‘He’s up to something.’ What does it matter if she’s trustworthy or not? If she’s not then she’s already told my parents I’m here, which is far worse than anything she could do with me voicing my concerns about Hades. ‘He’s being nice to me. He sent me fruit.’
She laughs. ‘Oh yes, quite the vessel for an ulterior motive.’
‘It’s not exactly in keeping with the king of Hell.’
‘You’ll find that not a lot of what he does is,’ she says. ‘But good luck. I’d help but I’d only slow you down. However, if you need assistance, I know a certain tall, dark and handsome god who knows his way around a library …’
‘Gods who try to trick me into eternal curses aren’t exactly my type.’
‘But you admit he’s handsome.’
I admit nothing of the sort but the blush that touches my cheeks says otherwise.
‘He doesn’t care about all this,’ I say, getting back to the matter at hand. ‘He’s said so himself.’
‘Hmm, well, come visit me later. You can’t spend all your time in here. You need a break. You need your flowers.’
She’s right. It takes me another few hours before I give up for the day, having come up with little more than the vaguest outline of what the afterlife might look like and a few suggestions of how I might create it. I stand, stretching as I do. My back aches from spending so long on the floor, but the desk wasn’t large enough for all the documents and it made me feel stifled, like I needed more room to think.
Right now I need air, proper air. I’ve been inside the whole day – I’m not sure I’ve ever spent so long away from the outside world. I need to feel petals under my fingertips and dirt beneath my toes.
As I start towards the front of the palace, I pull the paintbrush from my hair, my scalp aching. The strands fall in a knotted clump that I relish leaving be instead of running my fingers through to detangle it before Mother gets home. My hair is a mess, my dress is worse, I have creases and bags round my eyes, and my fingernails are gnawed and covered in ink. What a relief it is, to be hideous without consequence.
‘Kore,’ Hades calls as I reach the entrance hall, his voice bouncing off the marble so that I have no idea where it came from.
I groan, my eyes closing. Maybe if I can’t see him he’s not really here. I was so close to being out of the building.
I turn and there he is, striding quickly towards me.
‘I’d like to show you something,’ he says.
A hundred reactions race through my mind, from confusion to annoyance to an odd sort of touched. Settling on long-suffering exasperation, I nod and follow him like a parent whose toddler wishes to show off yet another drawing.
He leads me through a door I’d somehow missed, which reveals stairs that lead to a basement I’m certain doesn’t exist in the Olympian palace. It’s only when we’re halfway down that I realize I didn’t just miss the door – it is part of the unexplained room absences.
Do the nymphs have access to these places? And what else is Hades hiding?
‘As you noticed earlier, I’m pretty tired, Hades. This had better be worth it.’
Hades doesn’t reply.
The steps level out into a dimly lit cavern, smooth marble turning into rough rock. The majority of the space is taken up by a small lake, irregularly shaped, that reaches right up and under the wall opposite. The air feels too close; an acrid smell clings to it that sticks in my throat.
‘If you brought me down here to drown me, I’m going to kill you.’
He ignores me. ‘This lake is formed of all five rivers of the Underworld.’
‘So?’ I ask, but even as I stand here my longing to be outside fades, replaced by a desire to step closer to the lake’s edge. I step towards the water, my skin prickling in recognition of the magic of our godly powers, and the surface doesn’t ripple so much as blur.
‘I came here last night,’ Hades says and there’s something about the way he’s looking at me that has me unable to look away. ‘I owe you an apology.’
I scoff. ‘I don’t have time for whatever this is.’
‘Just give me one moment. Please.’
I’m so startled by the politeness that I nod without even thinking about it.
‘After our discussion I could not stop thinking about what you said – about how I did not understand. I came down here to prove you wrong but … well, you’re right. I don’t. I spend so much time by myself and, whether I like it or not, you’re here now. I have no desire to hurt you, which means I couldn’t get rid of you even if I wanted to.’
