‘I do not wish to forget,’ she says. ‘My memories aren’t the problem – it’s thatthey’rehere. The people who hurt me lived longer and hurt other people too and now they’re here, in the same field as me for the rest of eternity.’
I glance down at the asphodel, the horror of what she’s saying dawning on me. Here, forever, a single feeling of terror for the rest of eternity as your soul decays, constantly encountering the thing you fear.
But this would be so simple to fix. It would be easy in this large empty land to create another space to put the cruellest humans, to save the rest from them. Their souls are decaying anyway – you could create a gentle place for them to fade away without facilitating needless suffering.
Unless Hades doesn’t care to do it.
‘I have to go,’ I say, a coldness to my voice that I have never heard before.
‘No! Please don’t,’ she says. ‘This is the first time I’ve felt like myself in … I don’t even know how long.’
I pause. Of course. This isn’t about me and it’s not about Hades. Just yet. But, by the Fates, it will be.
Right now there is one thing only I can do.
I offer her my hand and she takes it. I close my eyes and think about my flowers. I imagine her rushing back to herself: her thoughts, her personality, all that she was. I think about them sticking, about her wandering free again.
It works. I have no idea how I know, I just know that it has. Like a flower taking root.
When I open my eyes I realize it worked better than I thought it would. She is full colour and solid once more, her black hair melting into the sky and her skin dappled by non-existent sunlight.
‘There,’ I say. ‘You’ll be fine now. I’ll be back soon and we can talk further.’ I think I’ve found my reason for being here, a purpose for my extra time. ‘First, I need to give a god another reason to be paranoid.’
For a moment, she looks confused. But then she glances warily in the direction of the other souls.
‘I’ll make this better,’ I promise, wincing as I do.
Too many stories start with gods making promises they can’t keep.
ISTUMBLE BACK TO THE PALACEin a daze, dragging my feet like all the pain the humans have to offer is weighing on me. When I finally crawl back across the threshold of Hades’ palace, I nearly collapse. I wonder whether those spirits were building strength by draining me of it.
Or maybe my exhaustion has more to do with the images that have been crowding in my head ever since. The feeling of hopelessness in my gut.
‘Where have you been?’ Hades asks. I glance up and see him standing in the doorway of the library, framed by the glow of the fire and his shroud of smoke. ‘Surely Styx didn’t keep you all this time.’
There’s something about his exhalation before he speaks that reminds me of Mother’s relief when I’d come home. I wonder what he feared I was doing, what invented slights he’s now going to blame me for.
‘I can’t do this right now,’ I say. I want to escape to my room to lie down until my head stops pounding.
He scowls. ‘Can’t do what?’
‘This,’ I repeat, waving my hand as I wince at the light coming from behind him. ‘Whatever this is. This conversation.’
‘Yes, well, conversation would require more words than you currently seem able to form,’ he says with a taunting smile, and all this patronizing superiority from a man who’s let such misery happen grates on me. ‘One of my subjects accused me of kidnapping you, Kore. I think the least you can do is discuss it with me.’ If I close my eyes I can still see all that blood. ‘I’d even go so far as to say you owe it to me.’
‘I don’t owe you a thing,’ I snarl. ‘And I’m not doing this song and dance where you’re an arsehole and I pretend I don’t care.’
I regret it immediately. What’s the point in biting back everything I ever want to say if I just give up the moment I have a headache?
Hades laughs and the sound freezes me.
I glance up at him warily. A laugh can mean too many things.
‘You reallycan’tdo this right now,’ he acknowledges and then he looks at me far too attentively.
I feel every muscle in my body tense because I’m not sure what pretence I should plaster on. I can’t focus. Even while I stand here, how many spirits are trapped and terrified in this realm? How many are in pain? How many are caught in a perpetual loop of sadness? How many humans walk the Earth, living the horrors they will one day repeat for all eternity?
‘What did Styx say to you?’ he asks.
