‘Yes, I do,’ he insists. ‘Come with me.’
He starts down a hall and I follow, wondering where he’s going – searching for a quiet place for us to talk? Does he haveso many secrets I’ll need to sit down for their reveal? And then I realize he’s not going to tell me, he’s going to show me.
‘The missing rooms,’ I say as it dawns on me.
He turns, half laughing with surprise. ‘I should have known you’d work it out. No one in the court has even noticed.’
‘Presumably no one in the court feared for their safety in these halls like I did.’
‘Well, I should hope not,’ he says, stopping beside a section of wall. At his touch, a rectangular outline appears, a handle twisting out that he grasps and turns.
I don’t know what I’m expecting but I chuckle when I see it’s yet another library.
‘Is this where you keep your more arousing tales? Shall I expect the next room to be filled with painted vases of randy satyrs?’ I joke before freezing. The only people I have heard that kind of talk from are the nymphs, who are all innuendo and not much else, and now here I go. And with a man too …
Thankfully Hades laughs and it soothes the tense lines of my shoulders.
‘It’s poetry, actually.’
I turn to him but he hurries on.
‘I told you I enjoy it.’
‘But this much?’
‘Yes,’ he says almost wistfully, like he wishes the word could be a simple answer.
The next room is enormous, containing not only several different kinds of spinning needles but delicate, stone-weighted looms for more detailed tapestry work. What’s more, they’re all in use.
‘The goddesses of the court?’
‘No,’ he says and his voice is strained, like it could break at any moment. ‘They’re all mine. Everything I’ll show you is mine.’
I wander to the nearest and see a work so detailed I find myself lost for words. It’s so beautiful it could have ended the Arachne-versus-Athena weaving debate in seconds. This is clearly superior. It almost sparkles and it’s not even finished.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, and it is but that seems like such an understatement.It’s real, would be a better compliment, but even then I’m not sure the real world glitters like this. I have no idea how he managed to weave moonlight into his threads, or the smell of pine trees, or the touch of cool lake water under my fingers, but I feel it all as I look at it.
When I face him, he’s scowling, watching me carefully like he thinks I’m fabricating my awe.
‘What?’ I ask.
He shakes his head and we move on to the next room. It’s narrow with a long table upon which lie various quilt squares in differing stages of completion.
‘I can’t believe you gave me such a rickety old loom,’ I quip but he doesn’t smile, just stares at me instead. ‘What?’
‘Is that really all you have to say?’
‘What do you want me to say?’ I ask. ‘I could shower your work in compliments if that would please your ego.’
‘Please don’t mock me, not with this.’
‘Hades,’ I say, confused. ‘I’m being sincere. I’ve never seen work like this.’
He frowns and looks around the room sceptically.
‘Well …’ he says, shaking his head. ‘Did you want to see the others?’
More doors appear right where my maps say they should be. The next room is enormous, with vaulted ceilings, huge blocks of stone and chisels waiting to be used. In another, the walls themselves are slick with paint: a mural so detailed I long to step through it and into the forest he’s created. Behind more doors I find easels, crafts, writing desks, glass shops, ceramics and clay, metal forges, woodwork and finally a room full of needles and thread. There’s no half-finished project in here, just rows and rows of neatly stacked spools collecting dust.
