It was a very long game.
I passed the time seated on the edge of the field, making appropriate cheering noises while my mind churned over ways to make Kai and Theo remember me. More than once, I caught my fingers viciously ripping grass stalks from the ground.
I sifted through Persephone’s memories. But it wasn’t as if I could sit here and recite every single thing she had ever known or experienced. And there was nothing useful in what I could remember right now.
I watched Kai and Prometheus tussle, both fighting for control of the ball. Kai managed to get it with a fake out, but Prometheus stayed hot on his heels as Kai wove deftly around players and launched the ball into the net.
Cheers and whoops abounded.
I figured Kai would turn to me after that, but he was gazing off to the far end of the field, his poker face on. I followed his line of sight and saw Hades watching with disdain. A couple of nymphs clung to him. He said something that made them titter with laughter before walking off.
Kai went completely still for a split second. Then, with an easy grin to a teammate, he jogged off.
I doubt anyone else noticed his flash of pain.
Hades was an asshat.
I ached for Kai. I wanted to call him over all sweaty, so that I could fling my arms around him and kiss him and take away his hurt with some snarky comment about his dad. Yeah, and bug him when he got all smug about his prowess. Except Persephone would never do that.
That just made me feel bad for her. As far as I could tell, she basically acted as precious as everyone expected her to. But given how she’d snapped in the end, that goddess was carrying around a lot of suppressed anger and resentment. She was the original Goddess of Spring with an edge.
A title I wasn’t sure I wanted anymore.
The sound of a whistle brought my focus back to the game. Oizys had the ball, with Prometheus keeping close, trying to get her safely to the net. They worked seamlessly, passing back and forth at just the right moments, trash talking their opponents in tandem.
I was jealous. Bitterly, bitterly jealous. It burned in my chest and I had to swallow several times against the metallic taste of bile in my mouth. I wanted to run into the middle of the field and scream, “It’s me!” I couldn’t stomach watching them anymore.
The only bright spot was that the game ended shortly after. Pretty much everyone cleared out, until it was just me watching Kai and Prometheus play some one-on-one. More aggressive than friendly.
I drifted closer to them. My mind emptied of everything except the highly pleasing image of the two guys before me. Not that I’d ever admit this but, truthfully, I’d be hard pressed to say whether Kai or Prometheus was better looking.
A vague thought nudged its way into my brain. Some story about Prometheus and truth …
Processing … processing …
I grinned in triumph it came to mind. Aletheia, the Spirit of Truth. Prometheus had crafted her out of clay and brought her to life. If he could go to her now, could she reveal the truth about
me
? It was worth a try.
I steeled myself to go speak to Prometheus, one friendly acquaintance to another. “Can we talk?” I asked him.
Kai snatched his shirt up off the ground and slung it around his neck. My mouth went dry,
“Can it wait?” Prometheus asked.
I tore my gaze from Kai. “No. Now.”
Kai cupped my hip with his hand. “I’m going to get changed.”
I didn’t want him listening in on this. Plus his touch, with his shirt off like that, made me lose my train of thought. “Good idea,” I said and waved him off.
He blinked dumbly at me for a second, then he left.
Prometheus laughed. “That was code for ‘you were supposed to follow.’” He jogged off toward where his own shirt lay on the ground.
Whoops. I called toward Kai’s retreating back in a lame fix. “My heart won’t be complete until I’m with you.” Oh. My. God. It was like I was possessed and this gibberish was just spewing out of me. But it was just my instinctive recall of how Persephone and Kyrillos had interacted.
Kai turned around, jogging backward. “I will burn until I see you again.”
I gave him a weak smile and sashayed off, trying not to gag. What a difference seventeen years and a waaaay better girlfriend made.
I trotted after Prometheus. “Do you know who I am?”
“What?” He picked up his shirt and wriggled into it.
No wonder Festos kept trying to get that second date. I stared pointedly at the sky, and tried to stop objectifying my best friend.
“What’s wrong, Persephone?”
Well, that answered that question. “I thought maybe you were mad at me or something. Since you were pretty cool when you saw me with Oizys.”
He looked at me oddly but his eyes were kind. “Wouldn’t do to have people suddenly thinking we’re best friends or anything at this stage of the game.”
“Course not.” I guess I wasn’t able to keep the hurt off my face. I knew that Persephone and Prometheus weren’t friends like Theo and me. Sigh. With me stuck here, and in the face of that horrible deal Theo had struck with Felicia, yeah, I wanted more from Prometheus as compensation.
I wanted us.
“Not like you were supposed to sweep me up in your arms or anything,” I teased, wishing exactly that. Even if only for one of his millisecond hugs.
“Definitely not part of our deal,” he joked back.
Deal. Yeah. Right. That’s all this was to him. A business arrangement.
Prometheus patted me on the arm. “Feeling nervous?”
I forced myself to stop moping about our lack of a friendship, and focus on getting the truth spirit here so Theo would remember me. “It’s not that,” I said. “I need you to help me put one more piece into place.”
“Prometheus.”
I shivered at that low voice. Hovering in mid-air beside us, was Thanatos.
Death.
Appearances were slightly deceiving. Thanatos looked like a winged baby. But no one would be cooing over him unless they were a serious psychopath. He was too pale, too self-composed, and he gave off the creepiest vibe of any being I’d ever encountered.
I took a step back.
Thanatos spared me the briefest of glances before he spoke to Prometheus again. “My Lord has a task for you.”
“We—” I plucked up the courage to speak in Thanatos’ presence.
“Are done,” Prometheus finished in a hard voice, that would have anyone convinced of how little he wanted to be around me.
It’s just an act.
He followed Thanatos away without a single look back.
I sighed.
The sky streaked with black as the sun set. I yawned and figured it was time to go find my room. I didn’t relish the idea of making small talk with Hades, so crashing early seemed like a good plan. I didn’t even have an appetite. Which proved more than anything what a number this day had done on me.
I entered the palace through a passage which, although on the opposite end from the iron front doors, still led into the massive throne room. The walls in here were hewn from the same large blocks of green marble as the outside. The last time I’d been here, the room had been empty. Now tons of godly beings roamed around chatting, seeing, and being seen.
How high school.
The room was unbearably stuffy and my nose wrinkled at the smell of so many bodies pressed into the space. Not sweat so much as competing perfumes and colognes. Very cloying.
I avoided everyone, weaving my way past the large throne, raised up from the jet-black obsidian floor on a base. The throne was obsidian too, cut from a single block and standing thirty feet tall.
Hades sat upon it, his attention on a selection of wines in crystal goblets that some monkey-like satyr held out on a silver tray.
Much to my relief, he didn’t see me, and I managed to cross to the corridor beyond without any “Greetings and Salutations.” Given some of the sneers directed my way, I wasn’t Miss Popularity. Which suited me just fine.
I followed the wide, winding staircase in the hallway up to Persephone’s room on the third floor. I breathed deep, enjoying the fresh air outside of the throne room. No over-sprayed bodies here, just a slight undercurrent of something woodsy, slightly spicy, and a tad sour.
Cypress.
Any tree scent was reassuring to me. Especially these trees which grew so abundantly around Hope Park. They reminded me of home. Both happily and wistfully.
I stepped onto the third floor landing and glanced around. I was alone. I counted off three doors on the left, grasped the heavy brass latch on the fourth solid wooden door, and pushed.
It was exactly as I’d seen it in Persephone’s memories. A rush of nostalgia overwhelmed me. This had been my room for years and years. And the memories weren’t all bad. I squirmed, not wanting to go
there
right now.
The furnishings were simple. And colorful. The most color I’d seen in the Underworld. A moss green blanket—the exact shade of my light—covered a massive bed. Cranberry and deep blue throw pillows were piled high on top, and warmly lit by a bedside lamp. The walls were a creamy white, while the furniture was a rich cherry red. I sighed, the colors giving me nourishment and energy.
And the smell. As nice as the cypress wafting through the hallways was, this room smelled like spring. There was no other way to describe it. It was rich earth, fragile blooms, and sunshine. I wondered if that’s how I smelled to other people. How Persephone smelled. If so, it was definitely my favorite thing about her.
Just as I was idly wondering how I could bottle that scent and bring it back home, Kai’s arms came around me from behind and he nuzzled in the hollow on the left side of my neck. My happy spot. Okay, Persephone’s happy spot too. Yet another reason to keep this all platonic. Something I had to repeat silently several times, as I wriggled with tingly sensations along every nerve ending.
Kai shuffled us into the room and kicked the door shut behind him.
Gulp.
He turned me to face him. “What’s wrong, kardia mou?” he asked gently. “Worried about the plan?”
Enough with the “my heart” stuff. I kept waiting for him to crack up and not be able to say it with a straight face. But no. This was how these widdle sweetums talked to each other.
“All is well, matia mou.” The endearment, literally “my eyes” or “light of my eyes”, just tripped off my tongue. Because it was what Persephone had called Kyrillos.
Very
different from the names I tended to fling his way.
Kai looked pleased to hear the pet name.
I, however, had an irrational urge to blast something.
Either he didn’t notice or he simply attributed it to being nervous about the upcoming ritual. “I’ll take care of everything. We’ll be fine,” he assured me in that sweet voice.
I’ll be fine.
Persephone’s rage swelled up inside me.
Down, girl
, I cautioned. There’d be no betrayals on my watch. But maybe there could be some closure for the past. I stepped away from Kai. “First, I’m not going to break. So you have to stop treating me like I will.”
He tipped his head to one side and studied me. “Are you getting sulky again?” A slow grin spread over his face. “I can fix that.”
Now I was annoyed on Persephone’s behalf. Talk about small miracles. “Are you even listening to me?”
He nodded and made himself comfortable on my bed, lounging back, arms folded behind his head as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Always.”
The hem of his shirt rose, exposing a tanned strip of perfectly sculpted abs.
I absolutely did not gape.
He motioned for me to sit beside him.
I opted to look off slightly to the left of his nose, ignoring his blatant invitation. I was thankful he was fully clothed. “Second,” I said, “who said anything about you taking care of everything? We’re in this together.”
I had come close enough to the bed that Kai was able to hook a foot around my leg and yank me onto the mattress with him. Perfectly aligned with his body.
This was an extremely dangerous, super awesome place to be.
My brain went into high alert.
He chuckled, the sound vibrating against my skin. “Since when do you want to take care of anything?”
I stiffened and sat up. “You never give me the choice.”
Kai propped himself up on one elbow. “You’ve never once indicated you wanted one. Even for the simplest decisions, you never offer up your own opinion.” He sounded annoyed now. Much more what I was used to.
I would have refuted that, but I couldn’t think of a single time when Persephone actually
had
offered an opinion. I deflated. “Forget it.”
“Fine by me.” And with that, he kissed me.
What a kiss.
What a perfectly disappointing kiss.
I thought he was toying with me at first. I mean, our lips pressed together, there were all the right motions, and it was fine.