“If we play with her, she will forget about drinking,” I whispered in Vlad’s ear. He nodded and we followed Kris back to the table. Domenico smiled goofily at us, clearly also drunk.

“What game are we going to play, my love?” Domenico took Kris’s hand as she scooted in close to him.

She pouted and scrunched her forehead, trying to align her thoughts. “I can’t remember,” she said as she slumped in her seat, and her shoulders hunched in defeat. Suddenly she sat back up and exclaimed, “Oh, I remember!” Kris clapped eagerly. “Basilinda.”

“No, please, anything but that game,” I groaned. Basilinda was a children’s game and, just like everything else in the Hellenicus tradition, it was centuries old. To play, one person was appointed as the king, and everyone else became the servants who had to obey them. Adults played the more complex, mature version, which was a combination of Basilinda and aporraxis—a bouncing-ball game. The king would throw a ball on a flat surface, and when it bounced and landed in someone’s lap, that person had to either swear on the River Styx to truthfully answer any question the king asked or do whatever the king requested of them. If they didn’t obey, they had to spend one life cycle—one round of the game—in the Underworld. But if they obeyed, that person would become the next king and would have a chance to throw the ball. Some Hellenicus truly believed that they would have to spend one life cycle in the Underworld as a result of this game, so there was a lot at stake. Some even believed that if someone did not meet their soul mate in their lifetime, it could be because they had not abided by the rules of this game, and they were actually spending one additional life cycle in the Underworld.

Kris put her hand on my arm. “Please, please, please, Avery.”

I was not fond of the game since it was a big deal to both swear on the River Styx and to spend one life cycle in the Underworld. No one could report back to let us all know whether this part of the game was true or not, so we did not know for sure. I wasn’t the most superstitious person, but I also didn’t want to take my chances when it came to spending any amount of time in the Underworld. Kris, on the other hand, looked like she wouldn’t budge. I let out a weary sigh. Kris always acted like a five-year-old when she was drunk, and I figured agreeing to play would be the only way to stop her from being in a bad mood for the rest of the night, so I finally gave in. “Okay, okay. Basilinda it is.”