I fiddled with my necklace and studied Mrs. Minthe out of the corner of my eye. Her every feature should have been familiar to me, but too many conflicting images were vying for my attention. I saw the woman who babysat me since before I could walk. The lady who baked cakes for my birthday parties. She was Melissa’s mom, and that image didn’t resonate with the youthful nymph I’d imagined from hearing the stories.
Words were being exchanged between Hades and Minthe, but I couldn’t hear them. The words didn’t matter anyway. Their eyes spoke louder, telling stories of regret and angst. I shouldn’t be in here right now. Melissa gripped my hand, and I knew she understood.
“I’ll…uh, I’ll be back. Tomorrow. Can you…” I kept losing my train of thought, the right words slipping past me like water flowing through my fingers. “Aphrodite…”
“I will be fine.” Aphrodite beamed. “You should have told me she was a nymph,” she added, as if that made all the difference.
“Okay then, I’m going to show you to your room.” Melissa kept her voice low, steering Aphrodite away. She met my eyes and quirked an eyebrow.
I nodded. We would talk later.
I made my way to the porch, gulping the fresh air as if I’d been suffocating. The door closed behind me, and I closed my eyes. “Which is it, Mom? Are you here to gloat or give me a cover story?”
“I deserved that,” she said in a calm voice.
“Damn right, you did!” I snapped. She arched an eyebrow at my tone, but I was too angry to care. “You knew I was coming here with Hades, and you let me find out like this! Not to mention Minthe and Melissa. What do you think that did to them?”
“I spoke with Minthe before you arrived.” Mom smoothed her skirt and sat on the porch swing. “We both agreed that it was best to get this over with. Hades was bound to run into her at some point if Aphrodite is going to be staying here, and you deserved to know about his past before you get any further involved in this relationship.”
“You think he didn’t tell me about her? He told me everything; he always does. He used her as cautionary tale for why we shouldn’t be together. You didn’t win here, you—”
“I wasn’t aware we were fighting a battle.”
“We’re having a war, haven’t you noticed?” I laughed. “And you’ve been fighting dirty, withholding information just long enough to sharpen the blow.”
“Persephone.” She gave me an annoyed look. “You can’t believe I’ve been keeping things from you to hurt you.”
“What other reason could there be?” I held up my hands in frustration. “I’ve told you I want you to be honest with me. I don’t know how I can make it clearer to you. So yeah, I’m taking it personally. You’ve been against me and Hades from the start. It’s not about the age difference. It’s about power. As long as I’m in the dark, I’m easier to control, and he took that away from you.”
She gave me a level stare. “You’re upset right now, but when you calm down, we’re going to talk about this attitude of yours—”
“So I can be better behaved?” I pushed off the wooden porch rail and moved toward my mother, furious with her deception. Her back stiffened, but she didn’t move. “You know how this conversation would have gone a few months ago? You would have lectured me and ended by asking me to promise to have a better attitude. You took advantage of the fact that I couldn’t lie and used it to bind me to your standards. But the secret’s out. I’m not falling for it anymore, so you’re changing your tactics. And you don’t care who you hurt in the process.” I pointed at the door. “That was ruthless, Mom, even for you.”
She opened her mouth, but I cut her off before she could get a word in. “And I say that after finding out you let me believe my father was dead. After your refusal to be honest with me nearly got me killed last winter and actually did kill Melissa. After all of the half-truths and deceptions throughout the years.” I shook my head. “Letting me plan for swimming and scuba diving on the Georgia coast trip, knowing I wouldn’t be able to step one foot in the water. What is wrong with you?”
“Are you going to let me get a word in?”
“You’ve said enough.” I crossed my arms, hands clenched so tight I was surprised my nails didn’t draw blood. “If you love me at all, if you’re even capable of it, you won’t say another word. You’ll go inside and leave me the hell alone. I can’t take a single word my mother says to me at face value ever again, and you apparently lack the basic compassion necessary to understand how hard that is for me.”
I spun around, facing the driveway. The porch light spilled over my shoulders, casting a shadow into the grass and gravel. The door creaked open, and Hades stepped onto the porch. I watched their shadows in the grass, still and silent. My silhouette was caught between theirs, blending us all into a featureless lump. I imagined the look being exchanged between the gods behind me. Was he mad? Grateful? Indifferent? For once I couldn’t guess how he felt.
My mother retreated, leaving me with my shadows and Hades with his mysterious feelings. I breathed heavily, but didn’t allow myself to cry.
It felt like eons later when Hades spoke. “You’re angry.”
I touched my necklace. “Not at you.”
He fell into step beside me as we walked toward the car. “Are you okay?” I asked finally.
“I love that you would bother to ask that.” He had a sad smile on his face. “I’m fine. I feel better, actually. I’ve felt guilty about what happened to Minthe for a long time. It’s good to know she’s okay.”
“I guess it was nice of Mom to rescue her,” I conceded.
“Strategic. Undying gratitude is powerful stuff for a god.”
That explanation better fit my mood. We sat in the car for a minute. Dread filled the pit of my stomach, and I really didn’t want to ask, but I had to. “Do you still love her?”
Chapter VIII
He didn’t hesitate. “No.”
I let out a sigh of relief and started the car. We’d only driven a few miles when Hades told me to pull over.
“You shouldn’t drive when you’re so upset.” He motioned to my shaking hands. “But I figured you wanted to get out of there.”
He didn’t ask for my keys, so I gathered he was too upset to drive as well. When I turned into a dirt lot behind an abandoned diner, he asked, “Why don’t you tell me what’s really bothering you?”
“Beyond the weirdness of you hooking up with my best friend’s mom?” I laughed.
Hades winced. “I—”
I shook my head. “Way before my time, I know. This isn’t you. It’s me. I may need a day or two to get the idea of you two out of my head—” I shuddered. “Gods, Hades. She’s so old!”
“She was thirty!”
“Yeah. That’s old. I know it’s stupid, but I always pictured the people you were with as my age, physically anyway.”
Hades snorted. “No. You’re absolutely the youngest person I’ve ever…” He trailed off, as if he wasn’t certain what we’d done. What we were.
And wasn’t that the problem?
“There!” He pointed at me. “That! Right there. You only get that look when something’s bothering you.”
“What look?”
Hades narrowed his eyes and scrunched up his nose. I stared at him, horrified.
“I’m not getting it right.” He shrugged. “Just trust me. You have a look. So what’s wrong?”
I opened the door and stepped into the parking lot, dust rising with my footsteps as I made my way to the front of the car. His door creaked open. I leaned on the hood, staring at the burnt-out shell of the old diner. “I’m so mad at Mom that anything I say to you right now is going to sound angry. And I’m not angry with you. I’m not…I don’t know how I feel about…ugh.” I shuddered again, thinking of him and Minthe. “There’s just too much going on. I can’t sort out anything that’s going on in my head.”
The car dipped down when he sat beside me on the hood. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t want to do!” Hades pushed off the car. “I don’t want this to build up and become something bigger than it has to be. I’d rather clear the air, right here, right now. Get everything out in the open so I never have to think about her again.”
I blinked, unsure of how to respond to that. There was a whoosh as another car drove by. Hades waited until the sound faded before continuing. “I’ve spent so long feeling guilty about what happened to her. But she’s okay. Now I can put her behind me.” His hands fell down by his sides. “So please, tell me what’s bothering you.”
I closed my eyes. “This is going to sound so petty.”
“What?”
“You…and her…I mean you guys…” Gods, I didn’t want to say it. I kicked at the dust, forcing the words from the throat. “Did you…?”
“Does it matter?”
I gave him a look. “You’re the one who wanted to go down this road. I was willing to drop it.”
He grimaced. “You know the answer to that. I’ve always been upfront with you. I’m not going to spout some B.S. about how I’ve waited millennia for you. You weren’t on my radar. I never knew…” He paused. “I didn’t know I could feel like this about another person.”
“And not just her,” I whispered. “There were others. Hera?”
He didn’t respond.
“Laurel?”
“Laurel…Is she one of your mom’s priestesses as well?”
My eyes closed as I pictured Laurel, the tall, slender brunette that sometimes filled in at the shop. She looked a lot like Minthe. Is that what Hera looked like?
I toyed with my necklace. “Yeah. She is.”
His shoulders sagged. “Thank the gods,” he whispered. He looked up at me. “We could do this all night, Persephone.” I winced. “But does it matter? Yes. There have been other women, but that doesn’t matter to me because they aren’t you.”
“Why her? Why them?” My cheeks were so heated I thought they might burst into flame. “What’s so different about them that you’re not afraid to…You’re barely willing to hold my hand, but with her—”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Hades laughed then stopped when he saw my expression. “Persephone, there is no comparison.” He reached out and grabbed my hand. “You’re beautiful, you’re smart, and you’re so good. You see things in a way that—”
“Then why don’t you want to kiss me?” I stared down at the ground, hair falling in front of my face.
“It’s not a good idea.”
“But kissing them was?”
“Did you miss the part where they got turned into plants?” He tucked my hair behind my ears, and his fingers traced my jawline, guiding my face up to his. “I always want to kiss you.”
My breathing went shallow, and my pulse pounded in my throat. I stood on my tiptoes, lips brushing against his.
He stepped away from me. “That doesn’t mean I should.”
“You said you loved me.”
“I do, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.”
My jaw dropped.
“That came out wrong.” Hades said quickly. “Look, I’ve been around for a long time. I never bought into the whole love at first sight thing, but when I saw you, that changed. It didn’t matter that being with you was going to make my life ridiculously complicated. It didn’t matter that scum like Poseidon would see our age difference and do a double take, or that your mother was Demeter, of all people. I saw you, I wanted you, and nothing was going to stand in my way. I dragged you down there and bound you to me.”
“We’ve been over this. It was either take me to the Underworld or leave me for Boreas.”
“Probably, but I didn’t even try to think of another way.”
“Good! How many times do I have to tell you that I’m happy to be with you?”
“You don’t know that!” He threw up his hands in frustration. “We talk a lot about how marriage is meaningless to the gods, how it’s all political, but have you noticed how few of us are actually married? It might not be all about love, but being bound to someone, being a part of them, it changes you. It can mess with your perception, and I keep making it worse.” He grabbed my shoulders and spun me to face him. “I saved your life, so now you feel indebted to me. I told you the truth when your mother wouldn’t. So now you’re mad at her and you trust me. She doesn’t want you to be with me, and you want to get back at her—”
“You think I’m using you to rebel against my mom?” I stared at him, incredulous. “I could just get a tattoo.”
“I’m in your head every night—”
“Which keeps me alive!”
“Exactly! I’ll never know if you would have chosen me. Everything I do, every move I make manipulates your feelings about me. It’s not intentional, it just keeps happening. I don’t want to take advantage of you. That’s not me. I would never do that. But I think I have, and that’s—” His jaw tightened. “When I kiss you, I feel…guilty, and I don’t enjoy feeling like the kind of slime that gets tossed into Tartarus.”
“You think I don’t know how I feel about you?”
“I think you’re very young. This is your first serious relationship, and I’m not going to take advantage of you. I hated Zeus for what he did to Hera, but what I did to you is worse.”
I rolled my eyes. Hera had given Zeus all of her power. She hadn’t even left herself enough to stay alive. “Yeah, well sometimes I think you’re stupid. Do you really think that I’m so weak that I’d let anything you’ve done define me? I am not Hera.”
“She was not weak!” His eyes blazed with anger.
“Obviously, she was. Just not with you.”
Fury overwrote his features. He took a deep, controlled breath. “I think maybe you were right.”
I gave him a confused look.
“We shouldn’t have tried to talk about this tonight. We’ve been through a lot today. We’re tired.” He took another breath, unclenching his fists, forcing himself to relax. “I’m going to stay tonight, maybe a few days. However long it takes us to sort this out.”
Hades on the surface for a while? That would be fantastic. “But…what about the Underworld? Can Cassandra handle it by herself?”
“She’s not alone. Thanatos is back. Between the two of them—Persephone, what’s wrong?”
The world reeled around me. Thanatos was back in the Underworld, unsupervised. And I couldn’t even say anything. I was a thousand times worse than my mother for keeping Thanatos’ betrayal from Hades.
I took a deep breath to steady myself. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Hades’ eyebrows shot up in surprise.
I closed my eyes, holding back the tears. I didn’t want to do this. I thought of all the souls in the Underworld I’d come to count as friends. Who knew what Thanatos was capable of? Hades had to be there, to protect his realm, to protect his people. I had to convince him to go back but I couldn’t tell him why.
I’d have to think of another reason. I closed my eyes and dug deep. When it hit me I almost winced against the pain. If I said it, it meant I felt it was true, and I didn’t want this to be true. “I’ve viewed every kiss as a victory while you see it as a defeat, and that’s wrong for both of us. Don’t you get it, Hades? This, us, it shouldn’t feel like a battle.”
“Persephone…” He moved towards me, and I stepped away.
“Do you hear the way you’re talking about me? I’m not supposed to be your responsibility. I’m supposed to be your equal, and you barely see me as capable of intelligent thought.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“No, I get it. You’re older, you know more, you’re more powerful, and I
’ve needed you for that. So until I don’t…Until you can view me as more and trust my feelings…” I stammered trying desperately to find something that wasn’t a lie. My heart thudded in my chest. I clutched at my necklace like it was a lifeline. Thanatos was in the Underworld, and it was completely defenseless. Hades had to get down there. If he didn’t…
“I don’t think we can work.” I blurted it out before the thought had fully formed and immediately felt nauseated. I couldn’t have said it if it wasn’t true. Did I really not think we would work?
Hades stared at me, looking as confused as I felt. “So what are you saying?”
I closed my eyes. “I think you should go back to the Underworld and stay there. At least until all this stuff with Zeus is over. I don’t want to be in a relationship with someone who thinks they need to protect me from myself.”
“Persephone—”
“It’s insulting and condescending, and it’s not…” I struggled for words. “It’s not healthy. Best case scenario, I change your mind, which I shouldn’t have to do, but worst I start to believe you. I don’t want that. We need to take a break, as much as we can anyway.” I would still need him to channel my powers.
Hades studied me for a long moment then nodded his head. “All right.”
I forced myself to move my head in a way that could be taken for a nod and made myself a silent promise. I may not be able to tell Hades about Thanatos, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t stop Thanatos on my own.
Chapter IX
It was no use. I clutched Eurydice’s hand in mine, pouring all my energy into healing her, but I could tell it wasn’t enough.
I tried to swing by the hospital every morning since my return from the Underworld to try to heal Orpheus’ wife. After all, it was kind of my fault she was like this. I’d convinced Hades to allow Orpheus to bring her back from the Underworld.
It hadn’t gone well.
“Don’t overdo it.” Mom’s hand touched my back, and I stiffened. She made an offended sound but dropped her hand and moved it away from me.
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