"I'm going to do my best," Dawn replied. She knew it hadn't been successfully done before, but she still had to try.

Persephone nodded and stood. "Well, my mother will probably be looking for me soon, anyway." She wrinkled her nose before she went over and kissed Hades. For about two minutes and with some tongue. Then she finally pulled back, a little pink. "Good luck." With that, she vanished.

Nika looked over at Dawn and Seth to see their reactions. Seth's jaw had dropped, just a little.

Dawn was vaguely disturbed. That had been both wrong and slightly horrifying. She didn't think she would ever be able to unsee it, and she kind of wanted to burn her eyes out with soap.

Nika snickered. "You think that's bad? You should have seen when she got here. I'd been here for maybe three minutes and she pops up and tackles him. Literally. To the ground."

Hades shot her a warning look. "If you want to go, go. Charon cannot take you back to the Gate. You have to find your own way there."

"Naturally." Nika rolled her eyes.

"I don't want to think about that," Dawn said to Nika. "Really, I don't." She wasn't surprised when Hades said they couldn't take the boat back. That was always the condition.

Nika merely chuckled. "Alright, we'd better get going," she said, glancing over at Hades.

"I'll take the rear," Seth said, motioning for the other two to go first. That way, in case Nika tried to go anywhere, he could catch her and keep her moving.

"I'll be glad once we're home again," Dawn said as they left. "No rivers of doom, no monster dogs..."

"No chess games from Hell," Seth put in with a grin, following them out.

Nika shook her head as they left the Hall. "We'll need to go through Tartarus to get out, at least in part."

"At this point, I'm not too worried about that," Dawn replied. "Though I do want to slap Cassandra if we trip over her. And Daphne. Maybe a few others."

"Let's wait until we get there," Seth said. "Who knows if we'll actually see anyone we know."

Nika smiled humorlessly but started walking.

Dawn walked alongside Nika.

"Come on, you're not mad at me, are you?" she asked.

"I'm mad that you're here risking yourself, yes, but I'll get over it." Nika sighed.

"You know me by now," Dawn said. "You're my friend, I couldn't just not try." She grinned. "Besides, don't you want to be one of those demigods who actually sees 25? I know I only have a couple more years till then."

"Eh. Either way." Nika shrugged as she kept walking. "I just hope you know that in a while I'm going to start trying to make a mad dash for it."

"That's what we're here for," Dawn pointed out. "Like it or not, you're stuck with me for a while." She grinned. "With any luck, we'll be back on the outside soon enough."

"We'll see." Nika didn't sound too hopeful. She preferred to be realistic about this, and her chances of getting out were not great.

"Come on, have a little faith," Dawn said. "Hell, send a little prayer towards Asclepius if you want to. Maybe he'll help. I'm technically his half-sister, so there's a chance."

"I don't do faith, and I don't pray," Aleron said. "Everything you get you earn, in some way or another, and you have to fight for what you have. The gods don't help unless there's something in it for them."

"What's got you in such a bad mood?" Dawn asked. "Honestly, Nika. You're crabbier than usual."

"You won't understand until you're dead," Nika said. "There's this magnetic pull towards where you're supposed to be, or wherever Hades wants you to be. The farther you get from that place, the stronger the pull. I hadn't felt it until we left the Hall."

"You're one of the most stubborn people I know," Dawn said frankly. "I think you'll be okay. You'll get back by sheer force of will."

"I hope so." Nika shrugged. "So how did everything turn out, anyway?"

"As far as I could tell? Everything seems to be slowly getting back to normal," Dawn replied. "I haven't been back to camp yet, though. I was kind of playing everything by ear, if you'll excuse the bad pun. I haven't tested to see if my lyre works again, but my arrows all regenerated, so that's something."

Nika nodded with a grim smile. "I wonder if Ares ever showed up," she murmured. "To get his things back."

"If he did, it was after I left," Dawn replied. "I didn't really want to waste any time, and I really didn't want to stick around to talk to my own father. I'm still pissed off at him."