The Eighth House: Hades & Persephone by Eris Adderly

III OBEDIENCE

Thunder rumbled beneath slate-bottomedclouds as Aphrodite mounted the steps to join Zeus on one of the absurdly grandiose balconies of his palace. The god snapped his wrist forward again and a finger of lightning ripped the air from sky to rain-dark soil.

“Hah!” Mighty hands went to his hips as he barked a laugh. “Look at him!”

“I’m afraid even to ask,” she said, tone conversational at her approach.

“Mm?” He turned to see who joined him, orange chiton rippling in a breeze of his own making. “Ah. Goddess. Not much that’s more entertaining than a startled mortal, eh? That last one almost fell off his horse.”

“You’re terrible.” She shook her head, suppressing a grin.

“And wondrous,” he said, surveying the landscape. “And powerful, and generous, and rude. Wise. Unfaithful. So many things besides ‘terrible’, if we’re being honest.”

“Oh, now stop, or I won’t have any names left to call you.” Aphrodite placed her hands on the white marble of the balustrade, enjoying the smell of damp and the subdued blue and green vista spread out to the south of Olympos.

Zeus squinted at something distant and let loose another bolt, grunting in dissatisfaction after a moment. Perhaps no one had been startled enough.

“I gave permission for him to court her, you know.” He turned to Aphrodite. “Not nab her from a field like an exotic pet.”

She waved a graceful wrist and made a noise of dismissal. “How else would he have had his chance with her? Her mother had her chaperoned at nearly every moment, and his powers are nothing more than a laugh in our realm.”

“My realm.”

“Your realm, my Lord.”

“Demeter will not be patient,” he said, flicking several electric streamers into the sea to the east in rapid succession. “She will dig, and she will discover. And then we’ll all have to hear about it.”

“Then let us hope, Basileus, that by such time, it shall be too late.”

Silver brows descended in doubt. “If he can convince her.”

“Have you no faith in lust?” The goddess’s face warmed as her smile spread. “Persephone has been denied any thought of romantic ‘company’ for ages, and now here she is, free to test the waters, as it were. And Lord Hades is, well … Hades. He will persuade.”

“Provided he wishes to do so.”

“Oh, he will wish,” she said, “I assure you.”

“Who will wish?”

Like a shadow upon the lighting of a lamp, Hermes had appeared on the balcony.

Aphrodite gave an undignified yelp. The base elements of her body all seemed to fly apart and snap back together in a startled instant.

Zeus chuckled, holding a hand over his midsection. “Immortals might be even more fun to watch jump in the air!”

“Sorry,” Hermes said, “just popped in. Who’s wishing what now?”

Her fingers rose to the emerald she wore around her neck, their touch gentle, renewing her focus. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “You came all the way up here?”

“Oh!” Hermes raced an excited and instantaneous path around the balcony, returning to his spot in an eyeblink. “Have you heard? Either of you? The Lord of the Dead has abducted Persephone!”

Zeus cut a glare at the goddess, and she returned it in kind, sure he shared her thoughts. The greatest gossip among them was aware now.

Hades had better use every trick at his immortal disposal, and fast.

“Have you heard?” she said, recovering at an impressive speed. “The Lord of Lightnings has given his brother permission to court. He’s down there wooing her right now.”

“Wooing her? Hades?” The Messenger’s eyebrows leapt. “After all I offered, you approved a marriage to that pale Lord of—”

“Your tongue,” said Zeus. “Control it.” Thunder rolled in ready irritation. “Or I’ll start to think you’re losing respect for rulers of realms.”

“Ugh!” Hermes rolled an exasperated eye and turned in a futile circle, throwing up his hands. “I’d just come upon the perfect argument to convince Demeter. Now she’s down there with that”—he flicked blue-grey eyes at Zeus—“Lord of the Dead, having the-Fates-know-what done to her.”

And isn’t he tempting when he’s frustrated?She let the emerald be, choosing instead to admire the way his nimble fingers raked back through pale gold hair. Aphrodite would ease out that little crease of displeasure between his brows, oh yes she would.

“It’s all a bit of a disaster for you, isn’t it?” she said.

Hermes blinked at her, thrown from his parade of misfortune. The goddess continued before he could sidestep her momentum.

“I know the very thing we must do in situations like these.”

“What’s that?” Zeus and Hermes both said at once.

“Drink.”

The Messenger’s features arced upward in interest and Aphrodite’s smile grew teeth. The Lord of Lightnings only shook his head, moving his attention back to the amusement of his storm.

“Drink?”

“Oh yes,” she said, slipping an arm through his to link them at the elbow. “I have wine. And my palace is only just there.”

“Who am I, Dionysos?”

Now there was a thought. The three of them one day?

Perhaps.

“Of course not,” she said. “You’re not nearly mad enough.” Her steps guided them away from Zeus and toward the ends she’d so carefully orchestrated. “Come. You can either drown your troubles or share them. Or both.”

“Have I told you about the last time I was in the Underworld?” Hermes said. “You’ll never believe it …” The god’s attention skipped to another subject as fast as his winged heels moved him across the skies.

Aphrodite tossed an unrepentant wink over her shoulder, to which Zeus merely rolled blue eyes and turned back to his entertainments. Her challenge now was to keep all the virulent rumors Hermes was sure to spread away from Demeter, at least for long enough.

She glanced at her recaptured lover and smiled. There were ways of keeping his tongue busy.

✧

The wall of basalt between Hades and Persephone aligned itself to his will, choosing to occupy the available space in a manner that allowed him entrance to the chamber.

She whirled to face the sound of tumbling stone. Cushions scattered in her wake, bouncing from the platform where she’d been sitting with her back to him. The wide-eyed look of surprise—however fleeting before she controlled it—had Hades envisioning such schemes to provoke its appearance again.

The doorway knit closed behind him and Persephone nodded, composure returned. “So, that’s how you come and go,” she said.

His arrival in the light had been intentional, just as the darkness had been at their first meeting. Every part of his domain, down to the very bones of the earth, was subject to his wishes. She would see it and take heed.

“Stones part for me, little flower,” he said.

The way she sat up straighter told him the unspoken question had been clear enough. “Trees grow at the touch of my fingers in the upper realm,” she said with a shrug. “We all have our gifts.”

Quick as shadow, this one. And impertinent.Hades all but wrung his hands. He did not, however, because his hands were full.

“So we do,” he said, extending an arm in mock formality. “Goddess.”

Her eyes went to the bundle of scarlet linen he offered, but she made no other move.

“What is this?”

He hefted the folded handful again, gesturing for her to take it. Irritation painted her features, but she relented, pinching the material between two fingers of each hand so its length fell over her lap. She held up a long chiton in bloody crimson, and Hades wore a ghost of a smile.

“I believe the journey to my realm was rather unkind to your other.” One of her hands let go the new chiton and fingered the pale grey fabric of her old, where it held itself together by naught more than good intentions over her shoulder.

“Do you have an array of garments set aside,” she said, “for all the immortal women who come tumbling into the Underworld?”

“No,” said Hades, “only for you.”

“Well,” she said, words coming clipped at his sobering response, “thank you.” She refolded his offering and lay it beside her. Hands returned to her lap and waiting green eyes held his.

And Fates, such eyes.

“You don’t wish to wear it now?”

Her lips made a thin line.

Ah. She doesn’t want to undress with you here.

And where was modesty when her mouth had been accepting his at their last encounter?

She hadn’t fought his kiss like a frightened mortal, nor did she shrink away when he pressed their bodies close. When Persephone had agreed to obey, there had been fear, but it was only a solitary note. The overwhelming chorus singing in her gaze, her pulse, her breath, was of something Hades hadn’t anticipated.

Want.

There was more to the goddess’s story than ‘sequestered maiden’. He wanted her secrets. He would have them.

Hades turned from her and, clasping one of his wrists in his other hand behind his back, took up an idle pace across the room. “Tell me, Persephone, when your mother decided to keep you from Olympos, were you grateful? Did you fear the intentions of the gods who pursued you?”

She made a noise of dismissal behind him. “ ‘Grateful’ would not be the word I would use, Lord Hades.”

So. He’d made an accurate guess at where to dig.

His steps brought him to the granite bench at the opposite end of the chamber. He faced her again and sat.

“And what word would you use, then?”

“I don’t know what word I would use,” she said, a sourness ripening in her tone, “but the choice in how I might deal with the Olympians should have been mine, not hers. And not yours, either.”

When he’d caught her at the end of her fall, a singular sort of blinding drive had risen to place its demands. At the new heat in her words, it began to simmer again. This was his realm. The Goddess of Growing things would soon find he’d be making many choices for her. The idea she might still resist made his skin prickle.

“Stand up,” he said.

Her lids closed. She let out a breath through her nose. Elegant wrists unfolded from her lap and Persephone stood. Compliance given to the letter, she waited with a blank stare.

Hades rested an elbow on his knee and cradled his chin on his thumb, curled fingers in front of his lips as he appraised her stance. The silence stretched. She began to fidget with the folds of her dress.

Test her.

He sat up straighter and bent three of his dark fingers toward himself in succession, beckoning. “Come.”

A blink, but no more. Persephone remained still.

“You agreed to obey,” he said. “Or have you forgotten?”

Her jaw tightened and he saw color come to her face. She had not forgotten. Hades gave a smile and shrugged, turning his palms up to show she’d left him no other choice.

Cracks spiderwebbed beneath her feet. She yelped and hopped forward as the earth fell away at her heels. Behind her now, a dark crevasse yawned from one end of the room to the other.

Persephone swore and clutched at her chiton, and Hades held back a chuckle. Did she think some horror would ascend from the pit and drag her down with it? When she risked a terrified glance back to the abyss, he knew she would not see the bottom.

The goddess turned back to him, eyes wide. He saw fear there, and anger, of course. But something richer. Far more valuable. Gold, immortal blood surged through his veins.

She wants you to save her.

He’d been the cause of her peril, but it didn’t matter. Those eyes begged for protection. How was she every sumptuous flavor at once? Ever more complex than the cringing mortal women he’d tasted, by the Fates, she would be his!

“Will you come to me?” he said. “Or will I have to make you come?”

Her chest rose at the shameless innuendo. With a look over her shoulder at the alternative, she picked her way over the carpets.

Then stopped a full pace from where he sat. He ground his teeth.

Flames of creation, she might match you for obstinance.

Hades let the remainder of the floor behind her disintegrate, sending rugs fluttering to the abyss.

No hesitation. Persephone leapt without thought and pressed urgent limbs against him; stood rigid on tiptoe between his knees. The black wool of his chlamys bunched in desperate fists—anything to prevent a fall.

As she caught her breath and realized where she stood, her eyes came down to his. He did nothing to hold back the smug grin when she relaxed her grip. There was nowhere left for her to stand but in extreme proximity.

“Now.” He traced nails down her arms, reveling in the first opportunity for touch. When Hades arrived at her palms, he laced their fingers together, dark and light. “What were we talking about? Ah yes, your lack of experience.”

His eyes painted a licentious trail to match his words, from her thighs wedged between his, to the curve of her hips and breasts, up around her slender neck. By the time he arrived at her eyes, only one word swelled in his mind.

Devour.

She was so … so …

Consume. Possess. Own her. You must!

Perhaps more than one word, then.

He inhaled. Exhaled.

Control yourself, immortal.

Hades moved backward on the bench, creating a vacancy on the granite between his legs.

“Since we’ll be here until I decide otherwise”—he tugged on her hands—“why don’t you have a seat?”

He saw something break in the way she held her shoulders. Something small, almost unnoticeable, but with it came resignation. Persephone extracted her fingers from his, turned, and sat. His thighs knew a delightful pressure from the body they now surrounded, but the goddess sat upright, arms folded once again. She would make him work, but he would enjoy it.

He leaned forward, hands on his knees, making contact between her back and his chest unavoidable. This close, her scent rose to him, woody and damp, and he fought to remain collected.

“I think I may disappoint,” she said, ignoring his attempts to fluster her. “The prize you hope to claim has long been given away.”

“Oh? And what prize is that?”

“A maiden goddess for your bride.”

“So your mother didn’t hide you away in time. A rumor proves false,” he said near her ear. “Interesting. It wasn’t Hermes, of course. Apollo then?” That pretty face and regal manner—Phoebus may have had enough to succeed where another hadn’t.

“No,” she said, and now he could hear the clever smile. “My mother has been as vigilant as any gossip you’ve heard, I’m sure. No immortal has managed to touch me.”

His brows rose to look for the rest. “And yet …”

“Demeter spent her efforts keeping me out of Olympos. She paid no attention to my travels among the cities of men.” The last word carried a note of triumph. She thought to deny him some thrill, did she? Dampen the heat of his conquest? She would find herself mistaken.

“So,” he said, sweeping her hair away from her neck, “you’re familiar, then, with the things a man will want of you?”

“Oh yes,” she said, ignoring his tactics for her own. “Athenai. Thebes. I know their streets. The sons of man have amused me for ages.”

“Have they.” Hades shifted closer. “I wonder how that compares,” he said, “to what a god will want from you?”

“I imagine if they’re anything alike, the amount of fuss my mother has made has been all out of proportion.”

He couldn’t help a chuckle at this.

You’ve never taken an immortal lover, either.

It was true. He had satisfied those urges he couldn’t meet on his own by ascending to the mortal plane to play out his lusts with the daughters of men. Disguised as a handsome mortal, he could convince and coax; make them giggle and squeal at his touch.

Or, during darker moods, he would show himself for who he was: Hades, Lord of the Dead. Their cries and pleas to the god they feared filled a hidden well in his soul. There were times he felt shame after such nefarious exploits.

There were times he did not.

It troubled him not to know which road he would travel today.

He turned his hands palm-up on his knees.

“Persephone,” he said, “will you allow me to touch you?”

“What?” Of all things, this broke her calm.

“Will you allow me”—he let his chest slide against her back—“to touch you?”

“Why bother with permission now?” Her heart thundered through her ribs and into his.

“You agreed to obey,” he replied. “I never said every single interaction would involve a command. Perhaps only when you need a nudge, yes?”

Why it was so important at this moment to persuade and not force, Hades couldn’t have said.

“May I?”

He felt her body expand in a controlled breath. A single nod was her only answer. Restraint took every effort he had.

His right hand rose to a wrist she had tucked into her folded arms. She allowed him to tug it loose and draw it away from her breast. He did the same for the left, and hooked thumbs under both her palms, turning them to face the ceiling. With the backs of her hands cupped in his, he returned them to rest on his thighs.

Her muscles were tense; no doubt prepared for crude handling to come, but he met her with none. Her upturned, open hands rested in his, and he left them there. A more significant lesson lay in his choice.

His arms and hands would remain open, as would hers. This had happened because she had allowed it.

“Goddess.”

She gave a start. Such was the point to which the moment had tightened.

“Before your mother’s edict,” he went on, “Apollo and Hermes sought your eye. Did you find their attentions flattering?”

“Of course”—he felt her swallow and try again, having to work hard to speak above a whisper—“of course I found it flattering. I’d never been courted and here were two of Olympos’s favored sons. They had songs, they went on and on about my beauty …” She shrugged against him.

“And had Demeter not intervened, you would have considered them?”

“Perhaps to enjoy a flirtation. Beyond that?” A small shake of her head. “They weren’t for me.”

“Why not?”

She sighed. Relaxed into him the slightest measure. “I suppose Hermes might have made an entertaining lover,” she said. “He was witty enough. And a tongue like that outside the bedchamber?” She let out a huff of rueful amusement.

Hades let his thumbs fold back over the sides of her hands. He began to trace circles in the center of each palm.

“You didn’t wish to sample his offerings? Not even once, to see for yourself?”

Even from the side, he could see she made a face. “Do we have time for me to recite a list of his lovers? No, the only thing constant about that one is his ability to lose interest. And for him I have none.”

So, she preferred an attention span. A mark in her favor.

“And Apollo? He was never so fickle, was he?”

“I see you leave no stone unturned,” she said. “No, he might have been faithful. Perhaps.”

“What was wrong with him then?” Hades made his caress into a momentary squeeze.

“Oh, nothing.”

His brows rose. “Nothing?”

“He was charming,” she said. “Generous. Handsome as the day is long. Everything a goddess could want.” Persephone began to lean into the curve of his chest now, somehow negating the frustration her answers brought him.

“You must know how thrilling it is,” he said, nuzzling the side of her face with his jaw, “for an immortal to have the goddess he’s attempting to seduce sitting on his lap, listing the better qualities of his rivals.”

Persephone stiffened, but didn’t pull away her hands. “First, he is not your rival. Second,” she said, words cutting the air, “this is not your lap, it’s a stone bench. And third, is that what this is? A seduction? I thought you were attempting to ‘court’ me.”

His grin widened at her fire to the point of showing teeth. “That you assume a distinction between those two things is evidence the Sons of Olympos have done you a disservice.” He took hold of her hands and flipped them face down on his thighs, covering her fingers in the pressure and heat of his. “If I still have your obedience, Persephone, I will show you what it is to be courted by a lord of a realm.”

She tugged to free herself and, for a moment, he held her in place, making his point. When he let go, she drew back her hands, but once he restored his to their former place at his knees, palms turned up, Persephone surprised him.

With no little trepidation, she laid her hands back in his.

Hades steeled himself against a reckless pace.

“So Apollo was a shining example of godhood, was he?” He took her right hand and lifted it to cover her breastbone, his fingers splaying to flatten hers against her own heartbeat. “And I’m to believe you don’t pine for him?”

“As I said, nothing was wrong with him.” She gestured with her free left hand. “He was so gallant and so blinding bright. I’m to take someone like that seriously?” The goddess gave a shake of her head. “I can’t put a name on it, but he felt … wrong. There was no friction. He was so smooth you would slide right off!”

Hades let go the hand at her chest, only to come up from under her arm and seize a new grip at her shoulder. She gasped as he hauled her close, his next question low and dangerous.

“And you would have liked it a bit more … rough, Persephone?” He laced their left hands together, squeezing to a point just the wrong side of friendly warmth.

“I … don’t know?”

Sweet Fates, could he be the one to show her?

“Tell me what your mother was so afraid of,” he said.

“That you would ruin me.”

Her head had fallen back onto his shoulder, the dark waves of her hair spilling over them both. She recited Demeter’s fear of Olympians in general, but somehow the words seemed tailored for none but the Lord of the Dead.

“Ruin?” he said. “Oh, no. Never that.” The wood fibula holding her chiton in place was just beneath his fingers. He tugged it loose and the linen fell away from her shoulder. “Challenge, absolutely.” Hades bent to press his lips against the silken skin there. “Has anyone ever tested your limits, Persephone?”

She shivered. “Limits?”

Did her imagination run in frantic circles, as he hoped?

“Those boundaries beyond which you refuse to cross.” His mouth moved to the column of her throat. “When we discover them, little flower, you will tell me to stop.”

Her pulse fluttered under his mouth, but her right hand had risen to rest over his at her shoulder. Hades let his teeth graze her neck, and when she hissed in response he wanted to abandon every careful plan he had.

Instead, he spanned her collarbones with his fingers and brought her back full against his chest.

“Can you feel that?” he said.

“Feel?” She sounded hazy and faraway. Was it her lust clouding perception? Or his?

“My heartbeat. Do you feel it?”

Two breaths later: “Yes.”

He let go her left hand to trace nails along her thigh. When he met the curve of a hip, he pulled her to him at the waist.

“And this?” His arousal pressed between them. “What do you feel?”

The goddess nearly choked on her breath. “Hades!”

“That’s right,” he said, grinding further against her backside. “That’s. Right.”

Could she know how his name on her lips affected him?

“A seduction works in both directions,” he said, “or weren’t you aware?”

A distracted hum was all the answer he received, but she rolled her head to lay her temple along his jaw. The flushed pink of parted lips bloomed close and tempting. All traces of tension had gone from her limbs. The Lord of the Dead sat with a Daughter of Olympos draped in his arms, and she made no moves to fend off his advances. Were he not able to feel her weight, breathe her scent, he might have written off the whole of it as nothing more than a fantasy with which to torture himself.

“I was told this was a courtship, Clymenus,” she said from behind closed eyelids. Her backside shifted against his groin. “Or is my obedience not sufficient?”

For the love of— Is she … is she goading me?

“Shall we find out?”

His hand rose to her nape. Fingers splayed up into her hair; made a fist near the scalp. She gasped at his pull but didn’t struggle, and green eyes searched the ceiling for reason as he branded the hollow beneath her jaw with lips and tongue and teeth.

The undone right side of her chiton beckoned. A dark hand slipped past linen to find a ripe swell of pale flesh. At the cup of an assaying palm came a plaintive sound and furrowed brow. At a thumb’s brush over a nipple: a whimper. An arch of her back. It would be nothing. He would only have to lift and carry her to the cushions, lay her back …

Damn your eyes, stay with your plan!

Yes, one thing at a time. And already such things, why be greedy? A breast was a lovely distraction, but not the goal.

Grey fabric hid his sliding palm as it moved past ribs and soft belly to the crease where her thigh and hip met as one. From there he traced a path to her pleasure and dipped a pair of fingers into the heat of his own weakness.

She was soaked, swollen. Thighs smearing his knuckles in it. The throb of his cock demanded he do heedless things.

“Hades.” It came on a ragged breath this time, the downfall of his whispered name. A plea, but not for him to stop.

Test her. Do it.

He let go her hair. Yes. It was time to measure her response to his … ‘other’ inclinations.

“What happened to ‘Lord’ Hades, hm?” He found her left wrist in a fierce grip. “Too many distractions?” Spring green eyes flew open and he hauled her arm behind her back, trapping it between them.

Again, she could have balked. Could have yanked her arm away in livid protest. It wouldn’t have been the first such reaction he’d seen.

But Persephone slid her right knee over the top of his, leaning back into his threats, defying their execution. Against his assumptions, his casual restraint had opened her further. He wouldn’t waste the gift.

The strokes he painted between her legs were an art begotten of devotion and greed. Unlikely bedmates to tease out her desperate sounds, to map out the unspoken wants.

He found her entrance slick with need and curled the tip of a finger to sate it. Her moan hummed under his mouth on her throat, and he made it two, knuckles twinning in a curve, to push her.

Dusky lids fluttered and she tilted her hips, parted her thighs. Eyes born pale of Olympos turned to lock with Underworld black as he worked at razing her wits, at stealing those soft, soft sounds. It was only the beginning.

Oh, what we will make together, you and I.

As though privy to his thoughts—impossible—she raised her mouth to his, demanding. Was it only their second kiss? Now, with his hand beneath her linens, fingers wet with her lust? The nudge of her jaw, her tongue insisted, urging him to roughness. Hades obliged, bruising, taxing with teeth.

To the edge and back. Now.

He withdrew buried fingers in favor of a more obvious treasure. When he grazed it between fingertips, her gasp tore their kiss as he’d done the earth at Nysa. Panting and closed eyes met his worrying of her little pearl.

“Please.”

The single word had him marble hard, and aching. From stubborn pride across the room to senseless and begging under his touch, it was more than he’d hoped for. More than he could tolerate.

“Please?” he said, toying as her brows drew together in frustrated effort.

You are cruel, Polydegmon.

True, but a small cruelty would prove its worth.

“Please, Lord.” The titles came back as she squirmed, entreating with her hips.

Hades withdrew his hand, straightening the linen over her lap. Upturned eyes searched his, lips parted in question.

“My Lord, what—”

“Tomorrow,” he said, drawing a nail under her chin.

Her features were as flushed with red as her breath was heavy with need. “Tomorrow?” she said. “You intend to leave me like this?”

He traced dark nails, glossed in her surrender, along the swell of her lower lip. “Leave you like what?” The fingers slid into her mouth. “Like you’re not the immortal in power?” He couldn’t hold back a predatory smile.

Persephone held his eyes and beaded the seam of his fingers with a slow lap of her tongue, a cynical lament for the pleasure he’d forsake by taking his leave. The spiteful move had him crackling with unspent glee.

She wishes to play against, it seems, and not just play along.

When had he given up searching for a partner like this? But Hades outpaced himself—a single interlude was but a season. They had years to explore before the story was whole.

On impulse, he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers, internal appeals to reason doing no good at all. Was it possible he’d gotten the better end of Aphrodite’s bargain?

He would see. Tomorrow.

He shook off the fog of desire and raised his palms once more. From oblivion, the stone floor rose with a rumble, restoring itself between the bench and the platform. The chamber might have never yawned in a jagged pit, for all the difference visible now. Aside from, of course, the rugs, most of which had gone missing.

Hades rose from the bench, hauling a disoriented Persephone with him by her upper arms. She stood with her back to his chest and he brushed a final light kiss over her cheek before stepping away from temptation.

In three long strides, he was on the other side of the room, a basalt doorway forming at his will. He turned to the goddess, her face aglow with furious want, unforgettably denied.

“Enjoy your last night in this room,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll try something a bit more … fitting.” She opened her mouth, perhaps to fling some barb, but Hades held fast to his edge.

“Good night, Persephone.” He turned then and left her standing, the stone growing shut at his back. It was a necessary barrier indeed, if he were to compose himself at all.

✧

Demeter shifted her jaw and scowled out over the agora in front of her temple in Thebes. To the passing sons and daughters of Man, scurrying here and there on their mundane little errands, she appeared as nothing more than another old woman, come to leave her offerings for the Lady of the Earth.

Not one rumor, one sneeze. Athenai, Messenia, Tegea; she had scoured their places of offering all to no avail. None of the mortals she’d questioned in her gnarled body had a word to say about Persephone.

The goddess stepped from under the temple’s eaves and squinted into the bright noon light. Broad, limestone steps moved away under her feet in descent and the sun painted the square in a shimmering heat that made her eyes water.

Someone had to have seen.

Her daughter couldn’t have mastered the art of disguising her appearance; she hadn’t nearly enough experience. If Persephone had run off—a far preferable reason for her absence than any of the possible alternatives—there would have been signs of her passing. An immortal on this plane would not go unnoticed. There would have been a swell of offerings, a rise in fervor at the sighting of a goddess, however brief.

Demeter made a noise of frustration, startling a scrawny boy as he jogged past her out of the temple. The youth eyed the crone he saw over his shoulder before dodging off into the square, the glare of sunlight watering her mortal eyes as she followed his bouncing path.

And then the Goddess of the Fruitful earth swore a violent oath.

A woman herded a tiny girl away, cutting the guised immortal a disapproving eye as she went, but a wash of cold epiphany prickling her skin was the only thing holding Demeter’s attention now.

Yes. Someone had seen. Hadn’t they.

Shadows followed the bodies of men as they busied themselves about the agora. They arced transient echoes from dawn to dusk at the foot of each beast, tree, and building. At the noon hour, they pooled at their smallest, hiding from the face of the sun.

The Sun.

Helios.

Nothing that moved on the earth could escape the blazing eyes of Helios. The titan’s daily course showed him gods and men, alike. And he was infallibly honest.

He will know. He will know and he will tell me.

His chariot straddled the midheaven now. She had half a day to reach his evening palace at the River Okeanos.

Her steps carried her from the temple and away from Thebes at a pace only an immortal could set. Helios would quit his resting place at dawn, but Demeter was determined to have answers well before then.

Her own chariot awaited on the deathless plane, and her lips came into a hard line as she goaded her cattle to a westward trot.

Pray, Daughter, this is some foolish misunderstanding. Whoever has done this will surely need it.