Nico

All Nico sees when he first meets Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano is a walking contradiction.

She is strength (the hard set of her jaw, the stern way she lifts her chin, meeting everyone in the eye until she stares them down, and they always, always back down first).

She is sorrow (wincing slightly when someone touches her shoulder, her lovely eyes just a touch red—and are those tears glistening there in their kohl-lined-and-accentuated corners, as she blinks and turns away from him?).

She is silk (her hair when it grazes his shoulder, her mouth—he assumes—her skin as it touches his when he kisses her hand).

She is steel (her collarbones jut out like blades, she grips her wine goblet in a way that makes him think her fingers will leave dents when they pull away, her sharp, sharp cheekbones frame an expression that could cut as well as a razor when she looks at her father).

She is everything he is feeling, and shines a thousand times brighter.

Reyna

Nico di Angelo is a mystery.

Reyna doesn't only say that because of his face, which is half-shrouded by dark hair, or his eyes, which are unreadable but always, always analyzing. He's a puzzle because he is someone she can't place, and Reyna is excellent at placing people, labelling them, controlling them (well, everyone but your father, hisses the voice in her head.) She has power, but this boy, this lean, scrawny puzzle of a boy has her losing it all in a mad quest to find out why he's here.

She doesn't know who his father is, but she's guessing that he's a lanista, a man who runs a gladiator school, from what people have called him (a butcher of men, a demon or at worst, Pluto come to life) - viewed by the equestrian class and and patricians as lower. But even if that fuels the rumours like a dark cloud around him, why would he be here? A lanista's son is worth nothing. Of no importance to anyone. Of course, it's not like she's any better - a wine seller's daughter, soon to be a moderately rich, probably boring and controlling man's wife. She's only here because of her mother.

And her mother isn't even here - she's a goddess. Bellona, goddess of war, military strategy, is her mother.

Her mother has given her her confidence, her power, her air of icy untouchability - and most likely all the suitors lining up at her father's door for her hand - because really, who'd want to marry a wine seller's daughter?

Nico

He wishes Bianca was here.

If she were here, she'd try to get him to laugh, to talk, to make conversation with a pretty girl instead of nursing a glass of honeyed wine, his tunica uncomfortably tight because his father saw no reason to spend money on his weak, useless son and heir. Instead, his father spends his money on body slaves, on the girls who had misfortune of being born attractive and poor with cruel pagents or guardians who sold them into drudgery. His father isn't his father, he knows. It's probably why he mistreats Nico and lavishes all his attention on unfortunate Bianca - because Nico isn't his son, he's a god's.

He doesn't even get to be an interesting god's son, Jupiter or Neptune or some other revered god - no, his father is a reviled God instead: his father is Pluto. His father rules the Underworld, and Nico hopes he will never meet him. Because if he did, he'd probably spit in his face for being his father, for years of suffering other children's taunts and torments and whispers of the death god's child, that strange boy, weak and sickly and pale, a veritable corpse! Or worse, the words of their parents, shunning his family despite the fact that while they are not the wealthiest, the di Angelos are the oldest, that their name is hallowed, august.

If Bianca were here, she would be fine. Because her father isn't a god - her father cares.

Reyna

The wine is too sweet.

It is exactly like the girl next to her in the pink stola and oversized, clashing rubies, laughing a shrill giggle and leaning over Reyna to touch Nico di Angelo's arm. He doesn't seem to enjoy the attention - on the contrary, he is as much of an ice statue as the center piece of the decorations on every table. Reyna makes an impulsive decision - a rarity for her. She puts down her wine goblet and waves over a slave to get her a different drink, in the process hitting the girl in the face.

Reyna apologizes profusely, falsely, saccharinely. The girl huffs and mutters the word pleb under her breath.

It seems the night will surprise her after all, when Nico turns to the girl. "I thought even an air-headed patrician girl like you could tell the difference between a plebeian and someone from the equestrian class."

"And here I thought you were a lanista's son." She gives him a dirty look. "Clearly, you're much worse."

"I think you've misunderstood the rumours." The glimpse of a smile, fleeting and sharp as a razor. "My father doesn't run a gladiator school. My father is Pluto."

The girl opens her mouth, then closes it and looks away.

Behind her wine goblet, Reyna hides her shock.

Mystery solved.