Nico's new room was a cell. Like a prison cell. Or maybe more like a cell in a mental institution for the criminally insane. There was a door instead of bars, but the walls were padded. That seemed a little contradictory, with them putting a nice metal set of bunk beds in the room for them.

Also, Nico had a roomate. He was a little concerned about this at first or several reasons. The first being that his roomate had those creepy blue eyes that he'd seen in the pictures, and on that son of Kratos. The second was that his roommate was kept strapped down to the lower bunk with restraints. The third was that those restraints didn't really appear to be necessary. His roommate seemed to be catatonic. All he did was lie there, staring straight up with those freaky blue eyes of his, blinking every once in awhile, but aside from that not moving at all. He didn't respond when Nico spoke to him or gave his shoulder a shake. Nico considered undoing the restraints and seeing if that had any effect, but ultimately decided against it for now. He didn't know why the guy had been strapped down, and didn't want to find out why when the guy went into a Piers-reminiscent raging fit, ripped the bunk beds up from where they were bolted to the floor, and proceeded to beat him to death with them. That would suck.

Nico tested the strength of the door, its frame, and the lock and quickly realized he wasn't going to be able to break the door down. Not with his demigod powers being weakened by whatever this place was doing. Whatever kind of power dampener they had wasn't hurting Nico, at least not that he could tell, but it was cutting off his access to all of his demigod abilities. His boosted strength was gone, he could clearly tell, and by the way his steps had been lagging in the hall, on the way down, he was pretty sure whatever bonus his demigod blood gave to his speed had been knocked out as well. He couldn't sense the dead anymore, couldn't feel the shadows. Even his ADHD was gone.

Never had he been more grateful for the god that was stuck in his head. He still had access to his Egyptian magic, as he discovered when he had Anubis help him pull a candy-bar out of his Duat stash, and his blood still acted like nectrotic acid. He tested it to make sure. On the camera in his room. Nico didn't appreciate people spying on him.

He tore the camera apart, partly to hide evidence of the acid damage when they inevitably took it away from him, but also partly out of curiosity. He wasn't sure if whatever was suppressing his powers came from one big source that covered all or most of the Blue Ward, or if it came from a bunch of tinier sources scattered throughout the complex. He didn't find anything suspicious or mystical looking when he broke apart the camera, or anywhere else in his cell that he searched, but that wasn't enough to make Nico rule out that theory. He wasn't sure which would be easier. If it was one source, then he'd only have to destroy one thing to get his powers back, anywhere he went in the Blue Ward. But if the suppression came from smaller sources scattered throughout the ward, he'd be able to restore his powers in certain areas, which might be all that he needed.

They came and took away the broken camera less than half an hour after he dismantled it, but were at least smart enough not to try and replace it because Nico would have broken that one to pieces too. Winning his privacy was no small victory. After that he searched every inch of his room looking for, well, anything. He found that the floor had a slight slope toward the center underneath the linoleum, and it sounded slightly hollow when he rapped his fist against it. There was probably a drain underneath it, but not a big enough one to escape through. Percy might have been able to summon water through it if he was there and there wasn't that power dampening thing going on, but it was pretty useless to Nico.

There was a decent sized ventilation shaft on the wall across the room from the bed. A normal kid or demigod wouldn't have been able to reach it, unless they were an extremely good athlete even without the boost of power their god blood gave them, but even if they could, it was bolted in place. The room was well and truly secure, which left Nico with no doubts that a demigod without his or her powers would have no way out. He was just lucky that a demigod wasn't the only thing he was. There were two ways out that Nico could think of for himself, even without access to his shadow traveling. The first was using his blood to burn the lock off the door. The second was getting Anubis to use a hadi spell and just splitting the door in half. So he wasn't worried.

He hopped up on top of his bunk to plan his next move.

His next check in with Camp Half-Blood wasn't for for a few days. Percy would start getting worried if he didn't check in by tomorrow since it had been a couple days since they'd last spoken. And Jason was expecting to see him tomorrow too. If he didn't show then Jason would wait twenty-four hours, when they had a backup check in time set. And if Nico didn't show by then . . . well Nico wasn't sure what Jason would decide to do. He didn't know Jason well enough to predict the other teen.

But Nico didn't plan on letting it get that far. It would be a little over twenty-four hours before anyone even knew to start worrying about him. Plenty of time to sneak out and find out what was going on in the Blue Ward. That creepy room with all those pictures of eyes seemed like a good place to start.

Nico took a nap while he was waiting for dark to fall. He'd always slept better during the day, and even without his demigod powers dictating his life now, he was still able to fall asleep easily, even with the lights on. He woke up the instant they turned off the lights that evening and got a sick shock. He couldn't see anything.

Is this how most people see at night? he asked Anubis irritated by his sudden night-blindness.

This is how most people see, or fail to see, when they're in a room that has no light at all, Anubis told him. It's a bit different from seeing at night, when they have the moon, and stars, and light pollution to help them see.

Oh. Well it sucks.

I have some news, said Anubis, his mental tone letting Nico know that whatever he had to say was not good. He quickly began updating Nico on what the Kanes and the rest of Brooklyn House had discovered, how the Kanes were headed to Texas, and what they believed Apophis was up to. It was worse than Nico could have predicted. The final fight was nearly at hand.

I can call this off, said Nico uncertainly. He didn't know if that was the right thing to do, with Jason and Camp Half-Blood depending on him . . . but the fate of the world was hanging in the balance and he would be damned before he missed yet another chance at punching out Apophis.

No, Anubis told him. Tonight Sadie and Carter are attempting to retrieve the scroll. They'll be amongst magicians from the 51st nome. If all goes well, they'll have the scroll and be out of there before Apophis arrives.

One problem with that. Things never go well.

The deciding battle will not take place tonight. It is better not to let Apophis know of your existence until it happens. He cannot anticipate how strong you might be if he doesn't know you exist.

True . . . but I don't want to leave Sadie and Carter alone to face him.

They won't be alone. Their best students will be with them. And the entire 51st nome.

I'd still rather be there if they're facing him.

Your time will come. Finish what you set out to do here. If all goes well, you'll be able to join them tomorrow.

Nico made a growling sound in his throat. You never learn, do you?

Learn what?

About jinxes. If I wasn't your host, I'd swear you were trying to get me killed.

Nico made his way to the door. It wasn't too hard, even without being able to see anything. All he had to do was follow the wall until he reached it. The room wasn't very big anyway.

Know any unlocking spells or should we just blast it?

Anubis gave the telepathic equivalent of shaking his head then pointed two fingers at the door and muttered a few words. Hieroglyphics blazed through the darkness and the lock on the door clicked softly.

Nico eased it open carefully and looked cautiously out into the hallway. No one appeared to be around.

Wait, ordered Anubis. Then he cast another spell. For a second, more hieroglyphics glowed around Nico. Alright. Now you're invisible.

Cool.

Nico walked swiftly through the corridor, taking care to keep his footsteps soft. There were a few people in other hallways but he was able to get past them with no trouble at all as he made his way back to the first hall. All of the doors were closed now, so he had to try to figure out which one had been the one with the creepy eye pictures from his memories.

It was the seventh door, right? he asked Anubis.

I thought it was the eighth.

So Nico stopped in front of the eighth door from the entrance and tested the door-knob. Luck was with him for a change and it was open. Using an unlocking spell wouldn't have been too much trouble, but it would have taken up energy, and without his demigod stamina, Nico was already starting to feel a little drained just from the little magic he and Anubis had worked so far.

It turned out that Anubis was wrong about which door the creepy eyes had been behind. The room they entered turned out to be someone's office. Nico almost shut the door and moved to the next one, but voices made him pause. Someone was coming.

He quickly ducked inside the office, shut the door behind him all but a crack, and listened.

"- still unclassified. We've compared his eyes to every known demigod's from the past thirty years without getting a match."

"It's always interesting to find something new. But I suppose they'll put off putting him through optics because of that?" said a young woman in a lab coat and big grey eyes behind geeky glasses. Athena eyes, Nico noted uncomfortably. How many demigods were working for these nutcases?

The woman's companion was a scrawny man who looked like a son of Hermes. "Not necessarily. They've got a high resolution copy of his student ID picture, so his eyes will be documented. There's no point in waiting to put him through optics. The younger they are when they put them through, the less likely they are to wind up with their brains scrambled."

"I thought it was the weaker they are?" the woman said.

"A lot of factors contribute to the outcome. The older they are, and the stronger their godly parent is seem to be the two factors that effect the procedure's results the most. Everyone over the age of twelve who's ever had the surgery has mentally degraded very rapidly. And the children of the twelve Olympians, or the eight that can actually have children usually start losing it when they hit adolescence. Some earlier."

"But there's ten Olympians that can can have demigod children," the woman pointed out. Her tone was petty, like she was glad to find something to correct the older man about.

"You know what I mean. There are those two who never have demigod children, then those other two who aren't supposed to and have had like one apiece in the past seventy years, and they hardly count."

"How many children actually come through the procedure and turn out normal?" asked the woman, sounding troubled now.

"More than used to."

"How many?"

"You can look up the statistics if you really want to know. But I'd advise you not to. Remember why we're doing this. You know these sacrifices are necessary," the man said sternly.

"I know but . . . I don't like the idea of hurting these children, even if it is for the sake of humanity's best interest."

"Then don't think of it as hurting them," said the man. "Think of it as putting them down. You know what fate waits for them. A life of being hounded by monsters, drafted into either a new-agey cult camp or a child army, and getting caught up in the petty squabbles or full out wars of the gods."

"Yes. You're right," said the woman meekly. She said something else, but Nico didn't hear it, because they disappeared into the room that Nico was 90 percent certain was the creepy eye room, and closed the door behind them.

What did you make of that? asked Nico.

Nothing good.

Word. I wish I'd heard more though.

You heard enough.

Optics means something about eyes, right?

Yes.

Nico sighed. They're in the room I need to be in. It seems too risky to try getting in while they're in there.

No matter. Search this room while we wait for them to leave.

Nico gave the mental equivalent of a nod and turned toward the computer. That seemed like the best place to start.