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I glanced at the ARM, hoping they'd look just as confused, but nope. One look at their similarly grim expressions told me I was the only one whose vocabulary was lacking, and so...
"Can someone do an ELI5, please?"
Rhadamanthus frowned. "ELI5?"
"Explain like I'm five," Hadrian answered with an admirably straight face, and I couldn't help laughing.
"You go, babe," I told him with a wink.
"Thank you, babe," Hadrian answered solemnly without missing a beat.
"May I excuse myself, milord?" Rhadamanthus asked right away. "I have an urgent need to throw up."
Hadrian simply smiled while I took the higher road and ignored the R of ARM. "I don't get it," I told my husband. "I thought when I passed the Fates' test, I'd have successfully proven myself as Lady of the Underworld."
"You had, milady," Minos readily acknowledged. "Passing the test meant you've earned the right to rule by Lord Hades' side."
"And normally, it should've ended there," Aeacus said flatly. "But because Persephone appears very much invested in discrediting milady..."
"She's managed to found another loophole," I guessed gloomily. "Hasn't she?" I thought about the newest bit of Latin to stand in my way, and asked rather fearfully, "Please don't tell me the quo warranto thing means I'm about to get arrested?"
"It is nothing like that," Hadrian said assuringly. “A quo warranto primarily questions a person's qualifications to serve in a particular office. Or, in this case, Persephone's counsel is asking how long we are supposed to wait before you can exhibit or manifest the most essential requirement for an individual to be recognized as a deity."
I blinked and blinked, but I still didn't get it. "I'm sorry, but you've lost me at manifest."
"In other words, milady, what they're asking—-" Aeacus, ever the bluntest of the ARM, was the one who ended up explaining it like I was five. "—-is what exactly are you a goddess of?"
My brows furrowed. "Well, duh. I'm the Lady of the Underworld—-"
"Because you married Lord Hades," Minos emphasized. "What they are asking is your divine dominion, and it must be something that is yours alone."
"Take Lord Eros as an example, milady," Rhadamanthus suggested. "Even though he has yet to meet his mate, it's already been prophesied that his future wife and queen will be the Goddess of Soul."
"Doesn't Aretha Franklin already own that title?"
The ARM groaned, but when they also heard their lord and liege laugh, the three immortals turned to Hadrian with pained expressions on their divinely handsome faces.
"You could not have seriously thought that funny, milord." Minos looked ready to dial the God of Medicine's hotline in Silver Mist Hospital.
"Ignore them," I urged Hadrian. "It's because they've been crusty old bachelors for long, they've simply lost their sense of humor—-"
"Or maybe your joke truly isn't that funny, milady?" Rhadamanthus asked.
"Keep ignoring them," I told my husband again.
Hadrian's eyes gleamed. "As you wish, my love."
The ARM looked seriously ready to puke now, but because I was LOTUS, I decided to stay on the high road and walk my talk as well. My gaze solely focused on Hadrian, I asked eagerly, "What can I do to fix things?"
"Nothing."
My jaw dropped. "What do you mean nothing?"
"Simply that," Hadrian answered calmly.
"Seriously?"
"Where you're concerned, my love, I've learned to simply let nature take its course."
"But surely there must be something I can do," I insisted.
"Then..." Hadrian considered me gravely. "Could you promise me to stay out of trouble until our next court appearance?"
Hadrian's vassals had already started shaking their heads even before he finished speaking, but because I was still on the high road, I continued ignoring them and remained focused on my husband. "Can't you think of anything I can actively do—-"
"Staying out of trouble is something you can actively work on, love. A month of not getting yourself killed," Hadrian murmured. "Could you not promise me that?"
Before I could even open my mouth, Aeacus had already beaten me to speaking. "You're asking for the impossible, milord."
"A fortnight perhaps," Rhadamanthus said pensively. "I think milady could stay out of trouble that long."
Minos shook his head. "I'd give it a week at most. If milady could keep herself out of trouble until even just the weekend, I'd be mightily impressed."
But as it turned out, all of them were wrong.
I didn't even last a day.
Chapter Three
An urgent message from the Underworld reached Hadrian just as our synefia let us down in front of the Silver Mist Book Shop. Some god who went by the name of No Sauce of all things had apparently been caught stirring up mischief in the bowels of Hell, and Hadrian only had time to give me a swift, hard kiss on the lips before he and his vassals were off a-hunting.
Just watching him stride away made me start missing him already, and I had to square my shoulders and forcibly remind myself that being clingy would be a major turn off.
