Poseidon huffs a breath and his shoulders move down an inch. It’s obvious he’s dressed for the occasion but he’d rather be in sea clothes on the deck of some ship fighting for its life. I’ll never understand it. But when he steps forward and puts out a hand, I shake it without crushing it. Cold, like he’s recently been out on the deck.
“I didn’t want to come,” he says. “But here I fucking am.”
“Yes.” We’re still pretending to be civil. “Poseidon, this is Persephone. Persephone, meet my brother.”
He does not put out his hand to her. Instead, he sweeps his eyes over her like he’s just now noticing that she’s there. “About that. What the fuck is Demeter’s daughter doing at our meeting?”
10
Persephone
He really just said that.
I want to step behind Hades and hide, but there’s not a chance in the world I’d embarrass him like that. It’s just that Poseidon said it with such scorn and suspicion. About me. During our introduction. This is not getting off to a great start. My cheeks heat with shame. Was there something I did? A look I gave him? I don’t know. What do people normally do when an enormous muscled man who is clearly not meant for nice suits comes into a room and looks it over like he’s deciding which things to loot?
Hades's eyes narrow a fraction of an inch, but otherwise he makes no move toward me. That must mean that this is all right. That I’m not in any actual danger from Poseidon, though it feels like it. It feels like he’s brought the whole sea into the room with him and it’s slowly rising from my ankles to my shins to my knees and soon we’ll drown in an angry storm.
All that from a man in a suit.
“Don’t be an asshole,” Hades says, his tone light. “You know why she’s here.”
“I know she’s here. The whispers that got to my ship didn’t explain why.” Poseidon raises his eyebrows, a light in his eyes. “I’ve been waiting all this time to hear the story straight from your mouth.”
Hades sighs impatiently. “There’s no story, other than what you already know.”
He’s hedging.
Why?
I hate that everyone else knows so much more about this than I do. If my mother were actually here I might have the courage to slap her over it. Or at least yell. Crush a flower in front of her. Something.
A grin spreads over Poseidon's face and he regards Hades with an admiration that makes my stomach turn. “I didn’t think you’d take revenge on an innocent. I approve, of course.”
“This isn’t revenge.” I discover that my fists have balled up at my sides, hot anger raking itself down the back of my neck. How many times did I stand in my mother’s kitchen with a straight face and rage boiling in my belly, acid and thick. Hades puts an arm out and I run into it only to find that I’ve already been moving. What is my plan, even, to attack him? I don’t care. Someone else is going to be the one who’s confused and hurt and shocked. It’s not going to be me. “Take it back.”
Poseidon chortles and I hate him with a perfect clarity. “She’s too much like her. How can you stand it?”
Hades says nothing and the betrayal of it pulls the breath out of my lungs. I have no other choice but to look back at Poseidon, who’s looking back at me, eyes darkening.
I know that look.
It’s the look of a man who’s not seeing the present. He’s seeing the past. I’ve seen it on Hades's face before, and nothing good comes of it. I’m only protected because for some reason he wants me.
Poseidon doesn’t care if I live or die.
In fact, I’m pretty sure he’d like it if I was dead.
Demeter offered you in exchange for services I provided. Her betrayal hasn’t mattered to me much in light of everything else that’s happened. I pushed it away. Who has time to worry about their insane mother when their house is under attack? But now I have the sickening sense that I ignored something important. And now I look like a fool.
Poseidon shifts his weight from one foot to another and Conor scrambles in front of me, hackles raised. Across the room Oliver puts a hand to his belt. He’s reaching for his gun. My lungs fill up with ice, freezing from the bottom with the cold spreading out like a fast cancer. I swear the temperature in the room plummets. Poseidon’s eyes are depthless, and I've never been to the ocean but I know about the things that swim in the deep. Teeth as long as my arm. Powerful bodies. A way with water. A girl in a dress would struggle and sink, like I’m struggling and sinking now, waiting for jaws to clamp shut.
He moves again and Hades's hand flexes, opening so that it covers more of my soft, stupid body. Tension pushes in at my ears, at my head, and now I know why he didn’t want Poseidon to come here. All these brothers are dry fuses waiting to be lit.
“Why didn’t you take care of this?” Poseidon slashes a hand through the air, eyes going back to Hades. “Do you owe her?”
Without this little fool here, none of the rest is in motion.
“It’s not that way.” Hades finally speaks, and his voice is the only lifeline I have in this room, with the force of the ocean blocking the door. “Leave it, Poseidon.”
“No, don’t.” I will never get out from this shame, never put the ground back together under my feet, until everyone stops burying the truth under code words and allusions. I want to rip out the overgrown grass and see the soil for what it is. And yes, yes. I’m terrified of getting my hands dirty like this. A lifetime spent digging in the dirt should have prepared me but this feels like driving a knife under the ground without knowing if there’s something living under the surface. I’m going to do it anyway. “Don’t leave it. I’m standing right here.”
“Persephone—” Hades tone as loud as warning as I’ve ever heard.
I curl my fingers through Hades's—I don’t care if Poseidon sees—and step out from behind him. “Tell me what you’re talking about.” They’re done talking over my head like I’m just Demeter’s daughter and not a grown woman. “Tell me about this revenge that you think you’re seeing.” I watch Poseidon with all the scorn I’ve saved up over the years. All the times I’ve never glared at my mother, all the times I kept my face expressionless—those times are dead and buried now.
Poseidon pretends to shiver. “It’s like that bitch stepped out of the past.”
Conor barks.
Just once.
Hades has gone completely still by my side, hardly breathing. I can’t tell if he’s thinking of killing Poseidon or bringing the walls down. A creeping fear—maybe he can’t. He’s gone to great lengths to prove that the fight with Zeus was nothing, that it had no effect, but I know it does. I know, because sometimes the blankets brush his skin and he flinches in his sleep.
I’m tired, exhausted, from trying to reason this out. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for him all this time, making all these decisions, tracing the threads of every decision forward and back until they weave themselves into something coherent. The mountain. The city in the mountain. All those lives.