‘You are the daughter of Demeter then? The infamous Kore of the flowers?’
‘I never did like that name much,’ I say dryly and Hades smiles once more.
‘Yes, I heard all about that little encounter at your amphidromia.’
My whirring thoughts pause. I hesitate, not sure how to voice my question but realizing whichever answer comes will help my case.
‘You heard? You were not there?’ I ask.
‘Of course not,’ Hades says. ‘I was busy learning how to decapitate Titans.’
‘But the war was over. That’s why we were divvying up their domains.’
‘Sure,’ he says with heavy condescension, like I’m wrong but he doesn’t have the energy to correct me. ‘I must say Hermes could barely stop laughing when he told me – how tense and worried dear Zeus had become at the thought of his eight-year-old daughter upstaging him at the ceremony. How pleased he had been with himself to put her in her place.’
‘That’s Father.’ My smile tastes bitter but he seems bitter too – that’s it, then, that’s how I present this to him.
‘Quite. Well, I suppose in the extenuating circumstances of your situation I can forgive your insult.’
‘That’s gracious of you.’ He won’t kill me. At least not right now. I exhale with relief, however slight. This whole encounter was a roll of the dice: that angering this man would not be the end, that he would bring me here, that he would listen to me, that he would agree. ‘And, on that note, I have an opportunity for you.’
‘An opportunity?’ he repeats sceptically.
‘Yes.’
‘I am quite content in this world of mine. I want nothing more. What could you possibly offer?’
I laugh as derisively as I can. ‘Contentment? When was that ever enough for anyone?’
‘Do not presume to know me,’ he says, anger edging back into his words. Smoke clings to him, traces tendrils along his skin like a live beast. Whatever false sense of comfort his easehad given me vanishes. Foolish, really, not to be on edge around a god – and a mistake I won’t make again.
‘Hades, do you know where my mother is right now?’
‘Should I?’
‘On Olympus, at my father’s decree, arranging my marriage,’ I say, trying to tear the emotion out of the words. I’ve been injecting my sentences with fake feelings for years, so I think I do a passable job.
‘So congratulations are in order?’ Hades asks. His voice is dry and sarcastic but beneath it all I sense he is genuinely confused. I don’t think he has the slightest idea why I am here.
‘I don’t want to get married.’
Hades blinks. ‘I see.’
‘Do you? Let me be clear: I do not want to marryat all, certainly not to some man I have never met who will claim me as his own,’ I say.Come on, I think.Don’t let every story I’ve heard of you be false. By all accounts he is so different from the Olympians.
I can still remember when Mother’s stories stopped being about his worthlessness – she couldn’t believe Zeus had gifted Hell to a child who wouldn’t even pick up a sword – and started being about his haughtiness. ‘He thinks he’s better than us, refuses a position on the council, ignores our summons – for what? To hide in that miserable little realm of his? The insult of it, that the dead might be better company than the Olympians.’ I can feel now the echo of what I felt then: the first spark of hope I’d known in years. Because, yes, wouldn’t that be better? The Underworld better than the Olympians? I guess the idea stuck.
Slowly, Hades begins to nod. ‘I do understand but if you think I can talk sense into Zeus –’
‘Oh Fates no, that would be impossible,’ I say. ‘I know he is set. I know my mother will never defy him. And I know there is nowhere on Earth I can hide from her.’
‘Indeed.’
‘And Father has the sky so that rules out various other places.’
Hades nods once more.
He still doesn’t get it. By the Heavens, have I not made myself clear? I had hoped to make him think this was his idea, but perhaps not.
