Hades says nothing for a moment. “All right. Let’s… let’s go this way to the cabin. Then we’ll… we’ll talk more.”
My lips twist as he turns and walks away.
I’m not sure what more there is to say between us. Probably a lot. But I’m not feeling all that talkative anymore. Just tired.
Like I could sleep for a year.
Which is crazy after how much I slept last night.
However, I follow him since I don’t have any other choice. It’s that or go the opposite direction. And given that this is a maze, I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Though the walls really are beautiful. So intricately designed, the flowers forever etched into stone.
I trace my fingers along one of them, noting the pretty lily petals.Fire lilies, maybe, I think.
When the image seems to flutter, I jump back and findmyself up against a wall of masculine male. Hades grabs my hip, then reaches around me to pluck the flower off the wall.
My lips part as it begins to sizzle and burn, the orange and yellow petals coming to life right before my eyes. When the stem glistens in a dark green, he holds it out in front of me. “I know it’s not much, but hopefully… hopefully it’s a start,” he says.
“A start for what?” I ask, confused.
“A new beginning,” he replies, his palm leaving my hip as he steps to my side, the flower still hovering between us in his opposite hand. “A way to seek amends. An introduction to who I truly am.” He shrugs. “Or consider it a token of my destruction. Whatever you prefer.”
I hold his gaze and reach out to take the token from him. “It’s a fire lily, right?”
“Yes.”
“What…? What does it do? Just constantly burn?”
He smiles. “No. It simply blooms. Eternally.” He turns again, and I frown at his back.
“But all the ones Pip brought me were black,” I tell him. “If they bloom eternally, why were they charcoal when he gave them to me?”
“Because he’s a creature of death, like me,” Hades says without looking at me. “And most things we touch die.”
“Yet this flower just blossomed,” I point out. “So that can’t always be true.” At least where Hades is concerned.
He pauses at a bend in the maze and glances at me over his shoulder. “I suppose fate isn’t always black and white,” he murmurs.
I blink at him, curious as to what he means.
But he disappears around the corner without another word.
I rush to follow him, just to freeze at the sight before me.
He called this acabin.
This… this isn’t a cabin.
It’s a skull, just like Death’s Den.
Only there are no blue fires lingering in the eyelike windows here.
Justice.
Chapter 17
Hades
