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I wanted to start cheering at this, but Hadrian's forbidding expression made me think twice. "Isn't this a good thing?" I asked uneasily.
"If SR-41 proves safe and effective to use for humans and non-humans," he answered reluctantly, "then that means we have created something which could potentially make anyone invincible to Zeus's thunderbolts."
"So again...that's good, right?"
"It could destroy the natural balance of things," Hadrian said grimly, "especially when placed in the wrong hands."
Which a thief's hands certainly were, I realized.
"I take full responsibility for the theft, Hades." Mira's voice was tight, and the look on her face made it seem she was on the brink of committing seppuku at any moment. "But I also want you to know that all is not lost. We'll know if that vial is opened within the Underworld. Milady's blood has a distinct scent—-"
Oh, for the love of...would it kill her not to insult me at every turn? She had good as said I had bloody odor.
"I'll take a vial and have Cerberus take a sniff."
I had been imagining myself throttling Mira at that point, but Hadrian's words distracted me. "Cerberus as in..."
"My pet," Hadrian said easily, "and now he's yours as well."
I couldn't help feeling excited. "In Hercules, Cerberus was—-"
Hadrian was glaring at me.
Right.
I kept forgetting how touchy he was about the animation film-slash-TV-series. I honestly didn't understand why. I'd love to have Disney make up a film about my life, but oh well. I decided to take the diplomatic route, saying, "I just wanted to make sure we're talking about the same Cerberus."
"Depends," Hadrian murmured. "Our Cerberus is a warrior on its own, a legendary three-headed beast and thus undeserving of being disrespected with animated comparisons. So..." He raised a brow. "Are we talking about the same creature?"
It was all I could do to keep myself from smiling. "Yes, milord." A smart girl knows how to pick her battles, and this was one of those I'm better off losing, if it meant seeing Hadrian act so cute. "Anyway..." Deciding it was time to change the subject, I asked pointedly, "What was that you were saying about Cerberus and SR-41?"
"No creature can rival his ability to track by scent." Hadrian's voice was once again serious. "Once we give him a whiff of SR-41, and our thief opens that vial while in the Underworld, he's good as caught."
"If, on the other hand, our thief is planning to take it out of the Underworld..." Mira's lip curled once again, and I'm beginning to understand this was her go-to expression for everything. This time, it was meant to express her scorn, and...that was understandable.
A few years ago, a prisoner had been able to escape Tartarus, and Underworld's security had undergone a complete revamp since then. So this lockdown Hadrian ordered? Not even a baby ant had the slightest chance of leaving or sneaking in without the Lord of the Underworld knowing, and since that was the case...
"Do we really still have something to worry about?" Because from how this discussion was going, it seemed as if they already had all of their bases covered—-
"Smuggling," Hadrian said finally.
Did he just say—-
I studied his expression.
Not joking.
I stared at him blankly. "Smuggling is a thing here?"
"It's something we've turned a blind eye to over the years. We understand the occasional need of our people for some semblance of excitement in their lives."
Did Hadrian just make smuggling sound like some sort of adrenaline sport?
"It can get rather boring here."
And now he was saying the Underworld - the place that humans lived in terror of - was boring?
I guess I was just going to have to add those to my growing list of things to Google or whatever the magical counterpart of the search engine was here.
For now, we had a vial to search for, and when I tuned back to the conversation, it was to hear Hadrian telling Mira he would personally check every border of the realm, just to make sure it was both thunderbolt and escape-proof.
I need to be mature about this, I told myself, and so when we were alone in our bedroom, and Hadrian was telling me that he might be out the entire night—-
"It's fine," I assured him.
"You're sure?"
"Of course."
"Really sure?"
"Hadrian." I feigned a look of exasperation, and it proved to be the right move, with Hadrian's features instantly relaxing. But the moment he was gone, my stress levels shot up, and I found myself tossing and turning for hours.
I tried my hardest to sleep, but it was impossible. I briefly considered contacting any of my ghostly friends using a Ouija board, but then I thought about how that could lead to certain awkward questions...
Never mind.
I started counting basilisks in my mind.
One basilisk slithered under the fence.
Two basilisks slithered under the fence.
But just when I made it to 128, and my eyelids finally started to droop, that was when I felt it.
