ALEX WAS NO STRANGER TO FEAR. He'd worked side by side with literal monsters. He'd watched like a coward from the shadows as Annabeth Chase had struggled to hold up the sky. He'd stared death in the face more times than he could count.

But as the skeleton guards shattered into splinters of ancient bone and fetid ash, fear didn't fill the pit of his stomach like black ice.

Strangled vocal cords, heavy breathing, a tight chest. That's what fear felt like.

This, watching as Ophelia flicked a wrist and crushed the souls of the dead, didn't fill him with fear. It filled him with dread.

Alex watched as Ophelia lowered her hands. The air stilled. The black shadows that had danced around her fingertips disappeared. Only bitter cold lingered, all warmth sapped from the air at her conjuration.

Before he could say another word, Ophelia marched straight under the gates cloaked in glinting barbed wire. Alex's feet wouldn't move.

He'd seen Ophelia pull off some incredible feats. She never put on a show. Even in the Battle of Manhattan, she'd stuck to the shadows and kindled a quiet rage. Her nonchalant destruction of the Spartan shades should've come as no surprise. She always fought without fanfare.

But something here, something amidst the void and fire of the Fields of Punishment, turned quiet rage into something altogether different. Altogether dangerous. Cold, calculating.

It didn't take long for Ophelia to become nothing more than a black silhouette against the red flames. Alex shook himself. Despite the knots twisting in his stomach, he couldn't leave her.

Maybe it wasn't despite the knots in his stomach that he followed. Maybe he couldn't leave her because of the knots.

Alex crossed under the unguarded wrought iron gate. Discordant music and desperate screams floated towards him on the chill breeze. Around him, red light cascaded over black ash spewing forth into the air from cracks in the Underworld. Ophelia walked straight forward.

The scene would've been almost beautiful if not for the wailing winds. Loudest came from the left. Shrieks accompanied wet, inhuman growls. Alex would not turn his face.

Cowardice. That's what Luke would've called it. He couldn't even face the horrors to either side of the black stone path. He focused on Ophelia instead.

Luke had teased him once, at their crumbling fortress upon Mount Othrys. Annabeth had held up the very sky. Her face had wavered but her spirit had never broken. And yet Alex could not look her in the eyes.

Heat seared his face as he came upon a fissure in the earth. Lava seeped out from the depths. His lungs burned as he took in the ash which spewed forth. Clutching his chest, he fell to his knees.

The ground rumbled beneath him as he struggled to catch his breath. Alex couldn't see. Tears filled his eyes as blistering pain spread through his chest. He sputtered. Hands against his torn shirt, he tried to claw at the acid and smoke poisoning his lungs.

Nimble fingers wrapped his own hands around a water bottle. The lukewarm drink coated his mouth, like a balm, and spilled onto his cheeks and chin. Alex gasped and stumbled back on the ground. This forsaken place had no clean air. But the dark shadows which leaked out of the ground hurt far more than any other lungfuls of air he'd had thus far in the Underworld.

His eyes stung as he wiped away the unbidden tears. He wanted to pour water into them as they scratched like sandpaper. But that would be a waste. Glancing left, he saw Kitty by his side.

The golden Lyre of Orpheus shone in the darkness. Around its glowing gold and celestial bronze body Kitty wrapped her hands tight. It lit up her grimey face and blue hair. Fortune's favor untie fates of three. Twist the threads, form darkest key. Not a literal key. Kitty had severed their ties to the underworld and dropped them into it's gaping darkness.

He turned away. A choice born of wrath he must unlearn. Had he not unlearned it? He had even bent a knee to a god. Could they not just all go home? A chill swept over him as he stood up. Ash caked his hands. Better than blood. But where had Ophelia gone?

Looking around, Alex felt his heart beating faster in his chest. He couldn't breathe well between the pain in his lungs and the stress. Where had she gone? The encroaching darkness and flames and barbed wire held him back. All hope lost, they seek their share, led through shadow by Strife's chosen heir.

Strife's heir. His hands started to hurt. The joints burned, aching as he tried to make a fist with his right. Ophelia hadn't said anything about Eris in ages. Said she'd retreated after the Battle of Manhattan.

And anyways, prophecies never made sense. Alex tried to settle his breathing and his heart. As Pat Benatar's Heartbreaker rang out between screams and hellhound howls, he took in the scenery again.

"Where'd she go?" Kitty said.

Alex shook his head. "I don't know. She'll find us. Let's go."

"She'll find us?"

He didn't have time for this. He didn't have time to argue with Kitty while his girlfriend disappeared into the land of her nightmares. He spun around, face burning. "Yes, she'll find us. Now just shut up if you don't have anything useful to say!"

Alex's head spun. It felt far too heavy as he didn't wait for her reply. She should stop arguing. They didn't have time for internal strife. They had to get moving. They had to get out of here.

Pain shot up his left leg as barbed wire cut his shins. They scraped him through the tears in his jeans. Alex tightened his fists and matched on down the black slate path.

He locked eyes with a boy in a barbed wire pen through the haze. Shuddering, Alex moved closer. Hades had organized them like farm animals, some of the dead in groups and other alone.

In this barbed wire pen, Alex recognized only one of them: Jack Palmer, son of Nemesis. They'd fought side by side for Kronos. He'd been killed by a Party Pony on the Princess Andromeda, only thirteen years old. Now he sat behind a pair of golden scales with black Legos all around him.

Muttering to himself, the boy kept placing Legos on the scales. One, two, three, seven, he kept adding, kept balancing, kept hoping for perfection.

Alex had hated Jack. The kid bullied everyone not named Luke Castellan. Aa far as Alex could gather, he'd been bullied at school before joining the army. Now he wanted revenge. Alex had removed him forcefully more than a few times. Both had walked away with black eyes and split lips. Alex hadn't mourned him long.

But as Jack kept trying to balance the scales, something Alex quickly realized must be impossible, he felt his heart sink. Blood, both wet and dried, pooled around his palms. Legos had sharp edges. Perhaps even sharper in Hades's playground.

As darkness swirled around Alex like visible wisps of oxygen, he shuddered. Did Jack deserve this? An eternity of fruitless Lego balancing. Based on the faces of the others in Jack's pen, some old and some young and everywhere in between, he guessed it wouldn't be long until Jack fell into despair. Would he wither away? To become a ghost?

A loud horn sounded across the Fields of Punishment. Alex's skin crawled. He turned away from the mutterings of Jack Palmer. The horn had come from the other direction. As if a mist had cleared, Alex caught sight of a massive stage, a sort of festival music venue made of a brown wood.

"Come on," he said.

Kitty didn't answer. She still stood behind him, her jaw tight and eyebrows narrowed. Her grip on the lyre never wavered.

Fine. Let her pout. Alex moved past her as a warm pang filled his gut. Guilt? What did he have to feel guilty for? Trusting his girlfriend? What was he supposed to do? She said she had it under control.

Alex watched a plume of ash and smoke spew forth from beyond the lava river before them. She had it under control. Just like he did.

A bridge of dark stones, like river rocks and yet sharper in some places. It seemed sturdy enough. The massive music venue lay beyond. Alex saw no other choice. And as he looked at the outdoor concert hall, he considered whether he could safely climb to the top. If he could, maybe he could find Ophelia in the din.

He could feel the heat through the soles of shoes. With every step across the bridge, he worried they would melt. The lava below made his skin sting and then boil. By the time he got to the other side, sweat coated his face and plastered his torn clothes and hair to his skin.

Kitty, panting, leaned towards the ground with her elbows on her knees. More than anything, Alex wanted some fresh water. His throat hurt, his mouth felt like cotton, and now his body temperature soared to what felt like 100 degrees. Why had Ophelia wanted to come here? Why couldn't she just come home?

The 1980s rock had faded on this side of the lava river. Instead, as Alex tuned out Kitty's heaving beside him, he noticed what sounded like an orchestra. An out of tune orchestra. He looked up. On the gigantic stage and in the surrounding pit, men, women, and children sat or stood messing with instruments. At the front stood three conductors.

"What better punishment," Kitty muttered. "Unfortunately, I'm being punished too. They're terrible."

Alex nodded. He watched fights break out in the various instrument sections. In the flute section, a young man smashed his instrument over the head of an old woman. The trombones looked to be fighting with their slides. He couldn't see the violins because they were in one big pile up. He started towards the musicians.

"Alex. Stop," Kitty said.

He spun around. "What do you want?"

"I want you to look me in the eyes, Alex. You haven't done that since we got to this godsforsaken place!"

Fury filled his whole body. Look at her? She had dropped them into the Underworld. She had dropped Ophelia here. Just like she had done in training. Just like she had always done. Whatever it takes for her to win. That's what Kitty always chose. He'd had enough.