By The Angels (PJOxSH)

6

Nico woke up to the sound of the door opening and slowly sat up. He stretched his back and moved around to return blood flow to his legs. Of course, he'd fallen asleep still sitting up, the book splayed open in his lap. Jace was still sitting in his chair, but his head hung to the side, casting some of his hair into his eyes. A young woman had entered the room, she had dark hair and eyes, and wore a simple tank top and skin-tight pants, both black. The Marks, the things that gave Shadowhunter's their power as Nico had learned, were displayed all along her arms. Nico decided she could easily compete with any of the children of Aphrodite, as could Jace, in terms of beauty.

She eyed Nico up and down before sliding the tray she carried through the barrier. Nico looked down at the food, frozen waffles, and a carton of orange juice. He shrugged, not a Happy Meal, but it would do, and pulled the tray closer to him then munching on a waffle. She seemed happy that he was eating, but turned to Jace with a frown. Not too gently, she smacked Jace upside the head, causing him to immediately wake up and... fall onto the ground. Nico snickered through his waffles.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty. Guess watch wasn't that hard huh?" She asked, amusement written across her face.

Jace gave Nico a small glare, and Nico stuck out his tongue, "Nope, all he did was read all night long," Jace yawned.

"So, your name's Nico, right?" She smiled at him. Nico nodded, moving onto the orange juice.

"Well, my name's Isabelle, you've already met my brother and mother." She introduced.

After being told, Nico could make the connection. "I can see the resemblance," he commented before continuing his meal in silence.

After collecting himself and waking up fully, Jace left the room and Isabelle took his place in the chair. Nico began drinking his orange juice slowly while she seemed to observe him. Nico finished what he was willing to eat and pushed the rest to the side, all under her watchful, dark eyes. He'd managed to eat half a waffle and a few sips of orange juice, Will would be proud. Nico picked up the Codex again and continued reading, as much as his ADHD would permit.

"Hey, Nico?" Isabell spoke up, and Nico looked up from reading, "Tell me something about you."

Nico frowned and knit his eyebrows in confusion, "'Something about me'?" he parrotted.

"Yeah! Your interests and stuff, you sure seem to have a thing for daggers." She continued.

Nico remained silent this time, not currently in the mood for an interrogation.

"Please?" She pouted and batted her eyelashes. She was pretty, but Nico was immune to her feminine charm that would definitely have a few of the demigods back at camp flustered.

Nico looked up from his book and let it fall to his lap, met her eyes... then went back to reading. She groaned in frustration. Nico smirked into his book, amused at her attempts at least, but the book was bringing to bore him at this point, and his mind was split between escape, his current situation, and Will. He had today to escape, or his entire situation would end up a lot more chaotic, especially if Will got some of the others involved in his rescue. Utter chaos.

"Aren't you gloomy..." Isabelle huffed and Nico glanced up at her from his book.

"A reasonable response to my current situation," Nico responded.

Isabelle looked exasperated, "I understand that you don't want to be here, or even know fully about the Shadow World, but... we can't let you go."

"And why not?" Nico snapped.

"What you did was powerful dark magic... and whether you knew it or not, it's illegal to mess with that kind of stuff and it usually has some pretty nasty consequences. We just really want to know why. Why can you do magic like that and be fine? And why attack those ghosts?" Isabelle explained.