by Aimee Carter
I didn’t have time to worry about the ground dropping out from underneath me again. Without warning, James walked into the rock, pulling me with him. Instinctively I shut my eyes and braced for impact, expecting sharp pain as my forehead hit the jagged edge, but all I felt was a faint breeze in my hair.
“What the—” I opened my eyes, and my mouth fell open. We weren’t in the Underworld anymore. Instead we stood in a lush garden with trees as tall as the bright blue sky, and exotic f lowers surrounded us, turning toward us as we appeared.
“Welcome to the Underworld,” said James. “Or at least the part of it where the souls stay. Come on.” He led me down a dirt path with Ava trailing behind us, strangely quiet for all of the wonder that surrounded us. I stared at the giant f lora as we walked by, unable to hide my awe. It was as if I’d stepped into a fairy tale. Or fell down the rabbit hole.
“What is this place?” I said. “Is the entire Underworld like this?”
“No,” said James. “Look.”
He pointed through the trees at a girl swinging back and forth on a rope made of vines, her long hair swaying with her movements and her skin darkened from the sun. The same sun that had been replaced by crystal in the cavern before.
“Who’s that?” I whispered. “Is that Persephone?” Ava snorted softly, and I gave her a dirty look.
“If only it were that easy,” said James with a hint of amusement in his voice. “Only the six siblings and Henry’s queen can travel like that down here, and since you haven’t learned how yet, we’ve got a hike ahead of us. That girl’s the reason we see all of this. Henry took you down into the Underworld once, right?”
I nodded. He’d done it to comfort me, to show me that my mother would be all right after the cancer won and she died. I hadn’t known at the time that my mother was actually immortal. That would’ve helped a little more.
“Central Park,” I said. “That was what it looked like to me. It’s where my mother and I used to go on summer afternoons.”
“That’s so sweet,” said Ava, looping her arm in mine.
“Mine would be Paris, I bet. I could spend a millennium there and never get bored.”
We both waited for James’s answer, but instead he looked back at the girl in the distance. “This is her Eden. Because we’re immortal, the Underworld adapts to the closest mortal soul—her. Anywhere she goes, this is what she’ll see, and as soon as we get close enough to someone else, it’ll change.” I watched her swing back and forth, her face tilted toward the sun and a smile dancing on her lips. She looked happy.
The kind of happy I wished I could be. “She’s alone? Are they all alone?”
James gestured for us to follow. “Didn’t Henry—” He stopped and grimaced, and I bit back a retort. No, Henry hadn’t f illed me in. “It depends. It’s part of what you’re going to be doing. Some people are reunited with loved ones, others aren’t. Sometimes people spend half their time alone and half of it with loved ones. There’s no hard and fast set of rules. The person has the kind of afterlife they expect, or at least the one they think they deserve.” Oh. That. And if there were any questions or discrepan-cies, that was where Henry and I came in. “He explained that part,” I said. “Some people really spend the rest of forever alone?”
Ava’s grip on my arm tightened, and I squeezed back.
That didn’t sound like heaven to me.
“You need to forget your expectations,” said James as we picked our way around an enormous weeping willow the color of cotton candy. “Everyone’s different. Sometimes religion plays a part, sometimes it doesn’t. Henry will explain all of this to you.”
Only if we all returned in one piece.
I knew what happened to mortals after they died, but if it came to it—if killing me was enough to convince Calliope to help subdue Cronus before he escaped—what would happen to me now that I was immortal? I would fade, I knew that much, but what did that mean? I’d always believed in some sort of afterlife even before I’d met Henry and discovered the truth. That belief had kept me sane during the years I’d spent watching my mother die, knowing I would see her again when it was over for me, too. I had no such certainty now.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice when the sky grew dark again. The sun was gone, replaced with the cavern walls from before, but this time the light didn’t come from crystal.
We stood on the banks of a lake of f ire. Flames f lickered toward my feet, and as I took a startled step back on the black sand, James and Ava began to walk around it as if it were nothing more than an annoyance.
And then I heard the screams.
They echoed through the cavern, f illed with so much agony that I could feel it in my bones. A man cried out in a language I didn’t understand, and horrif ied, I squinted into the f ire.
He hung from chains that faded into nothingness before they reached the ceiling. The lower half of his body was immersed in the lake, and his expression was twisted with pain I couldn’t imagine. His skin melted from the bone, dripping down into the f ire, but as soon as it disappeared, new f lesh replaced it.
He was being burned alive again and again without relief.
His screams reverberated through the cavern and imbed-ded themselves in my memory, too tormented for me to ever forget them. I couldn’t look away, and the urge to do something—anything—rose within me, too strong to be ignored.
“We have to help him,” I said, but Ava held me back. I struggled against her, and James hurried toward us, taking my other arm.
“And how do you intend to do that?” he said. “By walking in there and burning up, as well?”
“I can’t die,” I said through gritted teeth as I tugged against them. “Remember?”
“That’s no reason to put yourself through that kind of pain,” said James. “You might not feel it on the f irst step, but you were mortal six months ago, and your body hasn’t forgotten that. You wouldn’t make it f ive feet, let alone there and back. Whatever he did, he believes he deserves it.”
I gaped at him, horror-struck. “He thinks he deserves being burned alive for eternity? What could possibly be that bad?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “When you’re queen, you can f ind out for yourself. Now let’s go. We don’t have time to waste.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the man as James and Ava forced me to walk around the lake. Even after the Underworld turned into a rolling f ield with a yellow cottage nestled in the middle, I heard his screams echoing in my mind.
At least James had conf irmed what I’d suspected. My body was adjusting, but it still remembered what it was like to be mortal. Glass bounced off my skin, I could fall from the top of the Empire State Building and walk away without a scratch, but I could feel the burn of f ire.
“How long before I don’t feel pain anymore?” I said, my voice trembling.
“It’s different for everyone,” said James. “Maybe a few months, maybe a few years. It’s your mind that’s doing it, not your body.”
“But it will go away?” I said.
“Eventually.”
“What about pleasure?”
Ava slipped her hand into mine. “Kate, if none of us could feel pleasure, do you really think we’d do half the things we do?”
I managed a faint smile. “Good point.”
We walked in silence, passing through place after place after place. Some of them were as wonderful and lush as the garden; others were full of pain and torture. I all but ran through those, my head down as I tried to ignore the screams. Eventually they all blended together, forming a chorus of pain, and the more I heard, the more certain I became that Henry and the council had been wrong. I could never do this. I could never sentence people to that kind of eternity, no matter what their crimes had been.
Time lost all meaning as we wandered. James seemed to know where he was going, leading the way once he was sure I wasn’t going to try to run and help the people we passed, and Ava hung on to me. I lo
st count of the number of places we walked through—dozens? A hundred? I couldn’t remember them all. My feet ached and my leg felt as if the bone was breaking with every step I took, but f inally in the middle of a forest, James stopped and set his bag down. “I think it’s a good time to rest.” He collected f irewood while I sat down on a fallen tree and hid my face in my hands. Ava sat beside me and rubbed my back.
“I can’t do this,” I whispered. “I don’t know why you thought I could, but I can’t.”
“Can’t do what?” said Ava soothingly.
“I can’t make those decisions,” I said. “I can’t—I can’t send anyone into that kind of eternity. I don’t care what they did. No one deserves that forever.” Self ishly I wondered if giving in to Calliope was the easiest option. At least then I wouldn’t have to rule the Underworld. Oblivion was a price I was willing to pay if it meant I would never have those billions of lives resting on my conscience.
“You heard James,” said Ava. “It only happens if they think they deserve it.”
“And what if they don’t? What if they think they do because someone’s told them again and again?” She opened and closed her mouth, and it took her a moment before she said anything. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess that’s where you come in.”
I shook my head bitterly. “No one deserves anything.
There’s no one keeping score. Why can’t everyone be happy for eternity, and no one has to suffer?”
“I don’t know,” said Ava softly. “I’m sorry, but this isn’t my thing. It isn’t James’s, either. It’s Henry’s. And maybe Persephone’s. She could probably tell you.”
“Great,” I muttered. “The two people who can explain it are either being held hostage or want nothing to do with this anymore. I’m sure the f irst thing Persephone’s going to want to do after we interrupt her is tell me all about the thousands of years she spent doing this. No wonder she gave up her immortality and ran.”
“Don’t,” said James from behind us. I jumped. He was closer than I’d thought. “Persephone went through hell.
She deserves a little happiness.”
There was that word again. I didn’t care what Persephone deserved. I cared about what she’d done and why. “That’s exactly why this might all be for nothing,” I said. “If she won’t help us, then what?”
“Persephone’s a better person than you think,” said James.
“Henry’s probably f illed your head with all sorts of stories about how he’s the victim, but they both were. He was stuck with a wife he loved who didn’t love him back, and she was stuck with a husband she didn’t love and a job that made her miserable. Don’t hate her for that.” I f idgeted. The only other time I’d seen James like this was when he’d confronted Henry about making me stay in Eden Manor after I’d tried to leave, and seeing James’s anger and disapproval made me want to crawl under the log and hide.
“I don’t hate her,” I said quietly. “I hate that she was something to Henry that I’ll never be. I hate that she could do this damn job without feeling ready to jump into a lake of f ire herself. And Henry’s never said a word against her.” With his mouth set in a thin line, James set down the pieces of wood he’d collected, and he started to build a small teepee that reminded me of the fries he used to treat like Lincoln Logs back in Eden High School, before I’d known he was a god. Before any of this had ever happened.
“She and Henry had thousands of years together. You’ve barely had one. Give it time.”
“I’m not going to tell you again that Henry loves you,” said Ava. “You can choose to believe me or not, but I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“I know you wouldn’t, and I believe you, but you two didn’t see how he acted around me.” No matter how many years we had together and how much he loved me, I knew he would never love me as much as he loved Persephone.
He couldn’t love two people that much. It was impossible.
James f inished arranging the wood. Rubbing his hands together, he held them out as if he were trying to get warm.
A moment later, the wood crackled, and the sticks burst into a cheerful f ire. “He acts like that with all of us, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.”
I wasn’t all of them though. I was supposed to be his wife. His queen. His partner. “So I’m supposed to accept that having a husband who never touches me is f ine?”
“You’re the one who decided to do this,” said James, and I glowered at him. “Don’t give me that look. I warned you he wasn’t going to act the way you expected. It’s not his fault for being himself.”
“So it’s my fault for pushing him?” I said, and the moment it was out, I knew it was true. My face reddened. I hated the desperation that f illed me, making it impossible to see logic and reason; I hated the part of me that was capable of acting this way. All I wanted was to know he cared. That he wasn’t doing this because he had to. I didn’t want to force him, but he wasn’t doing it on his own, and I didn’t know what to feel anymore. Not when I was giving up my entire future on a maybe.
I touched the f lower made of pink quartz and pearls in my pocket. The things he’d said to me before the ceremony—his insistence that he wanted me here. It was enough. It had to be.
“Yes,” said James, oblivious to how deeply that one word cut me. “It’s your fault. You accepted this, for better or for worse, and you need to give it more than a day. I appreciate what you’re going through, but beating yourself up about it right now isn’t going to solve anything. Toughen up, get it through your head that Henry does in fact love you, and move on. We have more important things to do.” James was right. I had to get it together. We had to do this f irst, and then I could f igure things out with Henry, if I ever got to see him again in the f irst place.
As I replayed the ceremony in my mind, those last few minutes I’d seen him, I squeezed my eyes shut and took a shaky breath. “I hesitated.”
Silence, and then Ava said in a small voice, “What?”
“During the coronation, when Henry asked me if I was willing. I hesitated.”
“I noticed that,” said James, and when I looked at him, he was leaning up against a tree with his arms crossed and his expression drawn. Of course he’d noticed. “It doesn’t mean anything, so don’t read into it. It was your right to hesitate.”
“James!” said Ava, and he shrugged.
“It is. You know it is. We can pretend this is only about Henry, and that Kate is nothing but lucky, but remember what it was like when you gave up humanity? It’s not an easy transition.”
“Whatever I had then was nothing compared to what I have now with all of you. Everyone loves me here,” said Ava, and James smiled faintly.
“Yeah, we’re all a little in love with you,” he said. “But that’s only because you’re dynamite in bed. Otherwise you’re a pain in the ass.”
Ava reached out to smack him, and as the earlier tension dissipated, I struggled not to picture the two of them together. “You two—?” I said in a strangled voice.
James focused on the f ire, and Ava shrugged. “I am the goddess of—”
“Love and sex. Yeah, I got that.” I frowned. “Is there anyone you haven’t slept with?”
“Daddy and Henry,” she said, and I supposed that was better than no one. “Even though Daddy technically isn’t my father, it’s still a no-no.”
“Walter isn’t your father?” I said. “I didn’t know that.”
“I’m adopted,” she said proudly. “It’s a long story, but what I’m trying to say is that Henry does love you, and things are going to get better. This is just the beginning—
imagine how much everyone’s going to love you in a thousand years, and how much you’re going to love them, too.”
“Or hate,” said James, and I noticed a hint of dismay in his voice that I wasn’t used to hearing from him.
“They do tend to be two of a kind,” said Ava. “Love before marriage is a novel thing, you know—all of our mar
riages were arranged, and we all had to grow into them, too. It took me ages to fall in love with my husband, but eventually we got there, and it was worth waiting for.” My mouth dropped open. “You’re married? ”
“Well, so are you.”
I gave her a look. At least Henry was the only person I’d ever been with.
“Don’t give me that,” said Ava. “I know what you’re thinking. Admittedly you’re a little young—Daddy made me get married when I turned a hundred because he said I gave him such a headache—but you’ll see eventually. Most mortals only live to be seventy or eighty at the most. You wait another f ive hundred years being married to the same person, and then you tell me if you’re itching to play with someone else, no matter how much you love Henry.” I was pretty damn sure that as long as Henry would let me stay with him, I would never want to play with someone else, but I didn’t say that, not in front of James. If there was ever someone else, our summer together had shown me that it could very easily be him. Unless he was married, too.
And with the way he and Ava interacted—
“Who is it?” I said. “Your husband, I mean.” In the split second before she answered, I didn’t dare breathe. Anyone but James.
“Nicholas,” she said, as if it were obvious, and I released the breath I’d been holding. Out of all the members of the council, Nicholas would’ve been my last pick.
“That’s crazy,” I said faintly, refusing to look at James. I loved Henry. No matter how tough things got, James wasn’t a choice anymore. Maybe he’d been before I took my vows, but…
…but what if Henry took one look at Persephone and wanted her back?
I shoved the thought aside. I couldn’t think like that.
“I know, right?” Ava beamed. “He’s a good guy. He really knows how to handle his swords, too.” As images of Henry embracing Persephone f loated in front of me, I struggled to keep up with Ava. “What?”
“He’s a blacksmith,” she said, her eyes widening innocently. “He makes weapons—anything in the world, you name it, he can make it. And he creates things for me, of course.”