‘The sun has set,’ Zeus says.
‘Yes, I noticed as much,’ Mother says, temper burning like a smothered fire, just inches from the surface.
‘Helios will be back,’ Father continues.
‘Then what are we waiting for. Let’s talk to him.’
‘I want this over as much as you do, Demeter,’ he says, his voice so low it grumbles like thunder. I wouldn’t be surprised if some mortal island just experienced a very unexpected storm.
‘And I want my daughter back,’ Mother snarls.
Hades and I chink glasses. The wine is delicious.
‘Whoever took her has made fools of us both, as well as what this throne means – and the entire institution of marriage,’ Zeus says.
‘So Hera is growling down your throat,’ Mother snaps. ‘I want my daughter back, not a monologue.’
Lightning strikes terrifyingly close to my mother, so close that I gape at the fact she does not flinch, even if her hands bunch in the folds of her dress, the tendons in her arms tight.
I swallow round a lump that has appeared in my throat.He won’t hurt her. He wouldn’t.
‘When we are done with this I don’t want to see you on Olympus before the next Panathenaea,’ he growls.
‘I’m on the council. You can’t hold court without me,’ Mother protests.
‘Take a holiday,’ Zeus says. His unspoken threat lingers in the air.
Mother hesitates before nodding. ‘Can we please go and find out who took her?’
‘Yes.’ Zeus storms from the room and Mother hurries tocatch up. ‘When we find out who it is I’m going to drag them to Tartarus myself, and when I’m done no one will remember them for what they did, they’ll just remember their screams for mercy until their very name comes to mean horror itself.’
‘Zeus is becoming poetic in his old age,’ Hades comments dryly.
‘Do we count that as a threat for you?’ I ask.
‘He doesn’t know it’s me yet so I vote no, or we’ll be on the floor,’ he says. ‘Well, more on the floor than we already are.’
‘Just the one sip then.’ I’ve been drinking the whole time, so I set to work refilling our glasses as Father reaches his chariot.
Mother climbs in hurriedly.
They reach Helios in seconds. His chariot gleams so brightly that even my immortal eyes need a moment to adjust.
Apollo is sitting on its edge, tuning some stringed instrument or other.
‘What –’
‘Be gone,’ Zeus says to him.
Apollo nods and disappears with a strum of those strings.
I’m reluctant to admit it, but I’m impressed that he’s tied transport to his magic somehow. I wonder if I could do the same with flowers.
Helios had been cleaning the wheels of the chariot, but now he looks up nervously.
‘Your Majesty.’ He stumbles to his feet to bow. ‘I –’
‘Where is my daughter?’ Mother demands.
