‘Shoddy work,’ Hekate muttered. ‘Aphrodite was never very good at magic – she hasn’t got the willpower for it. Why do you think she had to keep you in chains?’
I felt as though I had fallen through a sheet of ice into freezing waters. I looked at the place within myself where the curse had taken up residence and found nothing but a smoothed-over scab. The howling in my veins had gone quiet. The terror and guilt and longing I now felt was not the workings of some dark magic. I simplymissedPsyche, an ordinary and unenviable feeling.
Then I realized. If the curse was gone, there was nothing keeping me from Psyche. I was halfway to the door before Hekate called me back.
‘Don’t be a fool, son of Chaos,’ she snapped. ‘Looking for Psyche would only put her in more danger.’
I hovered near the door, remembering what Zephyrus had told me. ‘Aphrodite has taken Psyche as her handmaiden and given her three impossible tasks, with me as the reward. If there is no curse to prevent me, I must help her.’
‘You cannot keep someone from the battles they were bornto fight,’ Hekate said, her eyes reflecting the candlelight like a wolf’s.
I remembered the prophecy Psyche held so dear.You will conquer a monster feared by the gods.
I was unconvinced. ‘This is no battle. It is something far worse.’
‘Perhaps. Tell me, what are the tasks?’
I ticked off the two that remained. ‘To sort the grain in Demeter’s temple, and to fetch a bit of Persephone’s beauty cream from the Underworld.’
‘A tidy pairing,’ Hekate remarked dryly. Demeter was the goddess of the harvest and the mother of Persephone. But a journey into the Underworld would be death for a mortal. I had nearly lost Psyche to that darkness once before.
I began to pace the room, hoping movement would quicken my thoughts. The memory of a forest in Anatolia rose in my mind. ‘Persephone owes me a favour; I brought her the love of Adonis. I will ask her to give Psyche whatever Aphrodite demands.’
The rush of it made me light-headed, though Hekate’s next words brought me back down to earth. ‘You could, if it was possible to send a message to the queen of the dead,’ she said, chewing her lip with the yellow stub of a broken tooth. ‘But autumn has arrived, and Persephone has returned to her husband’s realm, where even I cannot follow.’
‘Hermes can carry messages to the Underworld,’ I pointed out.
‘Hermes would pluck out his own eyes before offending Aphrodite. He is utterly besotted,’ Hekate remarked with a withering look.
I slumped down at the table, head in my hands. Success hadnearly been within reach. I had nearly allowed myself to believe that I could save Psyche.
Aloud, I said, ‘I never chose Psyche, you know. She was foisted upon me by the curse, like …’Like my immortality, my divine power, and all the things that make up the shapeless arc of a god’s unchanging life.
‘You’ve chosen her now, haven’t you?’ Hekate replied. ‘You could have gone anywhere once you slipped Aphrodite’s chains. And yet you chose to come to me, knowing I was your best chance to help Psyche.’
The goddess pushed her chair back from the table. I watched as she began sorting through the jars perched on the rickety shelves, taking a few of them down. She fished a small silver spoon out of a cluttered drawer and measured the ingredients, then started grinding them with a mortar and pestle. The dogs watched her curiously.
‘You envied them once, didn’t you?’ Hekate continued, not looking at me. ‘The mortals. Many of our kind do. Perhaps you thought you envied their ability to taste death, but in fact I think you envied theirpurpose. Mortality has a way of inflicting purpose on you whether you like it or not. Mortals have too little time to waste!’ she chuckled to herself.
My sense of unease increased. I remembered the old man and woman I had seen so long ago, made luminous by the love they shared. Perhaps Ihadenvied them, in some distant and uncertain way.
‘I suppose loving a mortal has given you purpose as well,’ Hekate concluded. ‘By learning to truly love someone else, you learn to love the world. And yourself, which may be even harder.’
‘I don’t think lack of self-love was ever my problem.’
Hekate chuckled. ‘Not in the way I mean. You never felt likeyou belonged, or that you had a stake in the world. Psyche has given you that.’
Her observation felt as intrusive as a knife between the ribs. I thought about the desire I once felt to taste death, now a distant memory after Psyche’s presence made the world new again. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I lied.
‘Oh? You don’t?’ Hekate set a small cauldron above the hearth, adding the ingredients to it. With a flick of her hand, she made the fire bloom, then turned to me with her hands on her hips. ‘Then forget Psyche and use those arrows of yours to find another mortal girl to love you. There’s no shortage of them. You could find one that Aphrodite doesn’t hate so much.’
Revulsion seized me. ‘No,’ I hissed. ‘I will not be soothed by a pale imitation.’ I would not leave Psyche, or the child she carried – our child – to waste away while I chased the skirts of another mortal.
Hekate nodded. ‘Good. I’m glad to hear you’re not a coward or a cad. I wouldn’t help you send a message to Persephone otherwise.’
I looked up. ‘So youwillhelp me?’ I asked.
‘I may,’ she replied. ‘If you give me what I ask.’
