Nico di Angelo, the fourteen-year-old son of Hades, is one complex demigod. Born in the 1930s, he and his sister Bianca had their memories wiped in the River Lethe by Hades, who then hid them away in Las Vegas’s Lotus Hotel and Casino, a place where time stands still. Hades did this to protect them from Zeus, who once tried to kill them.

Nico emerges seventy years later, believing only a month has passed. At first he is an innocent, wide-eyed ten-year-old with a passion for the card game Mythomagic. That changes as he learns the truth about himself and his godly parentage. He comes to believe the other demigods of Camp Half-Blood are avoiding him because of his connection to death and the Underworld. His turmoil grows when his sister dies. He blames her death on Percy Jackson—while simultaneously harboring a secret and what he feels is a morally abhorrent crush on Percy. Nico spends more and more time in the Underworld, searching for his dead sister, communing with ghosts, and honing his deadly and death-related powers. Only when he comes to accept who he is, and that others accept him as well, does he begin to find inner peace.

In looks, Nico resembles his father—black hair, dark eyes, pale skin, and slender to painfully thin build. He usually wears black jeans and T-shirts under either a leather aviator jacket or a black trench coat, along with a silver skull ring and a chain-mail belt from which his Stygian iron sword hangs.