Page 67 of Blood of Olympus

“If I’d been there… if I'd been raised as a son of Zeus… the elder of us, too… well, at least you wouldn’t have had to endure it alone.”

“Ah, but then Nyssa would have had to. And I wouldn’t change that for the world.”

He was silent for a few minutes, staring out at the lake as he flickered in and out of view.

“Two things,” he said after a while. “One: I’m glad she has you now. And two: try to wield again, except this time, don’t force it into a dagger. Let it take the shape that feels most natural to you.”

I sighed deeply before closing my eyes and holding out my palm again. I delved deep to find that cold, dark, tenor of power, and coaxed it to the surface. It rushed to obey, coating my hand in something that felt uncomfortably like frost.

A heartbeat later, a cold, sharp weight settled in my hand.

Charon snorted. “Figures.”

Curiosity got the better of me and I cracked my eyelids open to inspect the object my power was most inclined to form. I understood immediately why Charon had reacted the way he did. I almost dropped it in disdain.

It seemed that my power wanted to model a shape I myself was not overly fond of:

A lightning bolt.

“Are you going to stare at it all night, or are you actually going to use it?” Charon quipped with a wink. He leaned in conspiratorially, shielding his lips with his palm and whispered theatrically. “That’s what she said.”

I rolled my eyes as he guffawed, apparently reduced to bad jokes in his afterlife.

After a series of sniggers, he said, “Throw it at the lake — see what happens.”

Sighing, I tossed the bolt into the water with all the enthusiasm I could muster — which was not much at all. It hit the water with a sad plop, disintegrating instantaneously across the surface.

“Well, that was anticlimactic,” he muttered.

I was inclined to agree.

Not two seconds later, the surface began to ripple ominously. Charon leaped to his ghostly feet and I lurched to join him. We inched closer together, peering into the now churning water, just as something white bobbed to the surface.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Want me to go look?”

“How would you⁠—”

In answer, Charon’s feet lifted six inches off the black sand, smirking. “There are some perks to being a shade.”

Just as he began to drift closer to the white something, two more floated to the surface.

“Wait,” I murmured, reaching to grab his arm. My hand passed through air instead.

Well, that sucks.

Another three somethings appeared. Then four more. Then more and more and more.

Countless somethings now filled the surface of the lake, as far as I could see.

I dared to step closer, my boots dangerously close to the waterline.

The bony remains of a fish meandered nearer to my toes, and it was then that I understood what all of the white somethings were: tiny piscatorial skeletons.

“Huh,” Charon muttered. “That’s a new one.” He eyed me quizzically, like I could explain what had just happened.

I shrugged, as clueless as he was.