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“Yes. We all take names when we come to the human world, so now you’d know him as Cyrus.”
“Hades?” I ask, knowing that’s not it, but wanting to desperately keep of having to accept what she’s saying.
“No,” she says gently, and sits beside me on the bed, putting a hand on the covers behind me, as if she’s hoping to stop me from falling backward in a faint. “He goes by Hadrion now.”
My mouth goes dry.
She has to be kidding, but my gut is screaming at me that she isn’t. Some kind of inner knowing is opening up to this revelation as if it’s all very real and true.
That man, Cyrus? Disappeared right in front of me.
This has to be real.
I can’t be dreaming. But Hadrion, king of the Greek Underworld? I mean, I remember my mythology unit in History class, and the one I did in English Lit...
“But he’s so--“ I don’t know how to find the word for it. But then I frown.
“Why are you in here with a sword?” I ask, and she gives me a measuring look, like she’s testing me.
“You’ve just learned the most important secret in the city, and you’re wondering about why I’m armed? Not why you’ve been working for a Greek god?” She laughs and pats the scabbard at her side. “This was to keep you safe.”
“From Cerber—Cyrus?” I feel dazed, like a case of vertigo has taken over my whole life. And I thought it was weird to be rescued by Hadrion Mortaine, and work in his club...
“From anyone who would wish to take the key from you,” she says simply, spreading her hands wide, and gives me a look like I should know what she’s talking about
“Key?” My eyebrows furrow. “What key? Do I have it?” I glance around the room, stupidly, like I’m expecting to see the key somewhere in the room. After a moment she taps her chest, where her shirt opens to reveal her collarbones. I blink and look down, seeing the well-worn and familiar wreath design out of poured gold, its leaves rounded along the edges from all the times I’ve smoothed my fingers over them. “But this is... it’s a necklace,” I tell her, and she tilts her head to the side.
“Is it? What is it made of?”
“Gold,” I say, and then I pause. “It’s a Christmas wreath,” I say, although from the expression on her face I think I may have been dead wrong all this time. “Y’know, hot chocolate, and sleigh bells, fa-la-la-la-la...” I trail off to the dead silence of the room. “It’s not a Christmas wreath, is it?” My voice is flat, and she shakes her head slowly, walking toward me.
“May I?” She gestures to the spot on the bed beside me. I nod and she sinks, graceful and dangerous, all in one silken package, as she lifts the pendant off my chest. Her eyes fairly glow as she stares at it.
“Sheaves of wheat, carved into a circle. See, there?” She points at the top of it, nearly hidden in the soldering bead that holds the loop. “This was added later, by a mortal, I’m sure--“
“Wait, why are you saying mortal like as in, human, as in, you’re not one also--“
Her eyes meet mine, her fingers dropping the pendant against my chest, and she sits next to me, still as a statue, and I breathesoftly. Oh my god.
She’s a god too. Or a demon. Or a... something. Oh my god.
“Breathe, Katydid,” she says, the nickname pulling out an echo of my mother’s voice, the kindness in Shay’s tone calming me, but just enough for the true nature of my situation to sink in.
And then the panic wells up inside of me, an uncontrollable torrent. I spring from the bed and begin pacing the room, looking around the room for an exit that isn’t the door because—
“Is Elenora a vampire?!” I demand, spinning to look at Shay. Her hands are loose in her lap and she watches me with a detached, calm manner that is altogether not human. Of course not, she isn’t one. How many people that I’ve met in the last few days aren’t human? Am I the only goddamn real, breathing, warm-blooded person in this building?!
“I would tell you to calm down, but I’ve found in my experience,” she drags out that word like her experience is vast and she wants me to know that, “humans rarely respond well, or, indeed, calm down at all when told to. But I will tell you to breathe. You’re safe.”
“Am I?” My voice cracks and I clench my fists beside my hips, closing my eyes for a second and counting to three.
One... two... nope, still freaked out, okay? This is fine, everything is fine, this is normal—
I crack one eye open, and still she sits, somber and still. I open my other eye.
“Did he tell you how he brought me here?”
Shay presses her lips together.
