Hades and I don’t make it out of bed until nearly lunchtime, and only then because my growling stomach seems to offend him on a personal level. Which is how I end up sitting at the kitchen island with three plates’ worth of food in front of me. I’m still picking through the fries when Hermes strolls into the room.
I raise my eyebrows. “Do you ever go home?”
“Home is such a fluid concept.” She nods at the brand-new phone sitting on the counter by my elbow. “So you do have a phone. Your poor sisters have resorted to using me as messenger because they can’t get ahold of you.”
I stare at it and then at her. “My sisters sent you here?”
“Apparently you were supposed to contact them a few days ago, and when you didn’t, they assumed the worst. Also, Psyche sent along a message.” She clears her throat and then my sister’s voice emerges from her lips. “I can only hold Callisto off for another day or two. Call as soon as you get this so we can calm her down. She and Mother have been fighting, and you know how that goes.” Hermes grins and steals a fry off my plate. “End message.”
“Um, thanks.” I’ve heard she can do that, but it’s still eerie as hell to witness it.
“It’s my job.” She snags another fry. “So, you and Hades are making the beast with two backs in real life, not just pretend. I’m not exactly surprised but also very, very surprised.”
I’m not about to start sharing secrets with the woman who’s primary job is to collect them. I raise my brows. “You and Dionysus seem awfully close for just friends. Is it true that he’s not particularly interested in sex?”
“Point taken.” She laughs. “Better call your sisters. I’d hate for Callisto to do something to piss off Zeus.”
The thought leaves me cold. Psyche knows well enough to play the game. Eurydice is all flavors of distracted by her boyfriend. Callisto? If Callisto and our mother go head-to-head, I’m not sure the city will survive it. If she goes after Zeus… “I’ll call them.”
“Good girl.” She pats me on the shoulder and walks out of the room, presumably off to torment some other unsuspecting soul. Despite that, I like her. Hermes might play at deeper games than I can begin to guess at, but she’s at least interesting. And I think she and Dionysus actually care about Hades. I’m not sure it’s enough to prevent them from siding with the other Thirteen if it comes to that, but that’s a worry for another day.
I take one last bite, grab the phone Hades gave me earlier, and head out of the kitchen and down the hall to the room I found during a cursory exploration of the first floor. I suppose it’s a living room, but it feels like a cozy little reading nook with two comfortable chairs, a giant fireplace, and several bookshelves filled with everything from nonfiction to fantasy.
I sink into the deep-purple chair and turn on the phone. It’s already got my sisters’ contact information in it and the video chat app installed. I take a deep breath and call Psyche.
She answers immediately. “Oh, thank the gods.” She leans back. “She’s here!”
Callisto and Eurydice appear behind her. Anyone looking at the four of us wouldn’t assume we’re siblings. Technically, we’re all half siblings. My mother went through four marriages before she achieved her goal to become one of the Thirteen and ceased needing men to further her ambitions. We all have our mother’s hazel eyes, but that’s where the similarities stop.
Eurydice looks ready to cry, her light-brown skin already blotchy. “You’re alive.”
“Yes, I’m alive.” Guilt threads through me. I was too worried about getting as close to Hades as possible to remember to contact my sisters. Selfish. So selfish of me. But then, what else do you call my plan to leave Olympus forever? I push the thought away.
Callisto leans forward and runs a critical eye over me. “You look…good.”
“I am good.” As tempting as it is to downplay the situation, being perfectly honest with them is the only way to go. “Hades and I made a deal. He’s going to keep me safe until I’m able to get out of Olympus.”
Callisto narrows her eyes. “At what cost?”
Here’s the crux of it. I hold her gaze. “If Zeus considers me less desirable because I’ve been sleeping with Hades, he won’t try to pursue me when I leave.” When my sisters just stare at me, I sigh. “And yes, I’m furious at Mother and furious at Zeus and I wanted to prove a point.”
Psyche frowns. “There’s a rumor circulating this morning that you and Hades were, well, having sex in front of half the lower city. I thought it was just people gossiping nonsense, but…”
“It’s true.” I can feel my face getting red. “Our plan won’t work if it’s just pretend. It has to be real.”
It’s Eurydice, my sweet and innocent sister, who speaks next, her voice low and furious. “We’re coming to get you right now. If he thinks he can force you—”
“No one is forcing me to do anything.” I hold up a hand. I have to get ahead of this. I should have known that trying to be vague would only incite every single one of their protective instincts. “I’ll tell you the full truth, but you have to stop reacting and listen.”
Psyche puts her hand on Eurydice’s shoulder. “Tell us and then we’ll decide how to react.”
That’s about as good an offer as I’m going to get. I sigh and then tell them everything. How I pushed the bargain. Hades’s constant mothering. How good the sex is.
I leave out Hades’s history with Zeus, the scars wrapping his body that no doubt came from the fire that killed his parents. The fire Zeus caused. I trust my sisters implicitly, but something in me rebels at sharing that story. It’s not exactly a secret, but it feels like one, like a piece of knowledge that Hades and I share, that bonds us together further.
And…
I hesitate, but in the end, who else can I talk to about this? “I feel like I can breathe here. I don’t have to pretend with Hades, don’t have to be perfect and bright all the time. I feel like… Like I’m finally starting to figure out who I am behind the mask.”
Eurydice has hearts in her eyes. “Only you could manage to run away and fall into bed with a sexy man determined to do anything to protect you. You’re truly gods-blessed, Persephone.”
“It didn’t feel like it when they announced the engagement.”
Eurydice’s happiness dims. “No, I suppose it didn’t.”
Psyche is looking at me like she’s never seen me before. “Are you sure it’s not all an elaborate trap? You’ve developed those defenses for a reason.”
I bite down on my instinctive denial and force myself to think about it. “No, it’s not an elaborate trap. He hates Zeus just as much as I do; he has no reason to think breaking me would hurt anyone but me. He’s not like that anyway. He’s not like the rest of the Thirteen at all.” That, I know for truth. I’ve survived moving through Olympus’s circle of power and influence this long by trusting my instincts and lying through my teeth. I don’t have to lie with Hades. More, my instincts mark him as safe.
“Are you sure? Because we all know you’ve had this fascination with the title Hades for—”
“Hades is not the problem.” I don’t want to tell them what I know about Mother, but they need to know. “Mother threatened to cut off the entire supply line to the lower city until Hades returns me.”
“We know.” Callisto drags her hand through her long dark hair. “She’s been ranting about it ever since you left, working herself up into a frenzy.”
“She’s worried,” Eurydice says.
Callisto snorts. “She’s angry. You defied her and left her with pie on her face in front of the rest of the Thirteen. She’s going out of her mind trying to save face.”
“And she’s worried.” Eurydice shoots our eldest sister a look. “She’s been cleaning.”
I sigh. Easy to paint my mother as the villain right alongside Zeus, but she does love us. She just doesn’t let that love get in the way of her ambitions. My mother can be stone-faced when issuing her orders like a general about to go into battle, but when she’s worried, she cleans. It’s her only tell.
Ultimately, it changes nothing. “She shouldn’t have sprung that on me.”
“No one is arguing that.” Psyche holds up her hands. “No one is arguing anything. We’re just worried. Thank you for checking in.”
“Stay safe. I miss you.”
“We miss you, too.” Psyche smiles. “Don’t worry about us. We have things under control here as much as possible.” She hangs up before I really register the statement.
Don’t worry about them.
I wasn’t worried about them, not really. Until now.
I call them back. It rings a long time before Psyche picks up. This time, Callisto and Eurydice are nowhere in evidence, and Psyche doesn’t look as chipper as she did a few minutes ago. I frown. “What’s going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
“We’re fine.”
“Yes, you keep saying that, but it sounds like you’re trying to reassure me and I am not reassured. Speak plainly. What’s going on?”
She looks over her shoulder, and the light in the room gets a little dimmer as if she shut the door or a window or something. “I think someone is following Eurydice. Actually, not just her. Callisto hasn’t said anything, but she’s even more on edge than the situation warrants. And I think I’ve seen the same lady the last three times I’ve left the penthouse.”
A chill cascades down my spine. “They know where I am. Why would they try to track you to me?”
Psyche presses her lips together and finally says, “I think they’re making sure none of us try to flee.”
“Why would Mother—” I stop short. “Not Mother. Zeus.”
“That’s my thought.” Psyche runs her fingers through her hair and twists, a nervous gesture she’s had since we were children. She’s scared.
I did this. Zeus wasn’t following any of us before I ran. I close my eyes, trying to play through possible scenarios, possible reasons for him to do this beyond safeguarding their presence in the upper city. I don’t like what I keep coming back to. “You don’t think she’ll sub one of you into the marriage instead of me, do you?” If that’s the case, I have to go back. I can’t be the reason one of my sisters ends up married to that monster, even if I have to take the hit to ensure it doesn’t happen.
“No.” She shakes her head and shakes it again harder. “Absolutely not. They painted themselves into a corner by announcing it publicly. They can’t force one of us to take your place without looking like fools, and that’s one thing Zeus and Mother will not do.”
That’s a relief, but not as much of a relief as I’d like it to be. “Then why?”
“I think he might try to trick you into coming back across the River Styx.” Psyche holds my gaze, as serious as I’ve ever seen her. “You can’t do it, Persephone. No matter what happens, you stay the course with Hades and get out of Olympus. We have things covered here.”
The chill bleeds through my entire body. What lengths will Zeus go to in order to get me back? I was so focused on how he might try to take me that I didn’t look at the other angles. Mother would never hurt her daughters, even if she moves us around like chess pieces. She might allow us to experience a certain level of danger, but she isn’t a complete monster. I have a feeling that if I actually went forward with the marriage, she had some sort of secondary plan in place to ensure I didn’t end up like the other Heras. It doesn’t matter, because she didn’t ask me.
But Zeus?
His reputation isn’t fabricated. Even if being a wife-killer is only rumor, the way he deals with enemies isn’t. He doesn’t maintain his ironclad grip on Olympus by being kind and considerate and shying away from making brutal calls. People obey him because they fear him. Because he’s given them reason to fear him.
Psyche must see the fear on my face, because she leans in and lowers her voice. “I mean it, Persephone. We are fine and have things covered over here. Don’t you dare come back for us.”
The guilt I’ve been very carefully not thinking about for days threatens to claw out my throat. I’ve been so focused on my plan, on my endgame, I didn’t really stop to consider that my sisters might be paying the price. “I’m the worst sister.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “Not even a little bit. You want out, and you should get out. All three of us could leave if we wanted to.”
That doesn’t make me feel better. It might actually make me feel worse. “Being in that penthouse, being around those people… It makes me feel like I’m drowning.”
“I know.” Her dark eyes are sympathetic. “You don’t have to justify yourself to me.”
“But my selfishness—”
“Stop it.” A harsh note creeps into my sister’s voice. “If you want to blame someone, blame Mother. Blame Zeus. Gods, blame the entire Thirteen if you want. We didn’t choose this life. We’re just trying to survive it. That looks different on all four of us. Do not apologize to me, and certainly don’t call yourself selfish.”
My throat is burning, but I refuse to indulge in self-pity enough to cry. I fight for a smile. “You’re pretty smart for a younger sister.”
“I have two brilliant older sisters to learn from.” She looks away. “I have to go. Call if you need anything, but don’t you dare change your plans for us.”
The fierceness in her voice ensures that I won’t. I force a nod. “I won’t. I promise.”
“Good. Be safe. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
Then she’s gone, leaving me staring into the empty fireplace and wondering if I’ve made a horrible mistake.
