‘Drink!’ I sing.
‘Umm, well.’ Helios runs the cloth through his fingers. ‘I can’t be certain –’
‘Answer the question,’ Mother says. I’ve never seen her angry like this – her anger normally comes with clipped words and a cold edge, not this acid that sticks to the very air around her.
‘The earth opened beneath her. She fell through,’ he says, flinching.
‘And you thought you ought not mention this?’ Zeus booms with none of Mother’s ice-cold fury.
‘I thought myself mistaken, my lord,’ Helios says. ‘I did not hear of her missing.’
He’s lying, obviously, but they can’t prove it when they never publicized my disappearance.
‘Who took her? Gaia?’ Mother asks, a frown on her face.
‘The pit was, ah, deeper than Gaia’s reach,’ Helios mutters.
‘Hades?’ she breathes, shocked and disgusted at once.
‘I … I think so, my lady, but he is a … a king. I congratulate you on such a match –’
‘Silence,’ Mother snarls. ‘He isnothing.’
‘I can see where you get your charm,’ Hades says tonelessly.
‘How dare he …’ Lightning flashes around Zeus. The Heavens shake. ‘I will make him regret his very existence.’
‘And we have it!’ Hades proclaims. ‘Our first direct threat of the eve.’
The wine tastes less delicious when I’m downing it like this.
‘What do we do?’ Mother demands.
Zeus blinks. ‘We get her back.’
‘You can’t,’ Mother says, level-headed as always. ‘It’sHades. You can’t betray the rules of your peace –’
‘That’s right, you can’t!’ I cry, terribly close to poking my tongue out. By the rules of the Fates, any child snatched by Kronos has a right to rule. And Hades and Poseidon allowZeus to do so with a pact so fragile it could be shattered by – well, me.
‘Hades betrayed that peace when he snatched Kore,’ Zeus snaps.
‘Keep your voice down,’ Mother says. ‘We need to handle this quietly and sensibly or it will ruin her.’
‘Drown in the Tiber, Demeter,’ Hades says almost pleasantly.
I sigh. ‘She’s not wrong, is she?’
‘She should be more concerned for your well-being than your marriage prospects,’ he says. I don’t really know how to tell him that, in the world of the Olympian court, they’re one and the same.
‘Kore’s reputation won’t be what anyone is discussing when I’m through with Hades,’ Zeus growls.
Hades and I groan as we down another glass.
‘Is this bottle refilling itself?’
‘Of course. They’re all connected to the stores in the cellar.’
My eyes widen. ‘Well, if I didn’t want to marry you before …’
