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Meg stayed with us, but her sisters and Hades left. I got it. Who wants to watch people eat? Like Coco, I was ready to drop from hunger. Between the four of us, we devoured the food on the table.

“Sam,” Meg called from the side of the hall where she waited for us. When I looked over, she pointed at my exposed arms. “I thought Dave’s dad got rid of those scars. Was it just a glamour?”

I glanced down. I’d honestly forgotten about them. They didn’t seem as pronounced as they had been. Had my fixation made them seem worse, or was this a lighter version of the originals?

“I made a deal with Athena,” I told her. “If I took them back, I got to spend time with my parents.”

She nodded, checking them out. “Good deal.”

“That’s what I thought.” I tilted my arm at Stheno. “Don’t these seem lighter than they used to be?” I was sure it wasn’t in my head.

Stheno nodded and then took a drink. “They were raised before, and angrier. The new ones are more like a faint memory.”

“Is there someplace around here we can relieve ourselves?” Stheno asked.

“Oh, yes, please,” Coco echoed.

Meg waved them to her and led them out of the hall, with Bracken following. Personally, I was fine. I think dehydration was messing with me. Instead of going with Meg, I walked back to Persephone’s chamber.

A very, very old woman sat on a bench across from the clear wall. She looked up and patted the seat beside her.

I sat and held out my hand. “Hello. I’m Sam.”

Her brow creased in confusion.

“Oh, sorry. If you could say something, that’d be great.” I waited. And waited.

Finally, she murmured, “I dreamt about you.”

“You did?”

She looked momentarily shocked and then smiled, patting my hand. “I saw you walk through that wall and talk with Persephone.”

I turned back to the transparent wall. “You saw me walking through it?”

She nodded. “Seeing you now, in this place…” She shook her head. “Is this a vision?”

“I don’t think so. If it is,” I told her, “we’re both having it.”

Chuckling, she patted my arm, like she was making sure I was really there. “I didn’t know when you would come. I knew you were wearing pants and had scars.”

“You saw my scars?” I asked. I hadn’t had them when I’d entered the Underworld. How did she know Stheno would piss off Athena and that Athena would then make me an offer?

Pythia nodded. “They’ve been looking for you for a very long time. Megaera, Alecto, and Tisiphone have been scouring the earth for millennia. And then a few years ago, Megaera raced back to tell Hades she’d found you.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “After so long, there was finally hope. Still, though, they had to wait. It wasn’t time yet. I’d seen you walk through the wall with your hand out in front of you, and that hand was wearing a ring. Hades gave orders to wait and watch, but not to interfere in any way. He worried one of us would do something to change the path of your life and that change would mean you wouldn’t or couldn’t free Persephone.”

A butterfly flaps its wings in China… “Wait,” I said, putting the pieces together. “So, Meg didn’t help me when my aunt was trying to kill me because Hades told her not to?”

Pythia nodded, leaning in and lowering her voice. “Hades and Demeter had a terrible argument over that. Demeter wanted you wrapped in linen and protected at all costs. Hades worried that if they interfered, you wouldn’t learn something or gain something that would give you the power to release Persephone, something everyone else has tried to do but failed.”

“Yes,” Hades said, as he came around the bend in the tunnel and stood before the transparent wall to watch Persephone. “And then Megaera defied me by going to New Orleans to help you. She was punished.”

“Is that why she’s been absent lately?” I asked, suddenly angry on Meg’s behalf. “People shouldn’t be punished for being kind.”

He gave me one dark look over his shoulder before returning his attention to his mate. “Ask your husband how he deals with vampires who defy him.”

I didn’t need to. I already knew. Killing Étienne—who had defied Clive by leaving me alone with a homicidal kelpie—is what had started the war with Leticia and Lafitte.