She closed her eyes, her questing fingers fumbling around the door’s edges. Had she missed something? Was she just too exhausted to make this new ability of hers work, or had the first two times been some kind of fluke?

She banged on the door until her knuckles bled. “Help!”

Tears sprang to her eyes, trying to wash out the smoke, to no avail. Persephone coughed and yelled and knocked until her vision grew hazy and dark and she could no longer do any of those things.

26

HADES

“Help me understand,” Hades said. “You left her there. With Demeter.” With Demeter the oath-breaker; Demeter the traitor.

Hermes ran a hand through his blond locks, too craven to meet her gaze. “With her mother, yes—”

“Precisely what I told you not to do!”

“For Zeus’s sake, Demeter is her mother! She has a right!”

Perhaps Hermes had a right to keep his organs on the inside, and yet Hades longed to run the point of her blade from his neck to his navel. Still, even through her rage she could not forget that psychopomps were few and far between. The underworld needed him, even if Hades could no longer see any point to his existence.

“Go,” she said. “Get out of my sight.”

“I can still help—”

“Go!”

Hermes scuttled away like the lackey he was. Hades no longer had eyes for him.

Her gaze drifted down to the paperwork scattered across her table. Her mind flashed back to the sight of Persephone’s bared breasts, her knees spread and overhanging the edge of the desk—

Hades picked up Demeter’s letter of invitation and scrunched it into a ball. She held it out on her palm, and the papyrus ignited, burning with a blue flame that shot a cubit’s length into the air before extinguishing itself. She turned her hand, and the remaining ash gently floated toward the floor.

She so dearly misliked walking into a trap, but could see no way around it. She took a fresh piece of papyrus and began to write, her pen making short, sharp motions, the lines blurring slightly in her vision until she blinked. She dropped the pen and pressed the tip of her dagger to her thumb until ichor welled to the surface, then rolled a golden thumbprint at the bottom of the papyrus.

Hades scattered powdered bone over the wet ink to dry it, then shook it free. She tugged on a bell pull by her table, then re-read her document as she waited.

Xenia appeared, her face drawn and pale. “My queen?”

“Take this to Cottus,” Hades said, handing her the parchment. “Tell him to hurry. I intend to depart before he sees this.”

Xenia briefly looked down. “A release order? Surely you do not intend to leave here alone?”