She followed him to an elaborate footbridge made of dark wood planks embellished with iron and stone. On one side of the bridge stood a sculpture of a life-sized, sinister-looking creature that was half dog, half beast.

“This is the closest thing Edmund and I had to a pet,” Reese quipped. “Sophie, meet Rex.”

A chill skittered down her spine as she put it all together: the pavilion, the moat, the strange trees and plants … and the ferocious guard dog made of stone. “That’s not Rex,” she whispered.

Reese turned to look at her, his expression curious. “What do you mean?”

“That’s Cerberus,” she said slowly. “Hades’ dog.”

“But he only has one head,” Reese countered.

Sophie reached up and ran a hand over the cool stone at the dog’s neck. A couple of areas were not as polished as the others—almost as if the stone there had been chipped away and filed down. “I think he must have had three heads at one time.”

“Cerberus,” Reese muttered. “That would explain why our pet dog had such ferocious-looking teeth. But why place a statue of Cerberus here? It seems rather random.”

“Not at all,” Sophie said, more than a little awed. “It all fits perfectly. Unless I’m mistaken, this entire garden is modeled after the Underworld.”

Chapter 10

Reese scratched his head, skeptical. “Granted, this might not be your typical English garden, full of obedient rosebushes and tidy hedges, but … the Underworld?”

Sophie’s blue eyes seemed to capture the light from every star that shone above, and she nodded as if delighted to discover that his garden was some sort of tribute to Hades, God of the Dead. “Isn’t it fantastic?” she whispered, almost reverent.

“Wonderful,” he said dryly. He gazed warily at the cloudy water lapping at the rocks beneath the footbridge. “Ready to cross the River Styx?”

She gave Cerberus’s head an affectionate pat and strode to the center of the bridge before stopping abruptly. “I almost forgot. We’re supposed to pay the ferryman.” She inclined her head toward the water meaningfully.

“Of course we are,” Reese grumbled, but he jammed a hand in his pocket, withdrew a coin, and flipped it into the water, where it landed with a plunk.

Sophie’s gleeful expression made him want to toss a dozen more coins in the godforsaken moat.

All his worries that she’d find the house too imposing or dismal had been for naught. Indeed, she seemed to appreciate its oddities and eccentricities.

As he led her deeper into the garden, he could almost see her shrewd eyes assessing each area, wondering about the choices of flora, noting the spots that required attention. He could almost see her palms itching to prune and weed and tend.

“I need to brush up on my mythology,” she mused. “I’m certain there are all sorts of clever clues hidden among the plants and sculptures.”