crazy and unpredictable, so he decided against it.

Instead, "borrowed" Travis's illegal phone to google the coldest place in the world right now. Well, Nico thought he's not meant to have it anyway. Serves him right.

Sure, Demigods weren't allowed to use phones, but he was basically dead, so he doubted the monsters believed in him.

Apparently, the coldest place in the world was in Northumberland, where it was currently 41 degrees Fahrenheit (5 degrees celsius), even though nowhere else in the world seemed to be anywhere near that temperature. Nico thought that seemed a little too obvious since he thought that 'Pitch Black' had a higher IQ than that but decided that it was his best bet and despite his gut shouting at him that it was the wrong place to go, shadow-traveled there.

***

The cold air surprised Nico at first when he tumbled back out of the shadows into a fancy-looking garden. There were tourists all over the place, taking pictures of the neatly trimmed hedges and trees, the finely made stone fountain and the green grass. Even Nico was captured by the beauty of it. He walked around, searching for any change in the weather, even if it was just a slight change.

His senses brought him to a pedestrian pathway, which then led him to an old castle (after walking for a full twenty minutes!) which seemed well taken care of, and probably about a millennia old. Possibly even older than that.

He entered the castle and was faced with a home. The whole place was clean, meaning someone was living here. He strained his ears to hear something-anything and heard the faint noise of someone snoring upstairs.

Nico hoped that only that one sleeping person was in bed at the moment and walked around looking for more change in weather.

He was led to a set of stairs spiraling down unusually low, which after focusing on a bit realized that seemed to be getting cooler, rather than stuffy and heated like it should've been.

Nico gripped his sword and descended into the darkness.

As he went down, he noticed a few highly peculiar things. A painting on a wall of an old fat lady, a statue of a gargoyle. A painting of what seemed to be an old man with a large beard. 

Nico's knuckles turned even whiter as he practically choked his sword to death.

He began to loose track of time. How long had he been going down for? The light above him was faint now, just a small sliver of LED yellow that could scarcely see now.

The sensation was beginning to remind him of Tartarus. A place he definitely did not want to be reminded of right now, thank you very much.

It seemed like a godly lifetime before he got to the bottom of the stars, which, he thought would've been much easier if he could just shadow travel down there, but he didn't even have somewhat of an idea of what could possibly be down there. 

Nico blinked a bit before adjusting to the darkness, which was very strange since usually he was immediately accustomed to anything somewhat dark.

He glanced around and felt something cold spike his arm. He focused more on the ceiling. 

A snowflake.

He had been hit by a snowflake.

Nico's immediate reaction was to stick his tongue out and catch as many as possible, which he did do until he realized that this was becoming a snowstorm, not a slight calming drizzle.

He looked at his shoes.

He was stuck.

Nico tried to pull his leg out of what seemed to become packed ice, not even snow anymore. 

The shadow was in the corner of the room and he couldn't use his own to leave, that would tangle him up.

So there he was, trapped in a spotlight which seemed to be so, so far away.

Nico surveyed the small room which he was now trapped in.

The walls seemed to be dusty and yet gleamed in the small light that was brought upon them as if the dust and dirt on the cement walls were all just polished and put into place.

He stared harder.

The dust seemed to be disappearing and reappearing from how hard he was staring, like an optical illusion. 

He wasn't sure what he was doing now.

He just stared.

The shadows on the wall crept closer to the part of the wall he was staring at.

The figure of a pale man who seemed to blend into his clothing began to form.

Nico kept staring.

The man was laughing, yet Nico didn't hear anything. 

He stared harder.

The man began to slowly emit sound, quietly, then slowly increasing in sound.

The room began to vibrate with the man's laughter.

At first, Nico didn't notice what exactly he was seeing. A blue jacket, pale skin. Black skinny jeans. Barefeet.

Snowflakes.

Blue eyes, broken and dead, stared back at him, saying the complete opposite of what was being said.

It was just laughter.

Evil cruel, laughter.

Jack Frost was laughing.

But why?

Sorry for taking forever to update, I didn't realize how much I was procrastinating this until I got a message saying "UPDATE PLEASEEE!"

So, props to Midnightkitti2 for telling me to update.