She falls into step beside me, still guiding as if she really is a wedding planner. Maybe she is. Maybe she’s spent her life shuttling distraught brides around various wedding venues. But she looks too young for that until I really look, until I take in the dark, subtle sweep of her makeup. No one hires queens to be wedding planners. I’m losing it now, surely, as we pass by a stained glass window that’s spilled colors onto the carpet. A louder voice—my father’s—cuts into the space behind us. I can’t make out the words but some part of me, some small, stupid part of me, freezes.
Persephone hauls me forward with such force that I almost trip over my tulle prison. We round a corner and a droplet of sweat runs down my spine. If they all come after us, there’s no getting out. This woman, this girl, is not going to be my heroine if all the wedding guests form a mob looking for the bride. I have a vision of being dragged to the altar kicking and screaming. “Behind us,” she says simply. “We’ll have to walk faster.”
Or else he might catch us.
But then I wouldn’t kick and scream, would I? I didn’t fight Zeus.
I barely fought my uncle.
“This way.” Persephone pushes open a door, her face serene, the hint of a smile on her lips. I want to take her beautiful, perfect face in my hands and shake her until she tells me what’s really going on. Tells me the secret of how she can be so calm while she’s boosting me from my own wedding. The bouquet slips in my hands and I catch it. A dropped bouquet would be a clue, a way to find me—
The gasp that comes out of my mouth is otherworldly. “The petals. They’ll follow us with the petals.”
Persephone hooks her arm around my waist and yanks me out the door into golden afternoon sun. A group of young men across the street cheer for me, and she waves brightly, blowing a kiss. They don’t know. Nobody knows what horrifying thing happened in there. Persephone turns me to face her. “This isn’t Hansel and Gretel. And no petals fell out of your bouquet. Now get in the car.”
“What—”
She points over her shoulder.
How does a person miss a black SUV of that size?
It’s thirty feet down the block.
I’m never going to make it.
My legs are pinned to the ground even while my ankles wobble. “The car seems pretty far.” Another whistle from across the street. Any moment now, the door behind us will burst open to reveal my father and his grasping hands. Or worse yet, my uncle and his long, thin fingers, the pinch of his face, the lecherous smile. Both of them at once. They’ll make me pay for Persephone’s interruption. “I don’t think I can walk that far.”
“It’s walk or die.” Persephone cracks a smile and I can see why Zeus’s brother would fall in love with her. I can see why anyone would fall in love with her. “Not really. It’s walk or this gets even more awkward than it already is.”
“Where did you send my uncle?”
The smile transforms into something else—something with a harder edge. “To meet with the priest, like I said. Walk.” It takes her arm in mine to get me to move, my knees giving out with every step.
“Ten more feet,” she says.
The door of the SUV opens and a man gets out.
My heart stops.
The only person I’ve ever seen who is this tall and this beautiful is Zeus. They look nothing alike, not really, but the way he stands reminds me of his brother. It’s the man from the painting, and just like that painting, his eyes are a deep black, like night has overtaken the blue. The animal part of my brain shrieks a warning—danger, danger, danger. It’s danger dressed in more black, black on black, the fabric as fine as what Persephone is wearing. Better, even. A suit made for him like a second skin. It accentuates all the hard lines of him. He’s indestructible. The SUV looks fragile in comparison.
And his face.
His eyes don’t travel over mine. They’re watching something behind us with such deadly concentration that it steals the air from my lungs. “Too late,” he says as we come level with the SUV. “So slow. He won’t even see us leave.”
Hades. I’ve heard about him, but there is nothing so shocking as seeing him in person, out here in the sunlight. He looks like he belongs in a dark shadow. He looks like he would be at ease killing my uncle, or my father, or any number of the people in the cathedral.
Persephone goes to him and puts her hand in his. He’s so tall, and she’s so delicate, and I can’t see how they can be together. It must be like that with—
With me and Zeus. But there is no me and Zeus. He made that perfectly clear.
Hades helps Persephone into the SUV and then offers me his hand, his eyes coming to rest on me for the first time. I wish I could say the shudder was pure fear, but it’s more complicated than that. It’s standing in the presence of a dangerous god. If Zeus is the sun, Hades is the night, and all the dark things that come with it.
It’s a mistake, this thinking. It’s a mistake to think that Zeus is any less lethal because he’s so golden, with that heartbreaker of a smile. The things Zeus does happen in the daylight.
I’m staring, and with an impatient hiss Hades helps me into the SUV.
There’s a dog in here.
A huge dog, black as night. I wasn’t expecting a dog. Now I have to deal with this monstrosity of a dress and I can’t move. What if it bites me?
Hades climbs in behind me, brushing aside the dress, and gives my shoulder a glancing push. It takes me backward onto the seat. Good thing, because I’m frozen now.
The vehicle pulls away from the curb. It’s enormous. Big enough for a man like Hades to look comfortable in the seat across from me, and big enough to fit what must be his dog. Only his dog would be this big, coat shiny and teeth shinier.
“Conor,” he says. “Come here.”
Conor turns in his spot and goes to him, putting his head on one perfect pant leg. But it’s not only Conor that comes close. Persephone curls up at Hades’ side. Her body eases into his. One of the stems on my bouquet snaps from holding it too hard. I want to scream at her not to get so close to someone so deadly, but she doesn’t seem to mind. Her nose brushes his cheek and she tilts her head to kiss the side of his neck.
They are both fully dressed. Hades’ eyes are on me, tracking, watching as if I might throw myself out of the moving vehicle at any moment. But the way Persephone touches him is so shockingly intimate. How can she do it?
How could you?
I know the answer, but it hurts too much to think about it. I was being toyed with. It’s nothing like the dark current that goes between them, taut and unbreakable. Hades lets out a breath and runs a hand over her hair, and I swear, I swear, his pupils retreat. There’s more blue around his eyes. Goose bumps rush from my wrists to my shoulders. The careful blank wall I’ve been holding around my mind snaps back into place. Even that wall can’t keep out the slow leak of emotion. No—no. I won’t feel it. I’ve been an empty shell since that window broke behind me and I’ll never be anything else again. His hand works at the back of her head. Pins fall like raindrops. The careful style comes to pieces and her hair spills down her back in bronze curls.
“I want you out of that costume,” says Hades.
Me?