“Okay then. Just checking.” I trotted after her.
Oizys led me me through winding hallways that got narrower and narrower, until the two of us stood squeezed together like sardines in a stone can in front of a simple wooden door.
“Use your light to open it,” she said. “We need to get into Hades’ cellar and liberate some nectar. The good stuff.”
She probably didn’t mean for me to blast the thing off its hinges, but I was not in a subtle frame of mind. The door blew back into the room, arcing through the air to take out an entire rack of glass jugs before it smacked against the back wall hard enough to make my teeth rattle.
We stood there staring at the carnage of broken glass and pale peachy liquid streaming onto the floor. Slowly and deliberately, Oizys looked from the mess, to me, to the mess.
“Whoops.” I stepped inside, and carefully picked my way to an intact rack. I scanned the jugs of nectar. Each one contained several of gallons of booze, sealed with a metal cap. A date, probably of bottling, was written across each jug on a neatly scripted label. “Moonshine of the gods,” I said.
Over my shoulder, Oizys squatted on her heels, examining some labels on the bottom row. She planted her feet firmly on the ground, grabbed a jug and slid it off the rack. “This ought to do the trick.” She stood up.
“A fine vintage is it?” I asked.
“Fine is a relative term.” Carefully, she uncapped it for me to take a whiff.
I leaned in, sniffed, and recoiled, wiping my eyes. “What is that? 400 proof?”
“At least. Drink any of this blend and you’ll go blind. But the Hekatonkheires love the stuff.” Oizys cradled the brew in her arms and led me out.
My sandals left sticky footprints as we walked away. “Where to now?” I asked.
“We need to put this away for safekeeping. Rule number one in the Underworld? Never keep incriminating evidence in your room.” Her hands full with the jug, Oizys elbowed me away from a corridor full of voices.
We waited, tense, as they came closer. Thanatos, the creepy death baby, was directing one of the Infernorators.
Oizys held herself stiffly. She glanced back, searching for a hiding place but it was all wide stone corridor, devoid of any convenient doors.
I held my breath, sliding behind Oizys as if she could shield me from discovery. But at the last second, the voices faded off again.
We waited a moment longer, totally still. Then I peeked around the corner. Thanatos and the minion must have gone into the hallway that branched off the one we needed.
We scurried around the corner, and stopped at a thick stone door with a brass handle. I pushed down on the latch, shouldered the door open, and stepped into the last rays of evening sun. It was still weird to see sunsets that pretty much consisted of black streaking the sky in bigger and bigger swatches until all the daytime color was gone. But I had to say, they kind of grew on me.
The air held the last vestiges of heat, with just a slight nip. Hopefully, we wouldn’t be out here too long, because the flimsy dress I wore did nothing for warmth.
Oizys led us into an overgrown garden. It was mostly thorny vines and weeds, all tangled together, with a narrow path in the middle. She crept to the far end, at which point she stepped off the path and through a gap in a scruffy hedge.
I followed, and found myself in a tiny clearing.
She set the jug down and arched her back, stretching. “Now we doctor it, so the giants have a nice long nap.”
I looked around. “You going to use some plant to make a sleeping potion?”
“Yes. The bulb of the poppy, plucked by moonlight as its petals close. Ground by the stone of the dragon and set into the waters of the Styx.” She unscrewed the cap.
“Really?”
“No.” She pulled a small bottle of of white powder from the pocket of her pants. “Sleeping pills. Pre-crushed.” She uncapped the bottle, and dumped the powder into the nectar.
I watched it dissolve. “You just carry that around, do you?”
She smiled, enigmatic. “I carry all kinds of interesting things around. Hope that you never find out what.”
This chick was worse than Hannah. That was worrisome.
At the thought of Hannah, my shoulders sagged. There was nothing more I wanted in that moment than to fling myself down on my bestie’s bed and talk about the inanities of our day. Make our stupid jokes and bitch about homework and be living the most staggeringly normal Sophie existence imaginable.
I ached with missing her. But I couldn’t deny that I was still upset. What was so massively infuriating was that, as long as I was stuck here, there was no way we could even try and resolve our issues.
More than ready to be done with this stupid enchantment now. I blew a lock of hair out of my face. Reliving the past was pointless, especially when there was so much on the line in my future. Trouble was, before I could solve any of those problems, I had to extricate myself from this one.
Oizys capped the nectar and brushed her hands on her pants. “We’re done. This is safe here until the ball.” She pushed past me. “I need to eat.”
Since the throne room was being decorated for the ball, dinner was waiting in the breakfast room. I was expecting Greek, Greek, and a side of Greek on the menu. Or some more vaguely identifiable roasted meats. But I guess Hades liked to mix things up, because it turned out that Tuesdays meant Chinese food.
Spicy green beans, chicken with cashews, ginger beef, green onion pancakes, chow mein—I’m not ashamed to say that I loaded up two plates. Feeding a body this size required serious amounts of food. And everyone was already judging me anyway.
Balancing one plate in each hand, I looked around for somewhere to sit. Oizys had gotten her food and was busy ignoring me. Even if there had been space beside her, I wouldn’t have taken it. Sadly, there were no empty tables either. This was a billion times worse than any high school cafeteria nightmare. Sitting next to the wrong being didn’t mean plain old verbal humiliation. They weren’t just going to glare at me, or suddenly spread way out to make sure I couldn’t slide in next to them.
These beings could kill me without taking their eyes from their plates. My only comfort was that, as far as I knew, Kai’s edict was still in place. No harm could come to Persephone.
Suddenly, keeping up appearances seemed a very good idea.
I scanned the room for my darling boyfriend, ignoring the pain in my wrists from holding the plates. Maybe two trips would have made more sense.
Bingo. Kai was sitting with Hades in a semi-private alcove. Hades wore a red satin bathrobe, straight out of the Hugh Hefner collection. That made sense given the nymphs he surrounded himself with.
Thinking of Hades that way, was kind of amusing. But what wasn’t as funny was how chatty Kai seemed to be with his father. They sat close together in a plush, burgundy, velvet banquette, talking insistently.
Time to find out what that was all about.
I made my way over to them and dumped my plates on the table. Hades barely spared me a glance. “When you decide to eat, you just go for it, don’t you?”
Kai most definitely looked at me. Especially after I slid my arm around his waist and slipped in close to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth.
“Appearances,” I whispered, seeing the curiosity on his face.
He scanned the room. “Taking your chance with the devil you know?”
I fluttered my lashes. “Something like that.” Then, I raised my voice so Hades could hear me. “Don’t let me interrupt your conversation.”
They both looked at me suspiciously.
I focused on my food. “Mmm. Peking duck,” I said, biting into a mini pancake filled with crispy skin and a liberal dose of Hoisin and green onion. Yum yum.
See the goddess eat and not care at all about what conspiracies you’re hatching.
They resumed their little chat. It wasn’t what I expected. The two of them were gossiping like old Italian widows, watching the village go by and giving their unique judgy comments on everyone who passed.
It was harsh. Funny, but whoa. Who would have guessed that the one thing the two of them had in common was utter derision toward pretty much everyone in the Underworld?
The more I listened, the more I realized this wasn’t just good old rumor-mongering. In systematically discussing (dissing?) each denizen of the Underworld, Kia and Hades were actually deciding who needed closer watch, or could be useful for something. I frowned.
“What’s wrong?”
I shifted in my seat to better face Kai. “I didn’t know you were so caught up in the daily dealings here.”
Both he and Hades looked at me like I was simple. “He’s heir to this realm,” Hades said. “Of course he takes an interest in things.”
Persephone must never have paid much attention to what exactly Kai did in the Underworld. And I’d assumed that he didn’t do anything, since Hades always held his ascension to power out of reach.
Their relationship was a lot more complicated than I’d imagined. Because, if what I was hearing was any indication, Kai was totally up-to-date on Underworld business. Or at least had been, before Persephone’s murder seventeen years ago. But more than just having current intel, Kai actively discussed people and events. And on some level, Hades listened.
Hades may have intended to keep Kyrillos dangling for eons. But before Persephone died, there was still some sort of relationship between them. In my current reality, where Kai had stolen Theo’s chain and personally gone after Hades seeking revenge, it was pretty clear there was nothing.
All because of Persephone?
Which left me especially astonished. She hadn’t troubled herself to learn what exactly her big love did in the Underworld. She’d existed in this narcissistic bubble. Which was fairly typical of all gods, but still. Given how long they’d been together, you’d have thought she’d take an interest. If only, because it was important to Kyrillos.
But she hadn’t. I don’t think she once asked him if he enjoyed the politics of it. What he saw for the Underworld and his role in shaping that future.
I set down my fork. I hadn’t asked either. I could blame that on the fact that we’d only been in a relationship, such as it was, for a couple of months. And that, during that time, there hadn’t been a lot of in-depth sharing going on. But, honestly, I wasn’t sure it would ever have occurred to me to ask Kai about ruling. Or what kind of ruler he’d be. Or, well, any of it.
Maybe that’s why I’d been so surprised when he told Felicia he still wanted the Underworld. I’d never bothered to find out one way or the other. I shifted uncomfortably, faced with the very real awareness that I was possibly as narcissistic and self-absorbed as all the rest of the gods.
“Don’t worry your pretty head.” Hades lifted his goblet and gulped back some wine.
Now what? “Excuse me?”
“About Kyrillos’ involvement. He still has plenty of time for you. Focus on what you do best. Being decorative.”
That wasn’t even thinly veiled insulting. The insult was right there. My face flushed. I wanted to snap at him. To tell him that Persephone wasn’t actually stupid. Just frustratingly pigeonholed. But that would have been way out of character—and I couldn’t afford to get him suspicious.
Kai gave me an odd look—like he was still trying to figure me out.
Since there was no way he would come to the correct conclusion—that this was all a giant, magic muck up—and since anything else would fuel his suspicions, I smoothed out my expression, killed all further personal insights, and went back to the last bites of food on my plates.
“Enjoying dinner?”
I gave Hades a vapid smile. “Your chef is a keeper.”
“He should be. He cooked for Emperor Wu himself.” Hades shrugged. “Before he tried to poison him. He’s a deft hand with poison.” He looked pointedly at me.
I choked on my duck. Coughed.
Kai pounded my back. My eyes teared up. “Water,” I croaked.
Kai pushed a goblet toward me.
I grabbed it and slugged down half the contents. “Nectar,” I sputtered.
“Yeah.” His play at innocence didn’t fool me for a second.
Nice try. He wasn’t going to get me liquored up and spilling secrets. Like Persephone’s upcoming betrayal. If I thought he’d believe me about Hekate and the spell, I would have shared that way earlier and saved myself a lot of trouble.
I dabbed my eyes with my napkin. “Great. Thanks.” I took a moment to compose myself. During which I tuned out my dining company entirely. I could feel the nectar flowing through my body, warming my blood. I was a bit light-headed but that was probably because Kai had casually draped his hand on the back of my neck and begun to knead. His fingertips made teasing circles against my skin.
Maybe the conversation wasn’t scintillating, but it was all good. My limbs were tingly and I felt warm and full and happy. And … tipsy, I realized.
“More nectar?” Kai asked, nudging the booze toward me.
Yeah, right. I’d drag you up the stairs and then roll over for you like a cat in heat.
Kai choked on his laughter.
I’d said that out loud. My face flamed. Time to die.