THE LAST THING OPHELIA SAW was blood seeping from her splitting fingertips as she desperately tried to claw herself up the crumbling earth.

It didn't work.

Ophelia didn't know how long she spent tumbling through the air. It could've been a few minutes. It could've been months. On all sides, only blackness surrounded her. Her hair whipped into her face, catching in her mouth and sending her sputtering.

No noise penetrated the darkness around her. She couldn't scream. She couldn't cry. Ophelia could only stare up where she knew the sky once lay.

As the void consumed her, Ophelia didn't bother to close her eyes. It made no difference. She knew what her body hurtled towards. Raging fires and freezing lands of soot and barbed wire would be her final resting place. And as she fell, Ophelia found she missed only one thing.

She wanted to see Alex's face one more time. Ophelia wanted to brush his tousled blond hair out of his ice blue eyes. Her bleeding fingers longed to trace every scrape and scar on his pale skin. She wanted to feel her own cool lips against the warmth of his. To breathe him in one last time.

Ophelia could still see the moment she'd first met him play out in her mind as if it had happened yesterday. He'd been sitting alone on a dock at Miami beach, tying on a pair of brand new black and red Adidas. The fading golden light of another October day turned his blond hair the color of the celestial bronze sword by his side.

While she had stood shivering despite the warmth, torn black dress and purple leggings not enough to make up for years without proper food and hygiene, this boy had sat shirtless beneath the sun, silhouetted against the waves. Luke had sent her to himal, a man more Greek god than mortal. He'd told her his brother could get her a weapon and a place to sleep while they waited for the Princess Andromeda.

She remembered how quiet her voice had sounded to her own ears when she spoke his name for the first time. Alex Griffith. He'd turned to face her. At that moment, she'd wondered if all Hermes's children looked as beautiful, and as angry, as this boy and his older brother. But the anger had faded quickly.

As Ophelia fell through void shadows and silent dark, she clung to that first smile. She clung to the memories of grabbing his hand for the first time when he slipped on the top wooden step. His hand had been so warm, and hers so cold. Even as he'd steadied himself and quickly released her, she'd released her caught breath.

The first thing Ophelia saw was caked blood on healed finger tips. She twisted around in free fall as the black void turned grey. The ground rapidly approached. Ophelia threw out her hands. A shock slammed into her body as out of the stagnant air, shadows answered her command.

She stopped falling ten feet off the ground. Floating in a haze of shadows and mist, Ophelia took in the Underworld for the first time beyond her nightmares.

In the distance, what passed for a sky glowed a faint red against lighter grey and black smoke. But beneath her and all around, there was no fire. No warmth of any kind. Just the occasional dead, black tree and wandering spirits of the dead.

Ophelia braced for an onslaught of screams and curses. But the spirits of the Underworld left her alone. They didn't fill her mind and as she lowered herself to the colorless swamp grass, they didn't turn their heads. They just wandered, waited, and wasted away.

No. Just the ones nearest her wasted away. Ophelia watched as the ghosts faded like disturbed fog. Electricity pulsed through her entire body. She had never felt so alive as standing amongst the dead.

Ophelia looked up. Nothing. She couldn't see anything beyond black like tar. No sign of the world above. She scoffed. What had she expected to find? The quest had to continue without her. Nothing mattered beyond the demigods who had fought for Kronos. They had to be saved. All of them.

She stopped looking up. Ophelia turned her eyes to the dark horizon. And then she cried. Her bare knees sank a few centimeters into the uncomfortably moist ground as she buried her head in her hands. Sobs wracked her body. Her mother's words the night before they'd left camp filled her ears again. Death awaited them on this quest. "Yours. His. Hers. Or theirs," she had said.

Her mother may not have been the god of prophecy but she was the god of crossroads. And as Ophelia knelt alone in the cold, wet grasses of the Underworld, surrounded by flickering and fading ghosts, she understood that she'd chosen her path. And her path led to death.

Ophelia glared, eyes blurry, at the void sky. Now was when Eris decided to abandon her? Perhaps the goddess had finally deemed her unworthy. No golden apple for the daughter of Hecate. A worthless street urchin, better left at the bottom of the Underworld than questing above.

But as she fell into a cycle of loathing, she noticed the world change. The shadows shifted. The Mist changed courses diverted like a river around a stone. A glittering pinprick of golden light formed a single, solitary star. A celestial bronze star.

She barely had time to cushion his fall. Ophelia didn't think as she threw her hands forward, shadows tangling and knotting together as Alex hurtled to the ground. He groaned, clutching his stomach to his knees.

With a small shriek, Ophelia grabbed him. Clothing covered in blood, skin paler than she ever remembered, she held him tighter. He didn't protest. Alex mumbled incoherently as he smushed his face into her shoulder. Her stomach tightened, knotting like the shadows. How could he have done this? Abandoned the quest, a hundred demigods, for the sake of one? And yet he had followed her, diving headfirst towards death, so she would not be alone.

"Alex." Ophelia ran one hand through his hair and another across his arm. "Alex, what did you do?"

Alex groaned against her body again. But as he peeled himself away, the words that left him came quiet, scratchy. "I jumped."

Another wave of astonishment crashed into her. Not for his words. Of course he'd jumped. Alex would never be beaten by some child of Nike. But at the fact that he could say it so easily. Without regret or hesitation.

"You have a quest," she said.

Alex shook his head. He brushed his hair from his face, away from the trails of blood where it matted and stuck like glue. "No. We have a quest."

"Only you can take the Lyre back to Olympus!" Ophelia stood up off the ground. She ripped the bottom of her shirt, using the grey fabric as a cloth to rid herself of mud and grey grass blades. "Not me. Not Kitty!"

Alex didn't stand. He stayed on his knees, head hung low. Slumped shoulders and silence worried her. But as she reached forward, cold hands longing for his warmth, the Mist began to writhe and curl once more. She looked up.

Kitty hit the ground harder than Alex. Clutching the shining golden lyre to her chest like it would run away, she tucked and rolled. Ophelia flinched.

"Ow," Kitty said.

She pushed herself up to her knees, mud on her face but intact. So was the lyre. The lyre that should be on its way to Olympus had Alex just gone on with the quest! The gods hardly deserved such a precious instrument on display but they had few options. A display case on Olympus would almost be a worse resting place than on the wall in the Utilidors. At least Trigon displayed it in open defiance of the gods.

"Thank the gods," Kitty muttered. She stood off the ground. "You're both alive."

"No. We're all dead," Alex said. His eyes narrowed as he too finally stood. "I think we're in—"

"The Fields of Asphodel," said Ophelia. She moved to stand by Alex's side, across from Kitty.

Kitty frowned. The red ribbon she had used to tie the lyre across her back had frayed and split when she'd skidded across the ground so she held the instrument to her chest with both arms. Ophelia had never seen her hug anyone in her life like she was hugging the Lyre now.

"Do we have a plan?" she said.

"Part of one," Alex said. "Look."

Ophelia followed where he pointed off to the left. A grey structure towered against the darker horizon at least a mile away. "Is that an overpass?"

"Looks to be." Alex sighed. "'All roads lead to Rome.' Down here, Rome is probably Hades's palace. That's better than wandering aimlessly."

"Is it though?" Kitty said.

Ophelia didn't have an answer. She could probably guide them down here. She could protect them at least. The shadows obeyed her every command. They didn't need Hades. She could handle this.

But as she thought about the King of the Underworld, adrenaline filled her body. She couldn't get the battle in Manhattan out of her mind. That final stand among the dead, watching his crown morph and reform and shift into dozens of beautiful, terrible forms. She wanted to see it again.

"Let's get moving," Alex said.

Ophelia didn't hesitate. As she moved ahead, the ghosts of the dead faded or moved from her path, responding to nothing but her presence. For a moment, amidst the cool shadows and under the void like sky, she smiled. All hope lost, they seek their share, Led through shadow by Strife's chosen heir. Alex could guide them up above. But down here, among the dead and darkness, she took charge. They listened to her.

Of course they did. Ophelia smirked. In the Underworld, the blessing of Night herself never faded. She could feel the power at her fingertips. She could feel the Mist bend to her will. The shadows danced at her command.

They would win. She would beat the gods at their silly little games. The children who fought for the Titans would not die. They would not suffer eternal punishment. She would save them. Every last one of them.