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Persephone sat with her hands in her lap, highlighted by the inexplicable sunlight shining down on her. Her gaze was fixed in the middle distance. She was motionless but for the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

“We can’t break through whatever material this is. We’ve tried everything,” Hades told me.

I looked back around the corner and found my great-uncle standing at the back of the group, a pencil and journal in hand. “Bracken, can you come here?”

No one moved.

“Try this language,” Hades said.

“Bracken?” When he looked up, I waved him to me.

He followed me around the corner and then stopped in his tracks, taking it all in. His gaze went between Hades and the trapped woman. “Is this Persephone?” he whispered to me.

I nodded.

“Was she trapped or did she do this herself?” he asked.

I hadn’t considered that. After talking with Hades, it felt horribly cruel to be considering it now.

“She doesn’t have this kind of magic,” Hades said. “None of us do. Everyone has come down here and tried to break her out.”

A thought occurred to me. “Did she do that?” I gestured to the plants inside. “Or did the meadow itself swallow her up and drop her down here?”

Hades gave me the strangest look. “I hadn’t considered Gaia. Why would she…” His brow furrowed as he stared into the floral prison.

I turned back to Bracken. “Can you try your magic and see if it does anything?”

“Of course.” He stepped up to the clear wall and laid his hands on it. “It’s not glass.” He walked across the tunnel and touched the opposite wall before returning to the transparent one. “It’s the same. It feels like rock but looks like glass. Fascinating.”

He placed one hand on the wall again, the other remaining at his side, his fingers swirling. Nothing seemed to happen, but Persephone moved. She tipped her head back and stared up at the sunlit roof of the hothouse cave.

“What did you do?” Hades demanded.

Bracken appeared more intrigued by the puzzle than afraid of the angry god beside him. “I tried to break down the wall,” he told Hades. “I didn’t feel the wall move at all, but something inside must have changed because she looked up.”

Hades grabbed Bracken and shoved him back roughly. “If you cause a cave-in on my beloved, I will torture you for eternity.”

Bracken blinked, staring into Hades’ furious eyes. “I would never intentionally harm an innocent.”

Hades released him and then walked back to the clear wall. To have her so close and yet locked away was the real torture. Persephone returned to her original position, staring at nothing, at least nothing we could see.

I stepped up beside Hades. “Can we try Coco’s dragon fire?”

He stared at Persephone with such longing in his gaze, it broke my heart. Finally, he nodded and stepped back.

I went back around the corner and waved Coco to us. With her came everyone else. Meg and her sisters were well aware of what was around the corner. Coco and Stheno, though, were stunned into silence.

“Persephone is trapped,” I told them. “They’ve tried everything to get her out, but they haven’t had a dragon down here before. Coco, would you mind?”

Nodding, she took off her backpack. “I should eat first. I’ve been feeling a little lightheaded.”

My stomach grumbled in solidarity.

“My lord,” Meg said to Hades, “perhaps we should feed them first.”

Hades looked back at Persephone. To be so close to a possible answer and have to wait longer must have been maddening, but he nodded and gestured down the tunnel toward his hall.

When we walked back in, there was now a table laden with food and drink, as well as benches with cushions. I almost wept. After Meg assured us we could eat this food and not be trapped in the Underworld, the four of us thanked them profusely—well, three of us. Stheno took it as her due.