‘Flowers never made my list.’
Hades is studying a document. He glances up at us and discards it – actually tosses it across the desk – and that must mean he’s expecting harrowing news. If it were anyone else they’d never hear the end of treating his scroll like that.
‘Well?’ I ask.
Hermes pulls a furled scroll from his bag, a wax seal pressed with an eagle at its centre.
‘Your presence is officially requested.’
I take the scroll with trembling fingers.
‘I cannot tell you the last time my presence was requested on Olympus.’ Hades stares at the seal, the golden eagle of Zeus.
‘You’re still not, my lord,’ Hermes says with just the right amount of scathing edge that he won’t be fired for it. ‘Zeus only wants to speak to the queen.’
Persephone,
Come to Olympus.
‘Not one to mince words, is he?’ I say. He didn’t even sign it. But he used my name. My actual name, not the one he gave me.
‘You don’t have to go alone,’ Hades says. The fact he says that – not ‘You don’t have to go’ – makes the dire reality hit hard. Zeus is the king of the gods. You don’t ignore him.
Horrible things happen to girls who say no to my father.
That remains as true now as ever. My grand plan to enact change is nothing. It’s a long-term ideation. It’s not providing protection, just punishment. Father will never enter the halls of my realm. The king of the gods will never have his judgement day.
‘What does he want?’ I ask Hermes.
He shakes his head. ‘I’m not sure. He demanded an audience with your mother and moments later was demanding your presence too.’
If this were a conference of the courts, Hades would be invited too.
‘There’s no way …’ I say, because surely not. Surely Mother can’t have reach of this sort. ‘She couldn’t have given him an ultimatum: me or the humans. He would have stripped her of her powers and sent her to Earth for her refusal to obey.’
‘Unless,’ Hades says, ‘he wants revenge on me for taking you and this is a convenient way to get it.’
‘What about the deaths of thousands is convenient?’
‘To the king of the gods? It’s barely a consideration.’
I stare at the letter. ‘I’m not leaving here. I’m not leaving you.’
Hades is staring at the sheet in my hands too, his eyes distant. ‘Yes, but it’s how we go about preventing that which concerns me.’
‘Hermes, tell my father we will be along shortly.’
The messenger looks as though he is about to argue but he nods and leaves. Then it’s just Hades and me.
‘I think I preferred it when I was technically missing,’ I say, approaching him.
‘No one is going to force you to do anything,’ Hades says.‘Don’t worry – the court of Hell is not ready to give up its queen just yet.’
I pause, catching a steeliness in his expression that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘I mean exactly that,’ Hades says. ‘He may try as hard as he wishes but he is not taking you from this realm if you don’t want to go.’
