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Dare startled, gripping my hand a little tighter as though I was going to just ditch him here.
“Why?”
“Oh. Well, because this is basically all I know?” I tilted my head to the side, thinking about it. “Yeah, that’s why. I’m sure the upperworld is nice, and I’m excited to meet the people there I’ve heard so much about, but it’s all brand new to me.”
“Shit, I’m sorry, Bullet. I wasn’t thinking.” Dare sounded genuinely upset, which was both distressing and reassuring. I didn’t want to make him sad, but I’d really thrown all my eggs in this guy’s basket, and it was comforting that he seemed to genuinely care about me and my feelings.
He’d been willing to sacrifice his mom’s soul to get me back to the upperworld. It didn’t get much more caring than that, right?
“You don’t have to worry, okay? I’m going to be there every step of the way. And once we get there, once Grace and Wild see you…” he trailed off with a light laugh. “They’re not going to let you out of their sight. You’re going to be so fucking happy, okay? We’re going to make sure of it.”
“Okay. I believe you.” Dare was quiet, and I glanced back at him over my shoulder, finding him frowning. “What?”
“Don’t be this trusting with anyone outside our group,” he grumbled.
“Got it,” I agreed with a nod. I’d already been questioning if I was too trusting after the encounter with the Olympians, so it was good to have some reassurance that I did, in fact, have no idea what I was doing.
Dare was silent and wary as we passed the Phlegethon and the pit to Tartarus, clutching my hand even tighter though I didn’t really have enough sensation in my phantom limbs to appreciate it. In the dregs of my mind—the remainders of memories I’d once had, I decided—I understood that the upperworld didn’t look like the underworld.
“Have you been here before?” I asked absently, watching the foothills of the mountain come into view and worrying exactly how we were going to cross them. They’d be physically challenging for someone with a proper body, and Dare was already kind of beaten up and struggling for breath.
“To the underworld?” Dare laughed. “Uh, no. Not before this trip. Though I guess it isn’t that weird of a question—you’ve been here before. With Grace, Wild, and Riot.”
I had?
“Did I meet Hades? Hecate?” I was getting a headache, and I didn’t even really have a head. The memories that I’d lost were just a big black hole that gave me nothing, no matter how much I poked and prodded and hoped for even ahintthat would help me understand.
“Yeah, man. You’ve met them before,” Dare said quietly, giving my hand a supportive squeeze. He was a good friend already.
“Boo.” Hecate dropped out of the sky like a stone, landing with a thud on the path and grinning at us. Dare startled so hard he almost dropped my hand, clinging on to me at the last minute. “Well, haven’t you been a busy boy, the Spirit of Dreams?”
I glanced up, seeing a black chariot pulled by black horses swooping around overhead as though they were waiting for her.
“I guess so. Do horses usually fly?”
“No,” Dare replied before Hecate could. “But I’m not sure that’s the most pressing concern we have right now.”
“Relax, Philotes.” Hecate let out a full-on cackle that only had Dare shrinking back further, yanking me along with him. “You didn’t wonder why it was me who came to see you on the Isles of the Blessed rather than the king or queen?” she asked, directing her attention to me.
“I honestly never thought about it.”
“Right, right,” she sighed. “Well, I am the goddess of ghosts and necromancy. You, in your halfling in-between state, fall under my purview. Lucky me. Anyway, since you are heroes, I have decided to help you. It is very good for my reputation, you see. They will recount tales of your heroic journey for the rest of time, and they will say, ‘and Hecate! She was there; she guided the two young heroes on their journey out of the underworld’.”
“I’m not a hero,” Dare replied cautiously. “I’m also not saying no to help getting out of here.”
“Well, that’s true enough. You’re notyet. Then again, Orpheus gets to live in the Elysian Fields, and he didn’t evensucceedin bringing his charge home from the underworld.” She frowned. “Though you’re not really doing the hard work, are you? The Spirit of Dreams is leadingyou.”
Dare huffed impatiently. “Just to be clear, I really don’t care about the whole hero thing. I just want to get out of here.”
Hecate pursed her lips, staring at him. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t be good for the Oneiroi’s hero story if he left you here, so you’ll have to come along.” She whistled sharply, and the horses above us dove toward the ground at an alarming rate, coming to a stop at the last minute, the chariot bouncing along the ground.
“Hop on then,” she said impatiently, gesturing at the chariot. “And hold onto that Philotes, for gods’ sake. You’ll be all a tizzy if you drop him, I can tell.”
Dare didn’t seem that jazzed about mounting the flying chariot, but he wasn’t about to let me go either. He grumbled under his breath as we climbed aboard, each using our free hand to grip the edge of the chariot. There was no back to it, no gate, and when it took off into the sky, I really thought that this was the end for real. That we were going to tip backward off the edge and fall into the Phlegethon, and that would be that.
“Fuck this,” Dare chanted quietly, his knuckles white where his hand held onto the lip of the chariot. “Fuck this, fuck this, fuck this.”
“Not far now,” I assured him, raising my voice so he could hear me over the rushing wind.
