“You need to reach out to the prominent members of each faction before you release the video. If they’re willing to hear you out and support you, that will go a long way to ensuring no one assassinates you the moment you show your face.” She ticks her points off on fingers with crimson-painted nails. “You need a launch plan detailing how this council will be different than the Thirteen and what high-priority policies they’ll have on their plate the moment they’re voted in. Things that are deeply important to normal people.” Another finger. “And you have to actually get the Thirteen and the legacy families to agree to leave. That’s the most impossible task of all. If you just killed them—”
“We are not sanctioning wholesale slaughter,” I say firmly. “That’s what got us in this situation to begin with.” I motion at the three of us. “But you have a point. Giving them a road map is a good way to show intentions and also cut down on the bickering for the sake of bickering, just to prove who has the most power in the room.”
Circe nods. “You must play the bad guy so they can unify againstyou, and then slip out of the city once they find their feet.” She frowns. “But that could be months, Hecate. That’s a lot of time to hope that no one thinks a coup is a great idea.”
“You would know,” I mutter.
“Yes, I would.” She gives me an arch look. “That’s the point.”
Hecate steeples her hands before her mouth, her dark eyes serious. “Before we can move forward, I need to know the answer to a very important question.”
“What’s that?” Circe asks slowly.
“What do we have to offer for you to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem?”
Interlude 3Hades
There are some hurts that nothing can fix. I know that better than most. I spent my entire life believing myself to be an orphan, mourning parents who I didn’t even remember. Their deaths turned out to be extremely exaggerated—at least when it comes to my father—but now I grieve all those years lost.
It’s nothing compared to what my wife and her sisters are experiencing right now.
They huddle together, a phone passing between them as they commune with Psyche while she travels away from Olympus. They share stories through their tears, honoring their mother’s memory, honoring her sacrifice.
“Do you remember when she tried to learn to knit?” Eurydicehiccups. “That sweater was so ugly.”
“You wore it every fucking day for a month, too.” Hera’s laugh chokes off at the end. “At least the color looked good on you.”
I step out of the room and close the door softly behind me. Zeus waits in the hallway, looking like he’s about to crawl out of his skin. We share a moment of pure shared misery. There isn’t an enemy we can fight and conquer to save our wives from the pain they’re currently experiencing. Grief can’t be banished through sheer willpower alone. Even if it could, I doubt Persephone would accept that gift. Part of grieving is honoring the dead, and she loved her mother dearly, despite Demeter’s many faults.
Zeus sucks in a breath and exhales in a rush. “Demeter had a point. In what she said before she was killed.”
I’m so bloody tired I have to concentrate on not weaving on my feet. “You would buckle now.”
“Hades.” We’re the same age, but he’s always felt younger to me. When his father was still alive, when he was still Perseus, he presented a cold exterior that felt like it could be shattered with the right pressure. I watched it happen in real time over the last few months, the pressure tearing him apart. There’s no sign of buckling now. Steel coats his tone, and his blue eyes are serious. “I know you love your wife.”
I have to fight down the urge to bristle. “More than anything.”
“As much as I lovemywife.” He doesn’t move, but it’s as if I can see him evolving into someone new before my eyes. “They don’t understand what it means to be a legacy title. No one who isn’t a legacy title does. It’s our identity, our responsibility, our burden to bear.”
It’s as if he cut to the very heart of me. Hades is the only thing I’ve ever been. I had another name once, but I haven’t even shared it with Persephone. I am only Hades. “Yes.”
He shakes his head sharply. “Fuck. That.”
“Excuse me?”
“Fuck that.” He drags a hand through his blond hair. “I don’t know who I am if I’m not Zeus—or heir to Zeus—but I’m not willing to let Callisto suffer further because of that weakness. If we stay, it’s only a matter of time before she loses more loved ones. I won’t allow it.”
The instinctive response rises inside me. It’s easy for him to say when he’s held the title Zeus for less than a year, when he’s already lost the upper city and failed the people there. The lower city is different. It’s always been different. These people are my…
A wail rises behind the closed door of my study, and the air goes right out of me. That’s Persephone. I would know her pain anywhere, just like I know her pleasure, her love, her happiness. The last has been in short supply in the past few weeks.
My phone buzzes, and I’m pathetically grateful for the distraction. “Yes?”
“Don’t hang up.”
I curse and share a glance with Zeus. “It’s Hermes.” Without thinking too hard about what I’m doing, I put it on speaker. “I’m here with Zeus.”
“Cute. Very enemies to lovers of you.” The words are Hermes, but the tone isn’t jovial in the least. “This saves me a call, so thanks for that.” She sucks in a breath. “I’m giving you the courtesy of a heads-up before I issue a city-wide invitation.”
