And low voices.
And that damn mocking smile of his.
Oh Fates, this is infuriating.
And yet, regardless of how loath I am to admit it, one thing is undeniable: I don’t want to lose him.
At breakfast three days later, Hades hands over a pile of dresses.
‘Try not to get paint on these. Mud I will accept as a hazard of your profession.’ He grins but then casts an anxious glance at the pile of fabrics. I’m unsure whether he’s scared I’ll mock them or that I’ll simply dislike them.
He needn’t have worried.
I take them to my room and try them on, one by one. The silk gown fits me like every movement is a caress against my skin. It’s burnt orange with white thread and I glance at the painting hanging above my bed. Asphodel is clearly a flower he likes an awful lot. Another is the pink of styx petals, with gathered material twisted into flowers round the waist. Others aren’t inspired by my flowers but feel like they were designed for me nonetheless – navy like the ink of the notes we take, a shifting red like the flames in the fireplace we sit beside, green and beaded like the leaves that float in the tea we share each evening.
They’re incredible and I tell him as much.
‘Mother buys me dresses the offspring of the Muses have created. They have nothing on this,’ I say.
I expect him to dismiss it, like I do with any compliment that comes my way, or to laugh it off with some grandiosestatement about his own excellence. But he ducks his head and says a quiet thank you, like he’s pocketing the compliment.
Once we’ve eaten and I’ve chosen a dress – the navy, something about the way it swirls reminds me of the darkness of his illusory smoke – we head to the lake edge for my daily check-up on my mother. Hades won’t let me go alone any more. Or, rather, he begs me not to, tells me to take Styx if I won’t take him. I don’t mind him coming, though.
And something’s different today.
I know it from the moment Mother appears in the waters. There is less desperation in her eyes and more of a determined gleam. I’ve never seen her like this before. She is in a dark room lit only by the torch in her hand and her eyes dance with the reflection of the flames.
‘No,’ I whisper.
Hades takes my hand and I think it might be the first time he has chosen to do that. He lifts it to brush his lips.
‘You will be fine, Persephone, whatever happens.’
I blink at the lake as a hooded figure appears. The hood lowers to reveal a face so wrinkled and creased it takes me a moment to find her ink-black eyes among the alabaster folds. Hecate, goddess of magic.No.She might actually know something and obviously Mother thinks so too.
‘I cannot find her,’ she says. ‘Wherever she is, she is cloaked.’
‘But you knowsomething, Hecate,’ Mother says. ‘Or you would not have taken my gift.’
‘I know many things,’ Hecate croons. She raises a wrinkled finger to gesture Mother closer.
‘Magic is a trade,’ Mother hisses. She is taller than Hecate but you can’t tell. ‘I gave you a sacrifice.’
I think of the nymphs she turned to sirens. What would she possibly give as a sacrifice? I have no doubt that, for my safe return, there is no line she would not cross.
Rivers of Hell, what have I done?
‘I can see her,’ Hecate says. ‘This is your trade.’
‘Where is she?’ Mother’s lips peel back to reveal teeth that gleam too white in the darkness. She is tired of asking.
‘She is in the mind of another,’ Hecate declares almost gleefully.
‘Explain.’
‘I am not your daughter, Demeter.’ Hecate grins like this whole interaction is the best thing to happen to her in years. I have no idea how old she is or where she came from. There are so many rumours about her parentage that there may as well be none. I know I’m not the only god to wonder if she’s older than the universe itself. ‘You cannot bark orders at me and expect me to comply.’
‘Can youpleaseexplain more?’ Mother forces the words through gritted teeth, her knuckles whitening round the torch she clutches.
