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“Beside me,” he said and stroked her cheek. Then he let his hand fall. “Tell me about Sybil.”
“This morning, Sybil never showed for breakfast,” she explained. “I went in to work hoping she might be there and had just forgotten, but she wasn’t. Then when I arrived at my office, there was a box on my desk.” She paused and swallowed, her voice shaking slightly. “Sybil’s severed finger was inside.”
Hades’s blood ran cold. He thought of the nymphs Demeter had killed; had she gotten Sybil too? Was this her way of luring Persephone into a trap?
“You are certain it was Sybil’s?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it now?”
“It’s still in my office.”
“We’ll have to retrieve it,” Hades said. “Hecate can cast a tracing spell that will at least tell us where her finger was removed.”
“What do we do if she isn’t there?”
“I cannot say,” Hades said. “It depends on what we find when we trace her.”
The point was they needed a place to start.
“Come. We must hurry. We cannot spend much time outside the Underworld given how we left the Olympians.”
Hades had expected the retrieval of Sybil’s finger to be easy. The hard part would come when Hecate conducted the trace and her rescue, but as soon as they arrived at Persephone’s office, he realized he had guessed wrong.
Demeter was not responsible.
It was Theseus.
He should have known.
Demeter used her magic to hurt.
Theseus used weapons.
Gods-dammit.
Theseus sat across from Persephone’s desk, reclined on her couch as if he belonged there.
“You,” Persephone seethed.
Hades kept his hands planted firmly around her.
“Me,” Theseus said in an almost singsong voice. His arrogance permeated the air, an oily feeling that slid over Hades’s skin.
“Where is Sybil?” Persephone demanded.
“She’s right here,” Theseus said, holding up her severed finger.
“What do you want with her?”
“Your cooperation,” the demigod said, and then his eyes shifted to Hades. “I will need it after I collect my favor.”
Hades went cold, and he dug his hands into Persephone’s waist, holding her tighter. He had known this day would come eventually.
Theseus had captured Sisyphus, the mortal responsible for using a spindle to extend his own life. The Fates had been furious and Hades knew that if he did not contain the threat, they would retaliate. So when Theseus brought the mortal and the stolen relic to his doorstep, requested a favor in return, Hades had granted it.
“What favor?” Persephone asked.
