I swallow. ‘If I want to help the mortals then I need –’
Hecate winces. ‘You’re still thinking so small.’
‘Stop talking in riddles then. If you think I’m so much more than this then tell me. Tell me what it is you think I am.’
She cackles. ‘But that’s no fun. No fun at all.’
‘I don’t have time for fun. I’m a girl trying her best to survive in this world. This marriage is how.’
‘You shouldn’t be trying to survive this world; you should be trying to destroy it.’
‘That’s not quite something I can achieve in an afternoon,’ I say dryly, hoping indifference might cover my panic. I don’t need Hecate knowing that’s exactly what I’m trying to do: bring down the Olympians and the world they’ve shaped. If I can actually do this, then my afterlife will alter mortal morality so fundamentally that the world will never be thesame again – and nor will the gods. I don’t know what she’d do with that information. The only person I trust with any secret right now is Hades. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me.’
She hisses. ‘That boy is a distraction.’
‘Hades –’ I start.
‘Is incidental.’
‘He’s my husband.’
‘He’s an addition,’ she growls. ‘You love him? You’re lucky. But you hide your power behind his as though you could only be queen of this realm with his help, like the power running through your veins doesn’t mean you couldn’t just take it from him. Like it wasn’t always destined for you.’
Her words catch me off guard. ‘This realm? You think my power has something to do with this realm?’
‘Ask your husband if you care so much about him. He knows.’
She walks away and I stare at the wall.IsHades keeping secrets from me? Secrets about me and this realm? I haven’t done anything somebody else couldn’t do – a brush with divine energy to restore some simple mortal souls and a rift in the land that I managed to connect to the flowers my father gave me.
But … what if I didn’t?
What if she’s right? What if it’s something else?
Maybe Hecate says all this to throw me. She doesn’t like Hades – she’s made that clear. Or, rather, she thinks I don’t need him. Maybe she’s trying to distract me. Maybe it’s just another game. At any rate, I can’t afford to think about it in the middle of my wedding.
I am returning to the party when I hear voices rumbling down the hallway.
‘You think because I am here that you are forgiven?’ Father demands.
‘Of course not,’ Hades says, his voice placating in a way that reminds me too much of when he was begging me not to hate him.
‘You step the slightest millimetre out of line and you –’
‘I know you’re not threatening me in my own realm, Zeus,’ Hades says. ‘Not when you are a guest of my hospitality.’
‘If you think I fear Hestia and her forsaken xenia after all this then you –’
‘Father?’ I ask as I turn the corner. I flutter my eyelashes in confusion, widening my eyes ever so slightly in the hope it conveys something innocent. Hades visibly bites back a laugh. ‘Is everything okay?’
My father leans away from Hades, who he’d had pressed against the wall with snarls and fists.
‘Of course, Kore,’ he says.
‘Persephone, now,’ I rush before he can correct me. ‘I have been meaning to talk to you, to thank you for arranging such a fine match for me.’
Hades for his part has swapped terror for admiration, though I do not believe either emotion is real.
‘Well,’ Father says, adjusting his robes, which are skewed across his shoulders – they are not designed for manhandling gods. ‘It’s all any father would do for his daughter.’
