He motioned over his goblet, and Persephone held Cleopatra and Antony up to look into the liquid therein.

A shooting star fired across the dark surface of the Underlord’s wine and landed, igniting a hillside somewhere on earth. The creature that was left when the fire went cold was something Cleopatra had never seen before, a slicing thing, a sleek and deathly thing, like a cat but also like a shark, like a flame, and also molten metal. It smiled a terrible smile and bounded down the hillside and into a small village, its feet scarcely touching the ground.

In the town the creature entered, a pale inferno consumed each it looked upon. Cleopatra could easily see the flames surrounding each victim, though the victims did not notice them until they began to writhe with pain. They collapsed in the streets, in their doorways, in their beds, and they burned until they were dead.

“This creature aboveground, and the things it has wrought? They are your doing,” the Lord of the Dead told Cleopatra. “You brought them to my country.” She knew he was right.

“You must repair it,” said Persephone.

“She cannot repair it,” her husband said. “It is done. Her goddess will do as she wishes. We do as we wish, do we not?”

“Not always,” said Persephone, and bit into her fruit again, the crimson juice flooding out over her hands. “We do not always do as we wish.”

Hades gazed on his wife for a moment, as though thinking of an old argument.

“I would give everything I have to undo what I have done. I would be free,” Cleopatra said.

Antony looked at Cleopatra. His face was grief-stricken.

“Give her what is left of my strength. I would have her take it.”

Persephone looked at her, glanced at her husband, who nodded, and then she reached down and gave Antony a droplet of the juice she drank. A change came over him. His body became more solid, and his skin flushed.

He turned to Cleopatra, and he was her Antony again, completely, a solid, living man.

He kissed her, and she felt all that he had been in that kiss, all that he had wanted, all that he had dreamed. She felt his strength flowing into her and tried to pull away. It was as though she drank his blood.

Then it was done and she was alone again, in the hand of Persephone. Antony had disappeared. Cleopatra could not keep from crying out.

“Do not fear for him. He has gone back to the Fields of Mourning,” said Persephone.

Cleopatra was startled. “What do you mean? Why isn’t he where the heroes are?”

Hades looked at her. “He did not go to Elysium. He killed himself.”

“For love of you,” Persephone said. “He made Hades ring with crying your name.”

Cleopatra held herself tightly. She would have died of love for Antony, and now their love had kept him from his heaven.

“And I?” Cleopatra managed.