‘You aren’t though. You were a condescending cock when I first got here and now you’re … well, still a cock sometimes. But you’re also respectful and you care about what I think and how I’m feeling and I just … I don’t understand it.’ There are tears in my eyes and I’m disgusted with myself. ‘Please.’ Now I’m even more disgusted with myself. My voice sounds so pitiful. ‘I can’t take any more of these games.’
He steps forward, almost like he’s coming to comfort me, and I have a sudden image of myself folded into his arms. It might be nice, to lean my head against his shoulder. To relax for once. Instead my glare makes his stumbling feet halt.
‘I’m not playing games, not any more,’ Hades says. ‘I’m sorry I ever was.’
‘Butwhy?’
‘Because I actually quite like having you around.’
‘Why? I’m just as horrible to you as you ever were to me.’ I snarl the words, like if I can bite them out then what he’s saying can’t land and seep into my skin. I don’t need more lies.
He laughs and it’s light and uncertain, just like always.
‘Yes, but your insults are witty – and I can’t fault you for them. I’d be on the defensive too in your position.’
‘I’m not –’ My words falter at the look he gives me.
‘You’re smart. You’re ridiculously determined. You’re kind – maybe not to me, but to the humans and the nymphs. How many other goddesses would deign to talk to the servants?Styx loves you and she’s a very good judge of character. And I think maybe we believe in the same things. You’re creating an afterlife that will shape human morality away from that of the gods. Why wouldn’t I want to help with that?’
‘I don’t understand.’ And I really, really don’t. I don’t recognize myself in any of those things he just said.
‘Why are you so certain you can change the world until the moment someone agrees with you?’ His voice is softer now and that’s almost the worst part. I can guard myself against harshness; this is more insidious somehow.
I swallow, my mouth dry. It’s a valid question, I suppose. Why do I do that – stop having faith in myself the moment someone else believes in me? Because I’m not used to having someone agree with me? Because the parts of me he apparently likes only appear the few times I’m not performing? Because I don’t know what he wants and that scares me?
I shake my head. I need flowers: they’re where I belong, that’s where my expertise is, they’re it. They’re all I have.
‘I’m going to go outside until I can think again,’ I say, grabbing handfuls of anything that looks like it can be planted and throwing them into the pomegranate bowl. ‘This conversation isn’t over.’
It’s not until my fingers are clawing into the soil that I feel like I can breathe again. I do not plant in rows but haphazardly. I am already straying from flowers – farming and cultivation are my mother’s territory, and there is a pleasure to the randomness rather than her neat rows and rotations.
So I close my eyes and I dig until I forget myself and all that matters is the life beneath my fingertips.
MY HANDS ARE RAW ANDbleeding. I’ve been planting for hours. My desperation to feel dirt under my nails kept me from picking up the tools it would have been sensible to use.
I stare at the palace before me, the icy metal and sharp blades. For a moment I try to be like it – file down my edges, turn myself cold. But, when I’ve been emotional, I’ve got answers. And I’m not sure I can handle another moment without this confrontation.
Before I can overthink it, I’m pushing through the door.
‘Hades?’ I ask Tempest and she nods.
‘I’ll go get him.’
There’s no point looking for him; he’s never anywhere I can find him. Not that I’ve looked for him all that much before.
A bowl of water appears in the middle of the hall.
‘Tempest!’ I call.
‘You need it,’ she yells back.
Looking down at my dirty, bloody hands, it’s hard to argue. I’m drying them on a towel when my stomach knots and Iknow I’m not alone. The king of the Underworld moves like a shadow and part of me feels him before I see him, like a cloud passing over the sun.
‘Hey,’ I say, my voice unnervingly gentle. Exhaustion, perhaps? Maybe I’ve had my defences raised for so long I didn’t even notice when they started to crack.
‘How are you feeling?’ He’s standing in the doorway of one of the many libraries. Seeing him, I relax ever so slightly. It hits me just how desperately I want to trust him. I don’t need more gods to be at war with. If Mother and Father know I’m missing, I need all the allies I can get. And he’s … I’ve seen the way he is with Styx, even the way he is with me sometimes.
I’ve been clinging to how horrible he was when I first got here because trusting him is terrifying. Now I have to trust him; without someone to lean on I’m going to fall.
