“Why, oh why, did it feel like such a victory to make Will laugh? For a long time, Nico had assumed he himself did not have a heart. He was the son of Hades, after all. Love didn’t find people like him. But then came…Will. Will, who could melt Nico’s iciness with a smile. Anyone could have guessed which god was Will’s father—he radiated energy and light.”

This quotation characterizes Nico and Will’s relationship. Will gives Nico hope that he is capable of love and deserving of love in turn. It also begins to establish The Duality of Light and Dark: Nico is a child of the Underworld, while Will radiates light. Rather than driving them apart, this attracts them to one another.

“Chiron’s expression was heavy and sad. Perhaps he was remembering all the other heroes he had trained over the centuries, who said I have to go and then never returned.”

As half-mortal children of Olympian gods, demigods regularly face danger and often lose their lives at young ages. Chiron, an immortal centaur, is a character from Greek mythology who tutors heroes and has lived for thousands of years. Some of his most famous pupils from ancient times include Jason, Hercules, and Achilles, all of whom died young. Though being a demigod seems exciting, it can come with a tragic toll.

“He’d grown up in a time and place where people like him…well, they just didn’t have love songs. In a roundabout way, his experience in the Lotus Hotel had allowed him to end up here, where this was possible. Nico had a boyfriend.”

This quotation expands on Nico’s backstory: He was born in the 1930s and held in the Lotus Hotel, where time moves slowly, for 70 years while only aging a month. Growing up, Nico didn’t receive positive messages about being gay, even though his immediate family accepted and loved him. However, his imprisonment allowed him to re-emerge in the 21st century, where the social stigma around being gay is significantly less than it was a century ago.