But now she was going home.

She knocked on the door connecting Hades’ chambers with her own. “Hades? Are you there?”

Hearing no answer, she opened the door and stepped inside. It felt empty. A chlamys lay on the floor, breaking the almost sterile order of the room. Persephone picked it up and brought it to her face, inhaling the scent of asphodels. She swung it around her shoulders and buttoned it in place.

She could read the labels on the scrolls now. They were sorted by author and time period: poetry, plays, medical texts, memoirs of great generals and human leaders. She looked through them aimlessly, well aware she was not meant to pry, when she glanced at the bottom shelf and found something more interesting.

She crouched down and picked up a scroll. It was one amongst many, unassuming, but when she unrolled it, she forgot how to breathe.

She read it twice. There were two signatures on the bottom: Zeus’s and Hades’. She recognized Hades’ hand from long exposure: the firm downstroke, the regular spacing.

Her marriage contract. The date was more than a century ago, occurring not long after that fateful celebration at Zeus’s palace. The papyrus was not fragile, despite its age; perhaps one of Hades’ sorcerers had enspelled it.

Between that time and her descent into the underworld, Hades had never once darkened her doorstep, the asphodels notwithstanding. Why? Why wait so long to claim what—in the eyes of the gods—was legally hers?

She saw no mention of Demeter in the contract, which did not surprise her. Her mother must have been blindsided by the whole affair; no wonder she had retaliated against Zeus and Hades with the only power left to her.

She read it again. In print, she was reduced to a commodity—an expensive one, at that. No dowry for her but a bride price that could have beggared kings. Precious metals and gems from the earth, bales of wool, cattle, and more. Surely it was a sign of how much Zeus disliked Hades and had nothing to do with Persephone’s worth. Zeus would not have demanded of Hephaestus a single drachma, had he asked for her hand.

Below all the material goods was a single line: Semele, daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, restored to her natural lifespan.

Semele. The name sounded familiar.

It seemed so long ago now, but hadn’t that been the name of Zeus’s lover, the one he’d tried to win away from Hades when Persephone had accidentally overheard their conversation?

Persephone re-rolled the scroll with numb fingers and returned it to its resting place. She tried to tell herself it changed nothing. It didn’t matter what Zeus and Hades had decided without her consent—she was going home.