Nico walked for another fifty yards before answering. “It hasn’t been easy, you know. Having only the dead for company. Knowing that I’ll never be accepted by the living. Only the dead respect me, and they only do that out of fear.”
“You could be accepted,” I said. “You could have friends at camp.”
He stared at me. “Do you really believe that, Percy?”
I didn’t answer. The truth was, I didn’t know. Nico had always been a little different, but since Bianca’s death, he’d gotten almost…scary. He had his father’s eyes—that intense, manic fire that made you suspect he was either a genius or a madman. And the way he’d banished Minos, and called himself the king of ghosts—it was kind of impressive, but it made me uncomfortable too. (c) The Battle of the Labyrinth