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“So… about Dare.”
Hecate returned her full attention to me, eyebrows slightly raised. Okay, maybe I wasn’t interrupting-goddesses-level of important. Good to know for next time.
“Yes. Good friend of yours. Such a good friend, in fact, that he vowed in front of the gods to save you if you ended up in the underworld.” She gestured around. “Obviously, he hasn’t gotten that far yet.”
He’d vowed to save… me? He sounded like areallygood friend. Did I have a lot of friends like that in my life before? The more I learned about it, the more eager I was to get back there. Friends? Lovers? It sounded even better than the happy place with the baby.
“I don’t want him to come here and save me,” I said eventually. “Even though I want to go back to wherever it was I came from, this isn’t a safe place for the living, I know that much.”
“You’re right, it’s not,” Hecate agreed. “But anyway, none of that matters. He’s going to die soon.”
I reared back, gripping the arms of the seat. “What do you mean? How? Why?”
“Does it matter?” Hecate asked, disinterested. “The question is not how he dies, but if you can save him. Do you even want to?”
“Of course I want to. He vowed to save me, right?”
“That is correct.”
“Well, then, I’m vowing to save him.” I stood, shoving the heavy wooden chair back with a loud scrape of the stone. Maybe I was being rash, but it stronglyfeltlike the right thing to do.
“Your memories will never return, you know—not if you want to live. You could ask a deity to restore them, but emptying your head of the visions you’ve been bombarded with your entire life is the only thing keeping you somewhat alive.”
“What has that got to do with anything?”
“You don’tknowDare,” Hecate pointed out mildly. “Not anymore. His death doesn’t need to be your problem.”
“You said he was my friend.”
“Indeed.”
“And Grace’s soul bond.”
“Yes.”
“And she loves him too?”
Hecate looked surprised by my question. “Does that make a difference?”
“If I loved her, I’d do anything to spare her pain, wouldn’t I?” That sounded right, at least. I was already here, parted from her. If it had hurt her for me to leave, and I hoped it hadn’t, then the least I could do was prevent her suffering again.
“Well, alright. Don’t get huffy at me, I was just checking.” Hecate stood, smoothing down her toga thing before gesturing at me to follow her back into the palace. “Youmightdie forever if you do this. I should probably mention that.”
I stumbled slightly before righting myself. “But if I don’t, it’s certain death for him?”
“The Fates’ shears are poised over his mortal thread.”
I decided in that moment that I didn’t like gods and goddesses very much. I knew nothing about anything, but I was already confident I had more empathy in my pinkie finger than a deity had in their entire body.
“Then I’ll take the risk.”
Hecate led me back through the empty rooms and corridors, walking with enough confidence that I guessed she knew where she was going. We didn’t encounter anyone else on the way, and whatever this place was, it didn’t seem like the kind of spot anyone was meant to spend a lot of time in. Hecate hummed to herself as she guided me down the front steps, directly onto grass as soft as silk under my feet.
“We’re going to the coast. Come.”
She turned right, and I sighed internally at the expansive view of the scary mountains on the other side of the channel. Of course, that was where we were going.
“Where am I now?” I asked, jogging to keep up.
