XXXVI

Favonius bears Jason and Nico as wind to the ruined city of Salona, once home to Cupid. He warns that Cupid demands honesty, recounting his own tragic love for Hyacinthus and servitude to Love. After urging caution, Favonius departs as Cupid’s voice fills the ruins.

Invisible and violent, Cupid attacks, hurling Jason around and firing explosive arrows. Jason parries to protect Nico, but Cupid insists Love is neither fair nor soft and that only a child of the Underworld and a Roman officer can use Diocletian’s scepter and lead the dead legions. Jason’s doubts about leadership resurface even as he fights.

Cupid focuses on Nico, demanding truth. The god recounts Psyche’s painful trials as proof that Love requires honesty and sacrifice. Nico resists, raising Roman skeletons to grapple Cupid, while waves of darkness overwhelm Jason with visions of Nico’s past—Percy’s heroism, Bianca’s death, and Nico’s terror of his powers and feelings.

Pressed by Cupid’s taunts, Nico denies belonging anywhere. Jason realizes Cupid is a monster of truth and urges honesty. Finally, Nico confesses he was not in love with Annabeth but had a crush on Percy, and that self-hatred drove him from Camp Half-Blood. The darkness ebbs; the skeletons collapse to dust.

Cupid manifests as a stern, warlike youth, acknowledges Nico’s courage, and dissolves, leaving Diocletian’s scepter. Nico retrieves it. Jason offers support and discretion, telling Nico he was brave. Nico, still guarded, decides they will return by shadow-travel, refusing further aid from the winds.