Fire licked through his eyes, casting a glow upon the pristine snow around me.
“If you weren’t already going to die in two days, I’d kill you now for your impertinence.”
I snorted. “Your threats mean nothing to me, Lord of Death. Without her, I have nothing anyway.”
“So you would build your whole life and who you are upon the expectation of another? Pitiful.” He sneered.
I shrugged. I didn’t know how to explain what Alice and I had in any way that made any kind of sense.
“I existed before her, Hades. But I was a shell. In that life and in this one. I couldn’t begin to explain what Alice did for me. Her gentleness. Her love. Her fire. It lit an undying flame inside my heart, made me see myself as she did. I was tired, but she gave me purpose and hope. I need Alice like I need my next breath. She is not just my love or my lover, she is my very soul. And unless you’ve ever felt that, you could never possibly understand the depths I’d be willing to walk in order to save her. Even if she doesn’t choose me again, as long as I know she’s happy, I could die feeling as though I’d accomplished something worthwhile in this life.”
He laughed. But he stared at me. Like I confused him. Like he wanted to understand, but he just couldn’t.
He shook his head. “That sounds dreadful.”
My lips twitched as the cold sank deeper and deeper within my bones. Feeling a weariness of soul, I rested my cheek upon my knees and murmured, “If you say so.”
Then, closing my eyes, I told myself I only needed to rest a bit so as to regain my strength. But I knew when I woke in the morning, I would not feel better.
Somehow, someway, I had to keep fighting. It was the only way to save Alice.
~*~
Hades
I watched the madman sink into the fog of delirium. I had not lied when I’d told him how taxing it would be for a living to walk among the dead.
Already he was dying. And coming from Kingdom as he did, I knew the male had never even known the sting of illness before.
Hatter might not even have a day left to him. I shook my head and stood.
Immediately I sensed the presence of another. It wasn’t difficult to figure out it was her, though not in human form. She’d transformed again. Into a field mouse, hidden in the twigs back by a copse of trees.
Aphrodite had been right; the two souls were inexorably linked. I’d known the moment I’d seen Alice dip her fingers into the water that she would eventually succumb to its lure and drink.
She was wrong. It wasn’t the water that’d wiped her memory of all traces of Hatter. It’d been me. I’d replaced memories of reality with small snatches of fantasy, namely her drinking from Lethe. A fact that never actually occurred.
And I’d done it for a very simple reason.
What Lethe wrought could never be undone. But if the male and Alice were truly a fated pair, then I would lift the curse. I was not accustomed to giving up my dead, but I had my reasons.
Clenching down on my back teeth, I muttered a curse beneath my breath and did something I hadn’t done in over a thousand years. I left my underworld for the golden clouds of Olympus.
The sunlight stung my eyes and made me hiss.
Firebirds screamed as they raced through the air, trying to outmaneuver Apollo’s burning chariot across the sky.
Standing on a hill overlooking the palace of the three Fates, I glowered at the stone building. I had my doubts that Aphrodite had spoken with them. But I was equally as sure that she believed the rest of her story.
Frolicking nymphs and satyrs dashed through flowering bushes as they chased and ran away. I curled my lip in disgust at their obvious show of foreplay. I’d never much cared for the games of lust.
“Come to savor the wares?” a masculine but high-pitched voice asked just over my left shoulder.
I didn’t turn, knowing to whom I spoke. “Hermes. Checking up on me? My brother sent you, has he?”
The messenger god chuckled, and finally I turned, staring at the man who would forever look a boy of sixteen. He was youthful and spry; constant running around tended to do that to a body. He had blond hair the color of Apollo’s burnished sun and eyes as blue as the skies he called home. Dressed in the casual clothes of the modern world, a jacket and formfitting jeans with his ever-present winged shoes on his feet, he grinned cheekily.
“Well, not often the Lord of Death sees fit to grace us with his presence.”
Not an answer, and yet I’d not actually expected one.
“Want me to fetch a nymph for you? Heard it’s been a while.” He grinned, glancing quickly down between my legs and snorting.
I sighed, already exhausted by my kind, and I’d only just gotten here.
“No,” I said. “Where is Aphrodite?”
That question seemed to take him aback, and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “Hate to say this, Deathy, but I don’t think you’ll be getting any sex from that one. Rumor has it she’s been locked up in her castle beneath the waves these past few days and has threatened to cut off anyone’s balls who dares to approach.” Covering the side of his mouth with his hand, he glanced from side to side quickly before leaning in and saying in a stage whisper, “She and the twisted one are on the outs, you see.”
Feeling strangely protective all of a sudden, I snapped at the imbecile. “Get out of my way, you gossiping whoreson.”
Then I shoved past him, unnecessary since I traveled through a time portal, and made my way directly into Aphrodite’s luxurious sex suite.
The place was gilded with gold and dripping with diamonds from every conceivable corner. Upon her floors were rugs of thick, plush animal skins as white as freshly fallen snow. A massive mirror took up one entire wall, and at the very center of the opulent room sat a bed that could easily sleep twenty.
Aphrodite was notorious for her orgies.
But instead of finding a bevy of naked men and women giving in to her every whim, I only found Aphrodite lying on the center of it, wearing a very mundane-looking gown of spun white cotton, her blond hair loose and looking tangled.
She did not cry out when I entered, simply sat up slowly, as though she wore the cares of the world upon her small shoulders.
Aphrodite wore no glamour today, and I was taken aback by the sight of her. This was the real woman who hid behind the gowns of spun sunlight, whose flesh glowed, golden and alive.
She looked tired.
There were dark circles under her eyes, as though she’d been crying for days. But for all that, she was still one of the most beautiful woman I’d ever known. I rather liked her without the magic, though I’d never say so.
“Hades?” she asked quietly, looking at me strangely. “Why are you here?”
Taking a deep breath, I licked my front teeth. Now that I was here, I wasn’t really sure why I’d come, to be honest. I’d kicked her out of my realm, mocked her, made her feel a fool.
I frowned, shoved my fingers through my hair, and looked at her directly. “You never spoke with the Fates. Did you?”
The visible swallow and shudder she gave was answer enough, and my heart sank.
Crawling forward on her hands and knees, gripping her sheets so tight that her knuckles whitened, she shook her head vehemently. “No, but before you say another word, know this. The rest was the absolute truth. I need you to believe in them as I do.”
“Who told you to get to me? Why?”
Twisting her thick hair through her fingers, she looked nervous. And not at all like the confident goddess I’d always known her to be. I didn’t know what to make of this startling revelation, but there was an epiphany growing inside me. One that seemed so obvious now in hindsight that I was ashamed I’d not realized it sooner.
“It was the fairy queen of Kingdom—Galeta. And I would trust her word as surely as I would trust that of the Fates. I did not lie to you, Hades, Calypso is your lost mate.”
“And how do Hatter and Alice fit into this?”
/> I had my suspicions, which had blossomed after speaking with Hatter, but I would hold that thought close to the vest. For now.
She shrugged, and that movement alone seemed to wear her out.
It was inconceivable to me that I should care about this slip of a woman I’d never had feelings for before. But I was seeing Aphrodite in a new light today. And I felt heartily ashamed of myself.
“I don’t know,” she finally admitted. “But I would do anything to—”
Unable to be in her presence a moment longer, I turned on my heel, tore open a portal, and returned to the safety and isolation of my underworld.
I would have to eventually apologize to Aphrodite for my actions, but if I’d been forced to remain in her presence a moment longer, I might have given in to my shame in public.
Sitting upon my throne and with tears burning in my eyes, I flicked my wrist. For days now I’d been spying on Calypso, and this time was no different.
I watched the elemental with new eyes.
She sat on a cliff, staring down at her beloved sea. She was not in human form, but she was more solid than she had been before. More like a pillar of water in the shape of a coral. And though I could not see her face, I knew her eyes were trained upon the sea she loved so well.
I looked at that water too, wondering what it was about it that called to the elemental so. Water was just water. You drank it, bathed in it, cooked with it, but there was no more to it than that.
But as I watched her study it, I knew it was so much more than that to her. To her, it was life. Beauty. Wonder.
I frowned.
Where had those thoughts come from? Blinking, I tried to shake the nonsense from my head, but all of a sudden I caught movement from the corner of my eye. It was Calypso, and though she still bore no recognizable form, I felt her eyes upon me. Her gaze met mine across time and distance, and though I knew she did not see me, she was clearly aware of being watched.
My spine stiffened and my breathing hitched. Curling my fingers into my throne’s armrest, I leaned forward, not wanting to be caught, and yet also perversely desirous she do just that, that somehow she’d figure out it was I who spied upon her.
Calypso’s tempers were legendary. The sea could be calm, but it could also be chaotic, wild, and tempestuous. My pulse quickened at the thought of what she might try to do to me.
But only a second later, she turned and sailed from the cliff’s edge and back into the sea, vanished from my view. I rubbed at my chest and wondered what in the hell to do next.
Chapter 13
Alice
I laughed when the moss miniature tossed a bun at the back of the Hatter’s head. Covering my belly with one hand and my mouth with the other, I gave in to a fit of laughter such as I’d never known.
Beside me, Hatter smiled, but he continued on with his story. And once again I found myself marveling at the world I imagined from the words he spoke.
Fish with buckteeth. And giant, man-eating frogs that could swallow a person whole and wind them up in an entirely new world of wonder. Skunks passed out and belly up, sleeping off a night of drunken revelry. It all seemed ridiculous and impossible, except that he spoke in a way that let me know he believed every word of it.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t an analogy of some sort, or even wishful thinking on his part. I couldn’t imagine a world like the one he fashioned, but it was fun to try.
My very favorite part of his story was the wonder of his home. The gardens where they’d had tea. And a little mouse had catered to their every whim. And the dawning realization that the female too had magic.
I shook my head. “I cannot believe this kind of wonder actually exists.”
We got all the way to the end of the story this time. And I watched with stupid tears shimmering in my eyes and a lump in my throat, feeling ridiculously jealous because a bit off moss and grass was told by a bit of ice and twigs just how treasured she was by him.
No sooner had those magical words been spoken than the figurines collapsed back into a heap of grass and snow at our feet. Closing his eyes, Hatter leaned back on his hands, looking far more exhausted today than he had yesterday.
I frowned, feeling more worried than I had a right to. But why did he always look so ill? I was beginning to suspect he’d been cursed somehow, but why, and how?
“It did. But not anymore,” he said slowly, as if each word was a struggle.
I shook my head. “Not anymore? Why’s that?”
Dark eyes looked wearily back at me. “Because when she left, she took the light with her.” His smile was sad, and his words spoken without cruelty, but I felt the sting of them anyway.
“Oh, that is sad.”
He gave a weak grin. “Not your fault. Not hers either. Life can be cruel, Alice. But”—he straightened his shoulders—“we had it better than most. We had many lifetimes together. I suppose to some that would make us lucky and not cursed.”
I thinned my lips, not really sure he was buying what he was selling, but it was obvious he wanted to move on from thinking such sad thoughts, so I agreed with a reluctant nod. “If you say so.”
His cheek rested wearily on his knees, and I didn’t think of anything other than wanting somehow to make him feel better. Using a bit of the magic inside me, I twirled my finger, causing a golden, spiraling glow to dance through the air.
When the light dissipated, a table and chairs stood before us, and heaped upon the wrought iron surface were platters of tea cakes, cupcakes, and vanilla-honey tea.
He sat still as a statue, staring at the tea things as though they were a snake intent on striking him.
Which made me feel suddenly foolish and silly. I twisted my lips, dragging my fingers through the jean crease at my knee. “I um, thought that maybe”—I waved my fingers—“you might be hungry and want to eat something with me.”
His nostrils flared, and a tight muscle in his jaw twitched. “You made tea and cakes.” He said it slowly, and though he sounded none too pleased about it, I couldn’t help but shiver to hear that deliciously deep English accent of his roll with the vowels.
Giving a wimpy chuckle, I swallowed once. “Um, well yes. You showed me that garden scene, and I was suddenly hungry for some. But maybe I shouldn’t have done this. It was stupid. I am stupid. I’ll go now. I’m sorry, so sor—”
I made to stand, but his arm shot out like a laser, and his hand clamped down on my elbow, holding me tight.
“No. Don’t go, Alice. And you aren’t silly.”
Feeling so unbelievably stupid and selfish, I gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I am silly. This was your thing with her. I shouldn’t have done this. I just didn’t think, and I—”
But he was standing now and holding out his hand to me, looking down at me with a closed expression that felt full of some unnamed emotion. Hatter looked like a man drowning, and it was so stupid that I should care about a stranger like this when I hadn’t cared for anyone else in my time since being here, but I hadn’t lied when I said his emotions at times seemed so real to me that I felt myself choking on the on the weight of them.
His grip was absolute as he led me around to the chair, and only then did he release me in order to pull it out so that I might sit.
Casting him one final, worried frown, I did sit. And looked at the stuff I’d conjured without even thinking of it.
Sticky buns in the shape of rabbits with little bowler hats upon their heads and canes in their furry little paws. Cookies in the shape of an odd-looking feline with sickle-shaped teeth and crystalized sugar eyes that almost seemed to glow. Little tea sandwiches that looked more like a deck of cards. And bottles full of blue glowing liquid with tiny little notes wrapped around the necks reading Drink me.
The teacups too were the most amazing things I’d ever seen. Paper thin and crafted of the finest bone china and painted with scenes I’d never before imagined. One of a swaddled child lying beneath a beam of purest moonlight. Another with a garden of flowers
who bore almost humanlike faces.
But the one I liked the most was the teapot itself. The picture painted upon it was of a shadowed man sitting on a throne with lightning cracking behind him and dozens of black birds down around his feet. The lightning in this one was actually moving and dancing like real lightning would. And there was rain driving down around the man’s shoulders. And a scrollwork of black calligraphy kept magically racing across the top and bottom of the pot, moving like a ticker tape.
But the words moved so fast it was impossible for me to see what it read; I’d catch a glimpse of a word here or there but nothing that made any sense.
“Dreary. Tapping. Darkness.”
I frowned, staring harder. I wasn’t sure why it was that I could craft these sorts of things, but I wasn’t all that concerned by it either. Hatter had magic too, so maybe it was a death thing. But I was exceedingly curious about those words. Something about them resonated deeply within me.
But why?
“What is this, Alice?” Hatter asked, forcing me to pull my gaze away from the hypnotic words.
“What?” I frowned, then shook my head, feeling a little like I was coming out of a fog. “The tea? I guess your story inspired me.”
He reached for the cup that bore the image of the child and lifted it high, staring at the painting with a cold, dead look.
And I was right back to feeling terrible about all this. I was seconds away from vanishing it all when I noticed his hand give a slight tremor. I frowned.
“Hatter? Are you—”
Blinking and looking at me almost wildly, he suddenly smiled so wide that I didn’t know what to do. The shock of seeing him do something other than frown was so disconcerting that all I could do was stare at him in silence.
He was beautiful.
My gods, he was breathtaking with the way the sun splayed behind him and the way his dark eyes danced with some secret mirth, and how his full lips twitched as though holding in a secret.
A devil in the guise of an angel... The words pierced my mind, bringing me up short. Because those words hadn’t been ones I’d just thought of—more like they’d always been there but’d once been trapped and now they’d broken free.
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