by Molly Ringle
Adrian dropped a crust on the plate and pulled his hands away. “Right. He got the both of you completely soused, at which point you agreed, ‘Yeah! I’ll go halfway round the world at three thousand kilometers an hour on a bloody ghost horse, and eat some fruit in the land of the dead, which I wouldn’t do for my best mate Ade even though he’d have got me there a lot safer—’”
“Oh, stop it. I feel bad, all right? I’m sorry. Really, Ade.”
He lifted his gaze to the spring sunshine on the leaves outside the window. “I’m glad you’re strong and healed and around forever, Z. You know that. It’s only…I’d wanted to give that orange to Sophie.”
Zoe pulled in her breath in a hiss of contrition.
“Niko didn’t check with me,” Adrian added. “I mean, he kind of did, but not really. I would have said no, or at least asked you to save a slice.” He glanced at her in a flash of hope. “You didn’t happen to save any?”
She winced and shook her head. “We were rather hungry by then. It was a tasty orange. I mean, that and a few pomegranate seeds isn’t a proper dinner…”
He sighed, and looked down at his hands dangling over his knees. “Of course. So. Only been a few days. In that case, you’ve not got to the Hekate memories yet, I assume.”
Zoe shook her head. “Nowhere close. Nor has Tabitha.” In answer to his questioning glance, she confessed, “We text each other now and then. Kind of a lot actually. It’s a big experience to go through together, that type of thing.”
“Yes, I’m glad you all bonded,” he said dryly.
“But with me it’s different, the memories,” she said, apparently opting to ignore his condescension. “You’ve told me all about them, so I know the facts already, even if I haven’t seen them in my own head yet.”
“Getting to them yourself is very different from hearing about them.” Concern took the place of his selfish hurt, and he examined her. “What are you going to do now? Fake your normal life a while, till you get caught out?”
“I suppose. It’s safest, right?”
“I really, really don’t want Thanatos targeting you. Please don’t do anything stupid.”
“I shall do my best. I might even do something smart. Something magical to help our side.”
He considered it. “You were certainly good at that as Hekate. And in other lives, to a degree.”
“In the ones I can remember so far, I did always try my hand at witchcraft. It seemed actually to work a few times.” She scrunched up her nose. “And you weren’t always my parent. Sometimes only my friend, like this life.”
“Sometimes siblings.”
“Never lovers.”
He cringed. “Thank Goddess. How gross would that be?”
“Disgusting.” She laughed. “So I assume Sophie doesn’t know about me? Tab said she was going to keep it secret a bit. A surprise, and all.”
“Well, she knows about Tab now, so she’s probably finding out about you.” His phone rang at that moment. He looked at the screen. “And that’s her. Bugger, hope she doesn’t yell at me.” He answered with a wince. “Heya.”
“So I think I know what Niko meant by having another surprise for us.” But Sophie didn’t sound angry. She sounded more like she barely contain her excitement.
He smiled at Zoe. “Yeah, I think I know too.”
“You’re with her now?”
“I am.”
Sophie laughed in wonder. “You did not tell me we had a daughter.”
“We’ve got a bit to talk about, eh?”
Sophie’s conversation with Adrian was brief. She still had Tabitha there, and much to discuss with her. But after Tab returned to Seattle for the night on her ghost horse, Sophie phoned Adrian again.
He said he was camping out in the spirit realm in New Zealand, having just visited his father.
“How is he?” she asked.
“Doing well. Wants to meet you. He’s a bit over the moon about my finally having a girlfriend.”
Sophie lay back on her bed and smiled at her old posters. “That’s sweet. I want to meet him too.”
“You will sometime. And I suppose I’ll meet your parents tomorrow. Officially.”
“When you come pick me up? Only if you’re ready.”
“I ought to. I shouldn’t have been a wuss about it today. Though, to protect them, I’ll still have to lie about my name and other minor facts.” He sighed. “So how’s Tab?”
“Fine. I mean, she feels terrible about ‘stealing’ the orange from me, but it’s obvious she loves being immortal. She’s already got some plan for world domination. As far as I can tell it involves dropping out of school, becoming best buds with famous people, having parties every night, and sending hordes of fangirls to do her bidding.”
“Oh my. We’d best stay on her good side. But you did warn her?” He sounded anxious. “She mustn’t let it show, her being immortal, or they will work it out and target her.”
“Yeah, I warned her, and she swears she’ll be careful. But I can’t make her understand. She thinks it’s all fun. Or at least, ninety-nine percent fun.”
“That’s because she hasn’t spent enough time with the memories yet. Nor has Zoe. They haven’t even reached the ancient Greek stuff. Zoe knows the story, because I’ve told her, but I think it’s the same with her. She doesn’t quite grasp how much it all meant.”
Sophie wedged her lower lip between her teeth as she remembered that moment just after Persephone’s life: walking with Hades in the fields, both of them dead. As long as she’s all right, they said to each other. She. Hekate.
A cold rope of dread slithered around Sophie’s body. “Does…” she began, and swallowed. “I know we had to die. Obviously, if we were reborn. But how bad is it?” She cringed while awaiting his answer, afraid to search for it in her own memories. Perhaps he might say it wasn’t too bad as deaths go…
He took a breath in and out. “For immortals, it always has to end violently. I haven’t talked about it because I don’t like to remember it. It…won’t be fun for you. But it could’ve been worse. And like I said before, there’s still so much good stuff before it. Please don’t be scared of it. We’re here now, together, alive. All of us.”
Sophie let out her breath slowly. She spread her hand across the soft, worn comforter. “True.”
“And going chronologically, you have years and years before…that. They’re years full of important events. You’ll want to explore them.”
“Events like Hekate and Dionysos.”
“Right. To name a couple.”
She frowned and tried again to place Dionysos. “He wasn’t our son or anything, was he?”
Adrian chuckled. “No. He was—um, do you want spoilers?”
Sophie deliberated, sliding her fingers back and forth on a loose stitch of the comforter. “I guess not. I’ll let it be another fun surprise.” She added irony to the words. “In the meantime, I have a hell of a lot to do.”
“Finding new lodgings. Fun.”
She groaned rather than select words to express how not fun it would be. “Tell you one thing,” she said. “This time, no letting my roommates anywhere near my phone.”
Chapter Seven
Zoe hadn’t told Adrian everything. A person was allowed to keep some details to herself, after all. And he’d probably be happier not knowing, when he walked through the Underworld’s fields, that Zoe and Tabitha had lain together under that particular clump of white trees with long gray-black leaves, while Niko took a few hours’ sleep, sprawled upon his coat under the next tree over.
Adrian could live without picturing how Zoe and Tab had spread coats and scarves over themselves for warmth and privacy, and how, rather than merely sleep, they had started with a playful kiss, which had turned into more urgent kisses, which had turned into clothes being unzipped and unhooked and flesh being breathlessly fondled.
In the blur of lights and colors beginning to dawn in Zoe’s healing eyes, Tab’s golden hair and reddened
lips were the first things in this world, this life, she had seen. It felt right somehow, since it was also the first time Zoe had touched anyone, or been touched, that way.
Snuggling drowsily with Tab afterward, her vision still a developing but fascinating blur, Zoe said, “I’ve never done that before. Probably obvious.”
“Really? No, you did great.” Tab chuckled against Zoe’s neck. “I mean, as far as I can tell. I’m no expert myself.”
Zoe circled her finger around a chunky cuff bracelet on Tab’s wrist. “Had you? Done it before, with a girl. Or I suppose a boy.”
“No boys. A girl…” Tab hummed in recollection. “Yeah. Once. Really, you haven’t?”
“Never even kissed a girl till now,” Zoe said. “A couple of boys. Even Adrian once—before his Hades memories—just because we were both curious and didn’t have a lot of opportunities. But it didn’t do a thing for me.”
“Poor Adrian.”
Zoe grinned. “Nah, didn’t do a thing for him either. So who was your one girl? Not Sophie?”
“Nope, never Soph. I love her, but not like that. It was last year. Sophie and I went to a sci-fi-fantasy convention at a hotel, right? We were both dressed up. I was Merrin from ‘Nightshade.’ Naturally. Everyone’s favorite lesbian character.”
Zoe nodded. “Good choice.” She watched “Nightshade” too, a supernatural-themed TV show. Well, not “watched” technically, but listened to and followed.
“We met this other girl, really cute, dressed as Baylia. I started talking to her, and later that night we danced at one of the parties…and she invited me up to her hotel room.” Tab settled her head on the grass, her long hair still draped down Zoe’s shoulder. “I finally got why people say ‘One thing led to another.’ I kept thinking she wouldn’t go any further. Like she must only be doing this because we were in costume and playing. But somehow we didn’t stop.” Tabitha laughed softly, a rare sound of modesty, and stayed quiet a few seconds. “I never saw her again. Sent each other a couple ‘Hey, that was fun’ kind of texts, but that was it. So I guess I’ve had a one-night stand.”
Zoe laid her hand over Tab’s, which rested on Zoe’s chest. “Sounds fun. I should try attending conventions.”
Tab laughed again, sleepily.
Zoe added after a few minutes, “You could say you’ve had another now. Unless, I suppose…”
Tab hugged her from the side. “Hey, we’ll be seeing each other for, like, the rest of eternity,” she murmured.
Zoe accepted the answer and tried to get some rest, rather than pursue the question of whether Tab meant merely seeing each other or, you know, seeing each other.
Tab’s friendly texts since then hadn’t shed any light on the answer. Insecurity was starting to nag at Zoe, to be honest.
They did both have a heap of other tasks to sort out for the next few months, so she ought to be patient. But she wanted to know, to be reassured, to be validated. Or at least to be told, “Nah, that was it for now, bye,” if such was the verdict.
But she knew better than to pin down Tabitha for an explanation too soon. No surer way to turn a person off. So she kept her thumbs off her phone and her lips zipped, and forced herself to wait.
In the meantime she also did not need to burden Adrian with her little romantic drama.
After all, he was kind of her dad now. Talk about weird.
Betty Quentin stretched her stiff legs, straightening one and then the other in the confined space of the car’s front seat. “I’m too old for road trips,” she remarked to her grandson Landon, who was driving.
“We’ll stop soon for lunch,” he said.
“No hurry.” Outside the window, sagebrush blurred past beside the highway. The low, dry hills of eastern Oregon undulated out to the horizon, muted to a uniform brown by the gray clouds. Misty rain sprinkled the windows now and then, with occasional splatters of sleet.
“How long do you think we’ll stay over here?” Landon’s voice was steady, a bit on the high side, but he was keeping calm for someone who was willingly helping a fugitive escape and thereby breaking the law himself. He was a brave boy—a brave man, rather. He was twenty-six now.
“At least a couple of weeks. They’ll be searching for me in places connected with Sophie, and around people connected with her. Also places I’ve been known to go. So we’ll have to stay away from all those a while.”
Landon’s gaze remained on the highway, his long-lashed eyes hard to read behind his large glasses. He held his slender neck straight and stiff.
He was her only family—at least, the only one she counted as family. His mother, Betty’s daughter, had always been too soft and silly a creature. She and Betty had clashed from day one. Betty hadn’t been married for over thirty years now; she and her ex had divorced, right about the time she was rising in the ranks of Thanatos—all of which was kept secret from her husband, for his own safety. He’d died a few years after they split up. She had a brother she hadn’t talked to in at least fifteen years. None of her family understood her or took interest in her philosophies and studies. None except Landon. How it cheered Betty’s heart to see him take after his grandmother, even a little, and not after his mother. She almost hated to endanger him, though she appreciated his company.
“I’m not giving up,” Betty added. “But you can go home if you like. After you drop me off somewhere safe.”
He adjusted his grasp on the steering wheel. His old-fashioned gold wristwatch gleamed beside his shirt cuff. He shook his head. “I want to help.”
“You’ll be going into hiding too, then.”
“Nothing to go back to.”
His father dead, his mother nearly estranged from him, no job, no girlfriend—indeed, Betty suspected he was homosexual, but he had never admitted it—she saw his point. She thumped her hands on her thighs. “In that case, I have some ideas. And this time, I won’t make the mistake of being so soft, even on people who are supposedly innocent.” She cocked her head at him, though he still gazed forward. “Will that bother you? The possibility of collateral damage?”
Landon swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, but he kept the car traveling steadily down the highway. “Not if it’s for an important cause.”
“It is.” She nodded and faced forward too. “You understand.”
Chapter Eight
Immortal.” Demeter stared, round-eyed.
Persephone stood straight and proud in the garden outside Demeter’s house. She had switched to the spirit world and back before her mother’s eyes. She’d explained about the orange, shown her mother the vanished scars and the regrown tooth, and lifted the sheep’s stone water trough in one arm.
At Persephone’s request, Hades had stayed behind, leaving the two women alone for this conversation.
“I wanted to show you in person,” Persephone said. “You’re the first to know, besides Hades.”
“But how do you know it’ll last?” Her mother sounded anxious rather than joyous.
Persephone rolled her eyes. “You and him, you’re a lot alike, you know. It’s taken him all this time to start believing it too.”
“Your scars, your strength—it’s amazing.” Demeter drew closer and touched her daughter’s arm and the tip of her braid, as if even Persephone’s hair was different now—which it wasn’t, particularly. “I’ll dare to hope, I suppose, but you must give me time.” A smile surfaced on Demeter’s face, rejuvenating her features. “Having you healthy is wonderful, though.”
“I feel fantastic. You can’t imagine the difference. Being strong, not having to worry about hurting myself or falling ill, it makes a person so much freer.”
“Well, don’t be too confident.” Demeter picked up a clay jar and began walking toward the spring.
Persephone accompanied her. “You could forgive Hades. Since I’m one of you now.”
“He committed his crime when you weren’t one of us.”
“It wasn’t a crime! He didn’t kidnap me.”
�
�People are saying he did. The story’s more lurid every time I hear it. The earth opening up beneath you and Hades pulling the innocent maiden under to rape her in hell.”
“What nonsense. You know it isn’t true. Aren’t you setting them straight?”
“If I do,” Demeter said, “I sound exactly like Hera defending Zeus every time he seduces another mortal.”
“Hades is absolutely not Zeus.”
“Perhaps not, but in their eyes, immortal men are all the same.”
“You have to tell them it isn’t so!” Persephone stomped on the ground as they walked. Her foot left a deep crater of a print, which she paused to stare at in wonder. Recovering the direction of her thoughts, she added, “Please. For my sake.”
They reached the spring. Demeter lowered the jar and filled it. “Dear, I will try for your sake, but you must realize how ineffective it’s going to be. We can speak the clearest words, explaining exactly how immortals live and operate, and what the differences between our personalities are, and the people will nod and bow and say, ‘Yes, my lady, we understand now.’ Then the moment our backs are turned, they begin spinning their stories. And by the time I meet them again, they’re begging to hear about…” Demeter waved her hand impatiently in the air and came up with an example. “How a sea monster offended us by eating our favorite city in Egypt, so we killed it and threw it into the sky where it became a group of stars. Or some such insanity.”
Persephone laughed, despite her irritation. “Gracious. We Greeks do enjoy our poetry.”
“If word gets out that Hades has made you immortal, I can only imagine the stories they’ll tell next.” Demeter set the water jar against her hip, and gazed with a troubled expression at her daughter. “Oh, Persephone. I want to believe it will last. Yet I’m scared to hope.”
Persephone took the full jar and held its weight easily in one arm. “You may as well hope. Hope makes life ever so much better. But that isn’t our only concern. If the orange works for me, as it seems to have for the dog, then we have many questions to consider.”