She adjusted the set of the chlamys around her shoulders and left Hades’ rooms. The corridors of the palace seemed eerily quiet. Many servants had been reassigned to different duties, with extra bodies needed to process the ever-increasing flow of the newly arrived dead. The few people she saw all looked harried and exhausted, eager to be out of her sight.

Persephone walked through the library, her bare feet silent against the rugs. She would miss this, too—the smell of papyrus and carbon ink, the way the stylus gave her blisters after too much time spent studying—even Stephanus and his callous indifference to her status.

She stopped outside of Hades’ study and knocked.

“Not now,” came Hades’ voice, sounding muffled.

Persephone opened the door.

“Did I not say—oh.”

The study was a mess, by Hades’ standards. She sat behind a table littered with scrolls, the index finger of her sword arm stained with ink. Hades ran her hand through her hair; it was loose, tumbling in a riot of curls to the small of her back. She looked like a wild thing, like one of the savage goddesses of Anatolia. It was such a departure from her usual cool, composed self that Persephone did not know how to react.

“Close the door,” Hades said, her voice hoarse.

Persephone did so. The gentle click of the door settling into its frame seemed too loud. “Hades, have you... have you been crying?”

Hades set back her chair and stood. She went to a small table beside a set of klinai and poured herself a cup of wine, then drained it in one swallow. “I have not cried since the day Zeus and Poseidon bade me to rule over this place,” she said, still holding the empty cup, her gaze on the wine jug as if longing for another. “To show weakness before the gods is to suffer a fate worse than death.”

“I’m no god.”

“Ah, well.” Hades looked at Persephone, her eyes red-rimmed but dry. “I might shed a tear for you yet.”

“This melancholy ill suits you,” Persephone said.

Hades fluttered a hand in the air. “My apologies, wife,” she said mockingly. “Should I bare my breast and pray to Gaia to deliver me of my woes? Or should I put on a smile and behind closed doors punish those left beside me for their crime of following a goddess too weak to hold her own?”

“You are not weak.”

“I had not heard.” Hades poured herself another cup and drank it, slower this time.

Persephone plucked the empty cup from her grasp. “That’s enough.”

Hades glared at her. “You have what you wanted. Why are you here?”

Persephone placed the cup and the wine jug on a sideboard, out of Hades’ reach. “I came to say goodbye.”

“Fine. Goodbye.” Hades retreated behind her desk and sat down, picking up a reed pen. “Now, get out. I have work to do.”