The Sun and the Star: A Nico di Angelo Adventure

In the present, the boys encounter Menoetes, who tends to the Underworld’s cattle and nectar groves. When he hears where Nico and Will are going, he threatens to tell Hades unless Nico can offer him something he wants: fruit from Persephone’s garden, which grows the rarest plants in existence. Nico wants to know why Menoetes always asks for things; Menoetes, embarrassed, admits it’s to share with his boyfriend, the giant Geryon, who has reformed since he fought Percy. After confessing, Menoetes gets defensive, worried Will and Nico will mock him, but then they reveal that they are bisexual and gay, respectively. Won over by the story of Menoetes accepting and supporting Geryon’s reform, they agree to get him the fruit.

Menoetes leads them to a pair of donkeys who will carry them to the gates of Erebos, Hades’ castle. The trogs wait with Menoetes, discussing trade between their communities.

Will and Nico reach the garden and Nico picks the lock. They see Persephone on the far side, so they sneak in and move as quietly as possible. In the garden, Will begins to reconcile darkness with the potential for life.

When they reach a pomegranate tree, Persephone is gone. Nico tries to pick the fruit, but his hand passes through it. Will, who picks the fruit successfully, wonders if the only people who can pick the fruit are “potential victims from the world of sunlight” (237). Nico goes outside to check whether the coast is clear. When Will goes to follow, he comes face to face with Persephone.

Persephone freezes Nico to talk to Will. She asks why he is stealing and whether Hades knows about their quest. She admits that she hasn’t always been fair to Nico. When Will asks how she manages to love someone from the Underworld, she tells him she re-evaluated how she saw light, dark, life, and death. For beings of light, it can be hard to “appreciate the darkness” (243)—but there is a special flower only blooms in the presence of darkness. In Will’s hand, it unfurls and reveals a pitch-black stone. Will is shocked because it means that there is darkness inside him. Persephone suggests that instead of trying to give Nico light, Will should show him his darkness.

Persephone asks if Will understands Nico. Will doesn’t, but he wants to keep trying—the most important thing. When he offers to give the pomegranates back, Persephone gives them to the couple as a gift. She vanishes, Nico reanimates, and the boys leave the garden.

When they return to the nectar field, Menoetes and the trogs have become fast friends. In exchange for the pomegranates, Menoetes gives them safe passage and information: The denizens of the Underworld can also hear Bob crying out in pain and torment; Nyx has detained Bob in a permanent regeneration cycle until he agrees to “become Iapetus again” (250). He gives them directions to the hut of a reformed giant, Damasen, which is near Bob’s regeneration blister.

In a flash forward, Nico tells Will that he thinks the stories are helping him stay strong. Nico recalls that their first kiss happened after Jason died. Nico was full of grief, sadness, and rage. Will kissed him and gave him light in his moment of darkness. As they hold each other, Nico realizes that Gorgyra is weaving souls lost inside the River Acheron into her dress. She tells the couple that their sweet memory drew the lost souls to them, allowing her to save them. For comfort, Nico holds onto a coin Will gave him as a sign of devotion. Will reveals that he also brought a gift Nico gave him: Nico’s ring on a chain around his neck.

As Will, Nico, Screech-Bling, and Hiss-Majesty make their way through the darkness, they see two fire-breathing drakons. Will, still weak, slips and rolls down a hill. The trogs distract the drakon while Nico goes to Will. One drakon almost engulfs Screech-Bling in fire; he retreats and trades places with Nico, who fights alongside Hiss-Majesty. Nico initially can’t breach the drakon’s tough scales, but Hiss-Majesty guides his blade with his elevated speed, defeating one drakon and making the other retreat.

After the fight, Will isn’t healing as fast as usual; a new, long gash spontaneously opens on Will’s stomach and his other cuts are bleeding through their bandages. Nico gets Will his sun lamp and dresses his new wound.

The trogs show Nico and Will the River Acheron—a shortcut. The Acheron is the river of pain and punishment, where people who have done terrible things are painfully cleansed of their worst deeds. Will is fearful of the pain, but Nico claims he doesn’t need to be, having spent his life helping people. Will says Nico is as good a person as Will is; Nico denies this—Will doesn’t know what Nico has done. Will angrily retorts that this is because Nico won’t tell him.

Their argument is interrupted by the trogs clarifying that the boys don’t need to bathe in the river: They need help from the nymph Gorgyra, who is in a nearby hut. The boys bid farewell to the trogs. Will apologizes to Nico, but Nico waves him off.

They approach Gorgyra. She has pale blue skin, indigo lips, and a gossamer dress that whispers. When Nico sees Will stumbling to reach the cabin, he feels guilty. Gorgyra says they can reach Tartarus by plunging over the falls of the Acheron.

Nico can hear the whispers of the lonely souls Gorgyra is weaving into her dress. Souls seek her out to find others whom she’s plucked from the waters. She collects the souls “whose greatest crimes were against themselves,” to show them that there’s hope even “at the edge of eternal darkness” (277). To demonstrate how much she can hear, she tugs on Nico and Will’s soul threads, though she won’t take them without their consent. Each of them hears their deepest fear echoed in their thread, though they don’t hear each other’s.

She will give them her boat in exchange for something that will help her “feel the texture of the world again” (279).

This chapter is a repeat of the prologue. This chapter unites the main storyline with the flash forwards.

The two timelines have united. Nico and Will have told their stories and gotten Gorgyra’s permission to use her boat. Gorgyra asks for one last story, about the coin and ring Nico and Will exchanged.

They exchanged the tokens after their fight with Nero. Following the events of the Trials of Apollo pentalogy, Will asked a child of Hephaestus to make a coin with Will’s sun tattoo on one side and the helm of Hades on the other, symbolizing him and Nico. In exchange, Nico gave Will his silver skull ring. The tokens remind each of them that they are loved and connected despite their differences.

Nico thanks Gorgyra for having them tell stories that bolster them for the journey on the Acheron. She in turn thanks them for offering her kindness. She reminds them that pain helps us learn and is a part of all lives. They get in the boat.

Near the falls, the voices of the souls in the river are angry and loud. Nico warns Will to ignore the memories the voices may conjure. The voices tell Nico he is a murderer. They tell Will that he let Nico kill, so he’s equally guilty. The current picks them up and sweeps them “into nothingness” (288).