Persephone had to lean on her, the simple effort of getting up leaving her breathless. Hades guided her to sit back on the bed and sat beside her, ready to catch her again at the first moment of weakness.

“I spent the years wondering if you would ever wake,” Hades said. “Thinking you might die at any moment.”

“Wouldn’t I have been guided to the underworld, then?”

Hades’ gaze was full of misery. “I don’t know.”

That had to gall her—this sliver of ignorance about her own domain. There was no precedent. No god had ever lost their immortality—Ares had come close, once, and the centaur Chiron had been placed among the stars, but that was all.

Persephone’s scar itched. She massaged it with her fingertips, cringing at how strange it felt. She would not keep it. She wanted no mark from Demeter etched into her body.

“Asclepius believes you will make a full recovery,” Hades said.

“Is he here? I should thank him for saving me.”

“He managed to incur Zeus’s ire, and thus he is one of mine now. But he should not receive all the credit. He said you may not have recovered, had you not been able to... hibernate.” Hades’ fingernails picked at the embroidery on Persephone’s coverlet.

“To dream,” Persephone said. She raised a hand to her head, finding her hair twined into a loose braid. Even that simple motion was exhausting, and she dropped her hand back into her lap. “What happened to Mother?”

“When Demeter hurt you, she violated her own function as the personification of motherhood. As with Medea, that crime could no longer be ignored,” Hades said.

“What about all those times she locked me in a cellar?”

Hades looked at her. “It was never specified that she had to be a good mother.”

Persephone knew in the eyes of the other Olympians, the petty crime of neglectful parenting was so mundane as to not attract censure. But Hades knew. She had seen the cellar and inferred the rest. Persephone wasn’t crazy. “Was it not sufficient that she had already once abandoned her duties as goddess of the harvest, leaving so many to die?”

“Humans die all the time, whether through divine intervention or their own folly. But to harm another god...” Hades shrugged. “Her transgressions became too great for appeasement.”

“Meaning?” A chill ran through Persephone. “They didn’t hurt her, did they?”

Hades sighed. “No. But they confiscated the rest of the Lernaean hydra’s venom and executed the mortal supply chain involved in procuring it. Demeter has been told in no uncertain terms not to make contact with you, unless you so desire it.”

It was too much to take in all at once. “I don’t and won’t desire it, at least for a century or so. But she’s my mother.”

“Yes, and she almost robbed you of your immortality,” Hades said.