“I am bound by contract and cannot summon you directly when in the presence of your mother.”
I huffed out a sigh. Persephone had made a ridiculous number of contracts with him. I needed to weed through them and keep removing the ones that made no sense.
“We’ll get rid of that one as soon as we’re done here,” I said.
“Thank you, my love,” Hades said softly.
Turning a little on his lap, I watched the furies approach the throne. Hades waited until they were halfway before he started talking.
“I saw the one we seek.” He described the man we saw perfectly to the furies, but I could see in their expressions that the information wasn’t very useful. As Megan had said, there was a whole world full of people who fit that description.
“If it helps, Hades thinks he knows the guy. If that’s the case, you’re looking for someone who would be very old but ageless. Definitely not human.” I glanced at Hades. “Who else has access to Hell?”
“All the gods and goddesses and heroes of Mount Olympus.”
“There are no gods left,” Megan said. “We checked. We’ve been all over Mount Olympus. With Adira’s help, we’ve also checked all the worlds connected to the Yggdrasil. No Norse or Greek gods anywhere. Just you.”
Hades tensed under me, and I shot Megan a worried look.
“Impossible,” he breathed. “Someone is tricking you.”
“Or someone tricked you,” I said softly, comfortingly petting his chest as I thought of Persephone, nothing but bones in that bed.
“You have been missing for generations, Father,” Grace said. “My mother told me that her mother’s mother hadn’t even looked upon you.”
“No.” The slow word of denial would have been enough to worry me. But then his hands left me, and he gripped the sides of the throne.
“Hey,” I said, quickly twisting in his lap to take his face between my hands. “Look at me. Instead of making things shake, tell me why you’re upset.”
His gaze held mine.
“I don’t remember.” The slow words sounded confused.
“What don’t you remember?” I asked, stroking his cheek.
He slowly shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay. Let’s walk through it then. Sometimes that helps. You remember yesterday, right?”
Heat flared in his gaze, proving he was still himself.
“Yes.”
“And you remember when Grace brought us a pizza?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember when I fell off the balcony?”
He released the armrests and crushed me to his chest.
“Yes.”
I hugged him in return, stroking his back soothingly.
“I couldn’t talk then because of the druid spell that sent me here. After you caught me, you yelled at me, compelling me to speak. It broke the spell. But before that, there was a long time when you followed me around as I checked rooms. Do you remember that?”
Hades started trembling against me.
