It was a bright, sunny day, but in the shade of the trees, it was pleasantly cool. It was also a Saturday, which theoretically meant that Nico wouldn't have any work to do in the Underworld.

Theoretically. Not in practice.

Which was why the son of Hades was now sulking in a graveyard near Brooklyn. He'd escaped in between stacks of paperwork. There were applications from those who'd had parasitic space slugs in their heads, applications from those who had been killed by something called Avada Kedavra, and spirits who'd been sent to the Shadow Realm, a couple of spirits who'd been killed by a dude claiming to be a god dressed in green and gold, besides the backlog of demigods killed in the Battle of the Labyrinth, Battle of Manhattan, the multiple battles with Gaea's forces, and everyday natural and non-natural mortal deaths... yeah, he'd been about to snap.

He took a deep breath, exhaled, and turned around, coming face to face with a girl around his own age, with blond hair with red highlights.

"Anubis?" she asked.

Wait, what? Why would she think he was Anubis... unless she was Egyptian.

"Wrong Death god."

And with that, he turned around and cloaked himself in shadows, effectively disappearing from sight.

*I am a line break*

"Hello Nico."

Nico jumped. "Oh, it's only you," he sighed.

"What's the matter?" Anubis asked.

"Paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork. Plus, there was this girl earlier who thought I was you."

"So that's why she was so flustered when I saw her. Her name's Sadie."

"She wouldn't have happened to save the world with a bookwormy-smart person?"

"Her brother Carter, actually."

"Wait, now I remember. Percy said he and a guy named Carter beat this giant croc monster, and Annabeth said she met someone named Sadie and that they fought Serapis."

"Yeah, the situation's not looking too good."

"Do you sometimes feel like someone's screwing around with these things, making them happen on purpose?" (AN: Rick Riordan, I'm looking at you.)

"You have no idea."

AN: If Percy met Carter, and Annabeth met Sadie, then why can't the Death Boys meet, especially since according to their in-book descriptions, they should appear almost identical.