‘You’re gonna need her,’ Hypnos replied grimly. For once, the Daemon of Sleep didn’t appear to find himself funny. He flittered off after Virgo, and Elliot watched them disappear up the dimly lit pathway.

Elliot turned to the Daemon of Death.

‘I want my mum’s soul,’ he said. ‘Now.’

‘Everything in good time,’ drawled Thanatos, his knuckles white from clutching the Chaos Stone in his hand. ‘First things first. You really should see this. Follow me.’

‘You swore!’ cried Elliot. ‘You swore you’d give her back!’

‘And I will,’ said Thanatos. ‘Oaths don’t have a deadline, you know. Come along. You should be the first to see what you have done.’

Reluctantly, Elliot began to follow the Daemon across a bridge over the River Phlegethon and through the wasteland of Tartarus. It was not the first time he had been there with Thanatos, but back then the barren expanse of fiery land had been fairly empty, save for its few eternal prisoners.

Now Tartarus was a hive of activity, with Elementals of all kinds busy crafting weapons and armour. To his right, a group of satyrs were making arrows out of sticks and flint. To his left, chimeras were forging swords in the flames of their own breath.

‘What are they doing?’ Elliot asked nervously.

‘Getting ready for war,’ said Thanatos. ‘I have a nasty feeling that your friends aren’t going to make world domination terribly easy for me.’

‘Although I can assure you,’ gloated Nyx, fluttering just overhead, ‘it’s going to be much harder on them.’

They trudged on through Tartarus until they came to a spot that Elliot recognized. He had been here before. It was a murky lake, in the centre of which was a small island, surrounded by a river of fire. And at its heart was a stone prison: the prison that held Thanatos’s Daemon army.

‘Friends! Comrades!’ Thanatos cried over the raucous squabbling that came from the prison. ‘The day has come!’

‘It can’t be time to pay the gas bill again,’ complained a voice. ‘I swear we only just paid it . . .’

‘It is the day of reckoning!’ Thanatos boomed. ‘The day of justice! The day of your freedom!’

‘If we’ve told you once, we’ve told you a thousand times,’ came a new voice. ‘We haven’t got room for a conservatory!’

‘Your Lord and Master has come to free you!’ Nyx screeched. ‘Show some respect!’

‘Well, why didn’t you just say so?’ exclaimed a third voice. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

‘Yes, let’s,’ said Thanatos, looking down at Elliot, who quickly averted his eyes. He didn’t want to see what happened next.

Thanatos flipped open the lid of the watch. The newly formed single Chaos Stone glowed at his command.

‘Fire!’ Thanatos roared. ‘Blaze!’