Instead his features freeze and after a moment he swallows.
‘I thought I wasn’t supposed to see you before the ceremony,’ he says.
I scowl. ‘Why?’
‘It’s tradition.’
I shrug. ‘Not one I’ve heard of. Anyway, you always say that I don’t compliment you enough so you should probably write all this down. This is the most amazing dress, Hades. My friends could barely contain themselves. How are you so talented?’
Hades shrugs but his eyes shine – deep brown pools shimmering like water beneath the sun.
‘It’s rather easy when you have the right muse.’
‘Ahh, practising already, are we?’ I tease.
He blinks and a second later a lazy grin falls into place. ‘Are you suggesting I need practice?’
‘To get to my level? Definitely,’ I say but my grin falls as I spot what he’s working on. ‘Is that …’
I’m not sure how it evaded me so long. The flowers are pulling at me, all but screaming in my head to pay attention.
‘Your veil, yes,’ he says.
The anakalypteria, the lifting of the veil, is the most crucial part of the wedding ceremony.
Hades has filled every single gap in the lace of the veil with flowers, so that only flashes of fabric peek through. I will be covered head to toe in flowers, and I laugh when I see which ones: daisies, freesia and gardenia.Purity. The flowers I told Cyane I was going to collect before I leapt to the Underworld. What a delightful coincidence, and how gloriously defiant: a secret nod to the fact I chose to be here all along.
‘They’re from home,’ I say quietly, lifting a corner of the veilgently. The flowers hum with the feeling of Sicily, the meadows I have run through and the dirt I have dug.
‘Yes, well.’ Hades scratches the back of his neck, staring at something on the other side of the room. ‘I couldn’t bring your friends to you. So I got a message to them and they made you this.’
‘You … the nymphs made this?’ I’m staring at him like I’m seeing him for the first time as he stands awkwardly, doing anything but acknowledging the thought he put into this. My heart breaks for the fact I cannot pull him to me, cannot show him what this means to me.
He doesn’t love me that way and in moments like this I wish he’d stop acting like it.
I focus on my friends instead, the love they have stitched into this veil.
‘They took some convincing,’ Hades says. ‘I sent a message to Cyane. Obviously she thought I’d kidnapped you, so she wasn’t happy at first.’
‘How did you persuade her?’
Hades grins. ‘By being my regular charming self.’ At my sceptical eyebrow he laughs. ‘My dear, they may have got me wrong, but they know you quite well. I regaled them with a tale or two of how you stormed into my realm, covered it in flowers and demanded changes. They knew I wasn’t making it up by the end.’
I’m not sure my smile has ever been so wide. ‘I can’t believe this. Thank you so much.’
‘Yes, well, your wedding is supposed to be the happiest day of your life,’ he says. ‘If you can’t have the suitor you deserve, you can at least have the outfit.’
‘You’re fishing for more compliments and I won’t have it.You know I find your company quite tolerable,’ I joke and Hades feigns a wounded look.
‘There was one thing. Cyane demanded that, the moment you’re able, you visit.’
‘Perfect. That was my plan anyway.’
Hades nods. ‘I had better go get ready. The guests will already be crossing the Acheron.’
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I guess I’ll see you when I marry you.’
Hades beams. ‘Farewell, my future queen.’
