Once again, always, I’m taken by surprise.
It’s not a hallway down here. It’s a village.
A big, tall village. Like a city street carved out of a cave. That’s exactly what it is, I realize. Three floors, one stacked on top of the other. Balconies out front. People go back and forth between the doors, disappearing into staircases, footsteps bouncing off the walls in a friendly rhythm.
So. Many. People.
I want to know all of them.
Conor wags his tail and I wipe my hands on the front of my dress. When Hades told me to come down here the people seemed like an abstraction, but now I’m seeing families. Mothers, walking with daughters. A dad, hurrying down the street while he waves to a small son.
The man I saw in the moonlight on that train platform would never have done this. But he already had done this. It was in progress before he brought me home. And it’s only now that he’s mentioned it. That he let me see.
This, of all things, is an enormous risk. The air has gone thin, my pulse jagged, off its regular pattern. I should cover my eyes. I shouldn’t see this. It’s too much.
I think of that tower falling, the fool at the center of it.
Because that’s what it means, to know someone like this. I can’t wrap my mind around it. It’s like holding a beating heart in my hands, and my hands aren’t big enough.
“That’s bullshit.” A guy coming down the side of the street misses a step then keeps going. But I’m right. It is bullshit for me to think that Hades, of all people, would have sent me somewhere he didn’t want me to go. It’s dangerous to stand inside someone’s living soul. I’m going to do it anyway.
I’m not my mother’s daughter anymore.
Or I’m really my mother’s daughter, and she’d burn down the world to get what she wanted.
Either way. Conor’s getting impatient so I go down the street. Hades didn’t give me much of a plan. Knocking on doors doesn’t seem very queenlike. I pass by a tiny café, set back under an awning, and—he was hiding this entire place. It’s not just housing. It’s places to eat and places to buy clothes. An honest-to-God jewelry store.
All those rumors about the mountain being worse than hell, and it’s just...an economy. Like the ones we learned about in school. Smaller than a country, obviously, but...it’s just people. Living here. Because they want to live here. A man comes out of a house up ahead and when he comes level with me I notice his eyes—too black for the gentle light that comes from inset lights in the ceiling.
Someone sniffles on the side of the street, and Conor stops, leaning out toward the noise.
A girl—a little blonde girl in a blue dress, a matching bow in her hair. She can’t be more than five, and when she sees me looking her eyes go wide.
I look up and down the street. It’s not like she’s going to get hit by a car, but she’s alone, and nobody seems like they’re watching her. Conor and I cross to her and I kneel down to her level. “Hi.” How do you even talk to small children? I have no idea. My life is one surprise test after another. “My name is Persephone, and I live here in the mountain, too. Are you lost?”
She sniffles again, and my heart breaks for her. This girl is adorable. It’s unreal, how cute she is. If I’d known that people like her were living down here, I’d have killed Zeus myself. Or I would have tried.
“I’ve never seen you before.” She swipes her hand over her eyes.
“I live on another floor.” That’s accurate. “What’s your name?”
“Jill,” she answers, and her lip quivers. “I don’t know where my mom is.”
I fight back an awkwardness so intense that I want to run back to Hades and demand to know what he was thinking. Obviously, I can’t abandon a girl here alone. “Um. Is she...at work, maybe?”
“At home. I came down because my ball rolled across to the other side.” Jill opens one hand and shows me a pink ball the size of an egg. “And now I can’t find her.”
“We’ll find her together.” I offer her my hand and she takes it, and now I am knocking on doors. What else is there to do? The second door opens on a man who tells me that Jill’s mom lives five doors down. In a place like this, a ball could roll pretty far before it stopped.
It turns out that Jill’s mom isn’t at home. We knock on the door at the same time the next one opens, and two women come out into the hall, faces set. They’re on a mission. One of them, with the same blonde hair as Jill, drops to her knees and pulls her close. The other gives me a quick wave and disappears back behind the door. “Jilly Bean, where did you go?” The woman looks up at me and startles. “You’re—I’m sorry.”
She’s nervous. About me.
She stands up and sticks out her hand to chase. “I’m nobody, really, and you’re Persephone. Thanks for bringing my daughter back.”
“You’re not nobody. I came to talk to you, actually.”
She frowns and pushes Jill slightly behind her. “About what?”
“About whether you’re okay,” I say quickly. “About whether you need anything. Food. Medical—you know, assistance.”
Her gaze darts up and down the hall then comes back to mine. “I know he was here. Zeus. It wasn’t for any of us, was it?”
“No. Of course not. Why would he be here for you?” Mortifying. I’m supposed to know these answers already. “You work here, don’t you? So Zeus would have nothing to do with that.”
She leans closer. “I used to work for the man.” Her eyes search mine. “You know what he does for a living. You’re with Hades, so you know.”
My mouth goes dry. “I do know.” Zeus, for all his fancy things and nice parties, is as much of a threat as his brother. “I’ve been there.”
“I don’t want to go back there.” The edge in her voice tells me exactly how much she doesn’t. “I don’t want to do that kind of work anymore.”
“Really?” I put a hand to my forehead. “I’m sorry—that’s not something to ask. I only meant...”
“I’d rather work here. I didn’t have a job when I came here. Blacklisted, because of Zeus.” A dark flash in her eyes. “Hades let me sign a contract. Now I set stones into the bigger pieces he produces. We’re both safe here.”
For now, I think, as we exchange quick good-byes, the conversation coming to an abrupt end. The woman is gone, with her daughter, before I can ask for her name.
9
Hades
There is a small balcony, more of an outcropping, near the lookout. There’s nothing between it and the sea, and the salt spray occasionally gets carried up here on the wind and hits me in the face. Every time it does, Conor barks at the window. He’s going to keep that water in its place, everything else be damned.
It’s been a week.
It’s cold as fuck, and the food is running out.
Persephone came back from the mines a week ago wearing a strange expression. For once, she didn’t ask any questions. Instead she pulled her dress over her head and let it fall to the carpet. There was little discussion after that.