His face twitched, and between one blink and the next, I caught a glimpse of the anger he was trying to keep at bay. Inside, I quaked.
“Go eat. I will return when I have the location of your soul. This day will end with me buried deep between your thighs.”
He stormed away from me as the ground trembled ever so slightly.
It would be easy to say Hades was unstable, but I no longer thought that was the case. He wasn’t crazy; he was tortured down to the very marrow of his being. And with good reason. He loved a woman who, as far as I could tell, had never loved him back.
Persephone had purposely done things to mess with his head, and now he couldn’t figure out why I was behaving so differently than what he was used to. Without meaning to, I was adding to his torture. And I doubted seeing the truth, that I wasn’t Persephone, would bring him the peace he so desperately needed.
Instead, I feared the truth would push him over the edge.
I let out an unsteady breath.
“I understand why you deny him, Mother,” Zotera said from beside me. “But perhaps he would be gentler if you didn’t deny him for so long.”
Well, that didn’t ease any of my fears.
“Let’s eat,” I said, desperate to focus on something else.
Zotera joined me at the table and changed her simple bread to match my meal without me needing to prompt her.
I nibbled on the cheese and tried not to think about the things I had no control over.
“This is really good,” I said. “Salty. It reminds me of some pizza I had once.”
“What’s pizza?”
“It’s a circular piece of bread covered with tomato sauce, cheese, and whatever meat or veggies toppings you like.”
She looked skeptical.
“What’s a tomato?”
I did my best to explain it but could tell she had no clue what I was talking about. Thinking she maybe knew it by some other name, I had her change her food into things she knew that sounded close to what I’d described. The closest thing she could come up with was a fig, which made me want to eat one. But I knew better than to try.
We talked about other foods she knew, and I began to realize how very narrow their meal options were and how spoiled I’d been in Uttira even when I’d thought I’d been limited. It also made me realize how stuck in the past Hell was.
By the time we finished our meal, I was ready to introduce her to more modern marvels through her manipulation of the statues. I tried describing a car, and she turned one of my replicas into a chariot pulled by a rather small horse.
As I walked around it, trying to figure out how to explain the changes needed, Hades came striding into the room, followed by Creon.
My heart stuttered at the triumphant smile on Hades’ face. If he was devastatingly handsome as an angry god, he melted my thoughts as a smiling one.
“So soon?” Zotera murmured, her distressed tone snapping me out of my infatuated captivation.
“Come, Goddess,” Hades said, holding out his hand.
I didn’t hesitate to reach out to him, and my pulse jumped when our fingers met.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To see your game to its conclusion.”
“What?” I asked a second before understanding dawned. “You found my uncle?”
“The soul you named has been located. Delay us no more, Goddess. With your permission, I will take us there.”
I took a step toward the throne room’s exit, but Hades didn’t move.
