“Yes.” As long as you return. Return now, and I will swear whatever you ask. Anything.
I will promise her anything she wants now. The urge to bargain is strong, but I force it down. Persephone is not the person I want to bargain with. Zeus? Demeter? I will negotiate with them. Fight with them, if I must.
Not my queen. I will give her anything and everything.
Persephone looks over her shoulder. “I cannot stay.”
“Don’t go.”
“Think of me, my love?” she requests with a hand to the mirror. My own hand meets hers although there’s nothing but a slick cold beneath my palm.
“Every moment.”
She stares into the mirror, her eyes darting everywhere, as if she cannot stand to stop looking at my face.
“I wish I could touch you,” she whispers. “Scrying is better than nothing, but?—”
Persephone does not finish the sentence, but the look in her eyes is exactly what I feel. It is far, far better than nothing to be able to scry and see her face. But it is far less than having her here with me. It is nothing compared with the feeling of her skin under my palms or her mouth on mine.
“My queen,” I say, just as she ends the connection between us.
Persephone in Olympus disappears, and I am left looking into my own face in the mirror.
And what I find there is not the man I thought I’d see.
The man looking back at me is desperate. Lovesick. Gripping the mirror as if it will keep him alive or pull him out of hundreds of years’ worth of imprisonment. He looks like he would fall to his knees at the feet of his goddess if it meant he could spend five more minutes in her presence.
I straighten, but it does not change anything. I look just as I did before.
Finally, I resort to leaving the mirror entirely. I get far enough away that the surface changes to black, and I spend the walk back to my rooms trying to rearrange my expression so that it is no different.
It’s only when I close the door behind me, shed the clothes and shoes, and climb into bed—Cerberus has not moved—that I realize my expression must have shown my feelings for Persephone long before tonight.
How many times has she seen that expression on my face?
How many times have they all seen it? To know that she has changed me forever? That I would bend to her will?
A voice hisses at the back of my mind, What does it matter? I cannot change this feeling that has come over me. I will never change it. Persephone could spend the rest of her days on Olympus or in the mortal realm, and it would never change. And who the fuck are they to judge me?
I think of her in the mirror instead. Waiting for me. Hoping I would be there. Sitting there with the soft fabric of her robe around her shoulders. The delight in her eyes when she saw me. Her power is undeniable. She pulled me to her. Perhaps the Fates’ warning for Zeus was right. She would grow to be more powerful than him.
The very thought forces that fear back. The reason that I do not wish her to ever leave me. She is a danger to Zeus. And he knows it.
He’s already tried to kill her once and I do not know if he’ll try again. A numbness grows through me until I fall asleep thinking about her.
The night passes quickly, though sleep does not ease my desperation for her. I wake up with the image of her in the mirror fresh in my mind.
She’s all I can think about during the day’s session at court. All I can think about as I walk the path with Cerberus.
She’s what I am thinking of when Minox joins me on the path, sliding out of the shadows and falling into step with me.
“My Lord,” he greets me and I reluctantly oblige.
“Minox.”
“I have no intention of repeating what happened last time, Minox,” I say, after a minute.
“I knew you would not, my Lord.”
