‘I am helping – these books were written by mortals. You talk, I’ll read.’
‘Why don’t you want to go near them?’ I ask. The entire time I’ve been here, he’s never once mentioned visiting them. Even with the souls decayed as they are, surely Hades’ curiosity as ruler of the land would take him there?
‘You know what their memories are like, bleeding out of them. They’re inescapable and so many are miserable.’
‘Exactly, which is why we’re doing this. You can’t just ignore their suffering.’
‘I’ve got enough suffering of my own, thank you,’ he says with a pointed glance in my direction. I refuse to rise to the taunt. At my judging glare, he continues, ‘I have no desire to add their memories to my own.’
‘You’re a king – I thought we covered this. What memories do you have of suffering?’
For a second, he hesitates. Then he sputters: ‘I was eaten!’
‘Oh, you can’t even remember it. You are not playing that card again.’
‘Playing that card? I was bloody eaten!’
‘You’re changing the subject. Come and talk to the humans with me.’
Hades throws his quill down and stands. ‘I’ll come with you but only because I haven’t seen Cerberus in a while. I’m not talking to the humans.’
‘Fine. Wait, who’s Cerberus?’
Cerberus, it turns out, is a three-headed dog the size of my cottage. Hades whistles loudly then grins as the beast bounds over the hill.
‘Cerberus. Really?’ I say. The word means hound of the Earth. ‘Was “Underworld Puppy” too on the nose?’
‘I thought it suited him,’ Hades says simply.
When the hound sees Hades (with all three heads), he comes charging over with such speed that he knocks Hades to the ground. I expect Hades to reprimand the animal but instead he beams and rubs one head.
‘Go talk to your humans then,’ he says from the ground. ‘I’m quite all right here.’
So I do. It’s like the sun hitting my skin, the first breath of clean air after being shut up inside. It brings me back to myself.
My concerns about fatigue turn out to be baseless. It’s easier to bring the mortals back this time because I know what I’m looking for. Whatever connection I’ve found to this land comes rushing back. I get through dozens of souls before the tiredness hits. I stop, cutting myself off before I can push it too far. I’ll come back every day that I can and heal as many as I can in my time left. Hades will be so excited when I tell him it worked.
Larissa returns to my side the moment I appear in the human realms and waves away my attempts to apologize for taking so long. I’d thought I could do more good in the library but now I’m not so sure. Staring at souls in full colour – nearly opaque once more, talking to one another, almostaliveagain – it’s difficult to believe I should be anywhere else. And they have so much to say! And it’s so easy. So much easier than the scrolls. I curse my fear of exhaustion because I could have beendoing this the whole time. I can imagine it now, every land I have always wanted to see, created in the Underworld from the stories the humans tell. I might not be able to see the world but I could bring the world to me.
In my final days of freedom, I could have everything I ever wanted.
‘YOU CAN’T LIVE DOWN HERE,’Hades says, and for a moment I think he means the Underworld – then I realize he means the cavern with the lake whose waters I am staring into.
Mother has known I am missing for five days now, and she’s not stopped searching for a moment of them.
He’s beside me, suddenly, and I start as his hand brushes mine.
‘You’re freezing,’ he scolds, pulling his himation off and draping the heavy fabric across my shoulders. He is left standing in his thin tunic.
It smells of him – bergamot tea and peppery soap – and I find myself pulling it closer, burying my chin into it and breathing in. I must have been colder than I realized.
‘How long have you been down here?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say honestly. It can’t have been long or I’d be sitting on the edge, as I have done every day after dragging myself back from talking to the mortals. Tired from healing too many of them and from hours spent in conversation, I sitand watch my mother and try to work out how close she is to finding me.
At the moment she is raving at my father, sometimes commanding him and other times begging him to do something to help find me.
‘She’s your daughter – don’t you care? She could be hurt!’
