“I feel...” Hades paused. “You disarm me. I burn in Tartarus each day from your hatred, when all I wish is to have and to keep you and to never allow another person to lay hands upon you again.” She leaned back in her chair, her gaze raw with longing. “You stole my heart, and now it beats, fragile and weeping, within your fist. I should despise you for that.”

“I don’t hate you,” Persephone whispered. “Perhaps once, but not anymore. Not for a long time.”

The air seemed too heavy, too pregnant with possibilities. She held Hades’ heart? What did that even mean for them? “Will we meet again?” she asked.

Hades placed her palms on the table. She had accidentally touched her face with her ink-stained hands, leaving a smudge on her cheek. “Our lives are endless, to a point. I will doubtless see you in the overworld, at one event or the other.”

“But not as your consort.”

“No. You have made your feelings on that subject abundantly clear,” Hades said, pronouncing each syllable with precision.

Persephone’s feelings were as tangled as the threads of the Moirai. There was no logic to them, no harmony; nothing to ground her in this swirling sea of confusion.

You stole my heart.

It had never been her intention.

Nothing about this made sense, least of all what she was about to do.

Persephone’s hand went to the fastening on her chlamys—on Hades’ chlamys. She unbuttoned it and allowed it to drop from her fingertips. “I leave tomorrow, with Hermes,” she said, unpinning her fibula on first one shoulder, then the other. “You have given your word.” She unhooked her girdle, setting it aside. Her chiton pooled on the floor. “But first, I would have you bid me farewell properly. As my”—she took a deep breath—“as my wife.”

Hades remained behind the table, her face an expressionless mask. She did not speak, but her throat contracted as she swallowed.

Persephone took a step toward her, rolling her hips as she’d seen Aphrodite do. She was bare save for her perizoma and strophion, and as she walked, she drew the pins from her hair until her curls hung loose.

She reached the table and swept its contents—scrolls, tablets, pens—to the floor, though she was careful not to move the inkstand.

Hades gasped.

The table was myrtle, stained with ink. Persephone climbed on top of it and crawled the short distance to Hades, keeping her back arched, her movements sinuous as a cat’s. She reached out with both hands to take Hades’ face.

Hades stared at her, gaze ravenous as her once-impeccable control began to slip.

Persephone leaned in and kissed her.

Hades’ lips were soft, like she remembered, and tasted of wine. Persephone drew back and traced them with her fingertips, then brushed her thumb over the ink stain on Hades’ cheek.