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If I wasn’t so relieved the thing was asleep, I would have been deeply offended by how little my power had done to it. I certainly didn’t think the task Hades had given me was easy anymore. Leo paused at the animal’s neck, waiting for me, then stooped low so he could give me a boost. While I wasn’t too amped up about the idea of climbing on the back of a three-headed dog, I also had no intention of sticking around long enough to come up with a different plan.
Once I was settled, I reached down and helped Leo. His weight and decided lack of vigor threatened to pull me back to the ground, but after a minor struggle and probably some new internal bleeding, we were both up on the dog’s back.
Getting to the door was easy. So easy I thought for sure we would open it and find ourselves right back at the beginning, or Cerberus would awaken and devour us before we could pass through, like one last cruel joke from Manea.
Yet the door opened without a lock, and we just needed to climb up a few feet to get through—a huge relief since I doubted either of us could have managed more.
Leo pushed me across the threshold first and clambered through after me, shutting the door firmly behind us.
It was only then we realized we’d locked ourselves in complete darkness with no idea where we were.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The darkness was so complete and in such stark contrast to the flaming sky of the underworld, I actually believed I’d lost Leo. He was right beside me, yet the cold shell of night encroaching on me made it feel as if I were inside a solitary oblivion.
It was like being trapped inside a dream from which there was no waking.
“Leo?” My breath hitched up, edging on panic, and a white fog billowed out in front of my mouth. The sweat that had coated my body from the unbearable hea
t of Hades’s kingdom was now a layer of ice covering my skin, making me shiver uncontrollably.
“Are we out?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Decades of training at the temple under the careful tutelage of the best and brightest minds hadn’t taught me anything about this. I knew all the varied names of almost every god. I knew who had the most power and who not to cross. I knew where all the designate temples across America were located.
But this was a mystery to me.
Probably because this was a bleak nothingness, and nothing could have no name.
“Are we out?” a chipper voice mocked.
“Out where?”
“There’s no out. Turn back, turn back.”
Three childish voices, echoing inside my skull. The fucking Keres were back.
“I bet you bitches are here to tell me you told me so, now that I’m in the underworld.” Though I wasn’t sure this space had tangible form, I struggled to my feet all the same and found that I could stand.
Of course, since I couldn’t see anything else except the white condensation of my breath, I didn’t take another step for fear I might free fall off a cliff. They did seem to love their cliffs around here.
“Us?” one Keres asked. “Mock?”
“We would never.”
The voices fell silent, then a giggle vibrated the air around me. “Though if we did, we might say we warned you.”
“If the last test is listening to you guys for longer than five minutes, I’d rather go back through the door and let Cerberus use me as a chew toy.” My head throbbed and my lungs felt like two plastic bags full of fire, melting from the inside out.
“What door?”
“No door.”
“No going back. Not until you’re dead…again.”
“Super-duper looking forward to that.” I fumbled in the darkness, trying to find Leo. My toe nudged him first, then I groped around until I touched his shoulders and then his hair. “Can you stand up?”
