Chapter 20
The Fairest Of Them All
LYRA
Behind me, Boone mutters, and I don’t entirely catch it. But the gist seems to be along the lines of they’re really fucking with our heads.
His mumble draws Persephone’s glance, and for half a beat, I swear shock ripples across her expression the same way the earthquakes make the ground shake. But I second-guess that when she beams at him.
“So you really are stuck in Tartarus.” It’s the first thing that comes out of my mouth. I’ve been wondering for the days we’ve been stuck in here if Persephone was a lie perpetrated by the Titans to get Hades to do what they wanted. To get me in here.
“I really am,” she says, pulling her gaze back to me.
“How?” I ask next.
She shrugs. “Your guess is as good as anyone’s.”
Too flippant. I have to unclench my jaw to answer. “Not good enough.”
Her smile might as well have sunbeams and butterflies attached—it’s that perfect. “You don’t like me now,” she says. “But trust me, you and I are going to be great friends.”
I give her a flat look. “You got the first part right.”
My rude comment doesn’t even faze Persephone. Instead, she just aims the beam of her smile over my shoulder. “You’re new,” she says in a voice laced with cheerful interest, cocking her head to eye Boone. “They told me Lyra brought a friend this time.”
“This time—” I snap. And I almost go into grilling her about what resetting and this time really mean around here. But I won’t trust her answers. Not yet. So I change it to, “Where were you this time? You were supposed to be waiting at the gates of Tartarus.”
Persephone cringes, and even that’s adorable.
She’s not drop-dead gorgeous like Aphrodite, who, like the Titans, has the kind of beauty you can hardly stand to look at.
It’s more like she’s…attainable. The kind of pretty that makes you feel warm and cozy just to be near her but not like you’re imposing on her perfect world.
Which only makes me resent her more.
If she’s Glinda, then—with my green eyes and long black hair twisted haphazardly on my head, thanks to no mirrors—I am clearly the Wicked Witch of the two of us.
Awesome.
Love that for me.
“I am sorry about that,” she says slowly, as if she’s carefully choosing her words. “If you knew what I know, you’d understand—”
Boone glowers at her. “You set a trap for Lyra.”
Persephone blinks, like she’s not used to anyone confronting her. “I wouldn’t call it a trap exactly.”
Boone’s grunt is disbelieving. “Did you somehow send a communication to Hades that you would be waiting at the Gates when he used Pandora’s Box to open the one-time-only back door out for you?”
“Well…” Her gaze skitters between us. “Sort of—”
“And instead, you sent fucking Cronos.” Now his voice has gone deadly quiet. It’s rare to see Boone pissed, but that’s what he is right now. Or “pissed” isn’t quite right. There’s an odd edge to the blame he’s throwing her way.
Persephone attempts a conciliatory smile. “That’s not—”
“Yes or no,” he demands. Even quieter.
For the first time since she appeared, her smile dims slightly before she glances away. “That’s how it ended up. Yes.”
“Then fuck you.”
Even I throw him a startled look. Boone doesn’t swear at women or children.
Persephone’s lavender eyes widen, then darken with a lost-little-girl kind of hurt that makes even me want to hug her. And, since he’s close, I can tell that Boone stiffens, too. But he doesn’t take it back.
Not that he needs to. In the next instant, Persephone’s hurt disappears like mist clearing in sunshine, and her smile brightens several watts. “When I tell you why, then you’ll forgive me.” She nods like this makes everything better.
Boone scoffs. “I doubt that.”
So do I.
“Why, then?” he demands next.
She purses her lips. Seriously. She’s like an anime character, she’s so damned cute. “I can’t tell you yet.”
“Uh-huh.”
He and I plant our hands on our hips at the same time, and Persephone stares between us again, amusement drawing up one corner of the cupid’s bow of her lips. And all I can think is, Of course the person Hades is supposed to be in love with is this flawless.
In fact, come to think of it, maybe Zeus didn’t curse me to be unlovable after all. Maybe he actually cursed me to be unlucky, and I’ve had it wrong all this time.
“Rhea warned you that if Lyra learns too much too fast, she can reset time.”
We both lean back. “She didn’t say it quite that way,” I mutter.
Damned Titans.
Persephone shrugs. “We have to be careful not to trigger you too much.” Another sunny smile. “Generally, it’s much better when you figure things out on your own.”
More fun and games for me. This place blows.
“I have to show you something important,” she says.
Suddenly, vines whip out, and before I can blink, I’m wrapped in greenery and being lifted up the side of the pillar alongside Persephone.
“Hey!” Boone snarls in a tone that says what she just did lands somewhere between obliviously naive and dangerously foolhardy.
I glance down in time to see him grab a handful of vines, craning his neck to look up at us.
Persephone doesn’t stop, tossing words over her shoulder at him. “I thought a god of thieves would have faster reflexes than that. Try to keep up.”
“Will these vines let me?”
She brushes a fingertip over a broad, shiny leaf that seems to nuzzle into her touch as she passes by. “Because I tell them to, they will.”
“Then do it,” he snaps.
A half second later, Boone is lifted upward to follow us. “I don’t like this.” He’s still snarling.
Persephone shrugs. “You need to see something.”
She’s looking up. I don’t like not being able to see her face. It feels like she’s hiding things. She’s like an evil little pixie trying to convince us she’s made of light.
We all fall silent as the vines quietly rasp all around us.
Tendrils wind and unwind from around my legs, my feet, my waist as the greenery passes me from one level to the next, but so gently I can’t decide if I’m in danger or not.
Anything strong enough to carry all of us up so high is also strong enough to kill.
My axe is in my hand, though, and Boone is with me. Those are the only reasons I’m not asking more questions.
As we continue to rise, I can see more and more entrances to tunnels that end at the sheer face of the mountain, but there doesn’t appear to be rhyme or reason to their layout. No levels, no patterns. Where could so many possibly lead?
I really, really want to ask about that.
Rhea’s use of “cells” implies individual prisons, but so far, we’ve only seen ten Titans down here, plus Persephone.
That’s a lot of tunnels for only fourteen cells.
Persephone doesn’t even give the tunnel holes a glance, and it’s not important enough yet to take that side quest.
She keeps going, us trailing behind, and several times I look down to find Boone staring with stony determination, arms crossed, and not moving as the vines raise him higher.
Which is when I finally remember…he’s afraid of heights.
I’ve never been sure because I think he hides it, but now it tracks.
That makes his fall off Hephaestus’ tower in the Crucible even worse.
The third time I glance down, he gives me a tiny whistle telling me to stop. So I face upward and quit checking.
We’re lifted up until we get to the top, where the rock that forms the underground mountain merges into the ceiling.
The pillar seems to keep going into the rock, punching through.
These truly are the pillars that formed and feed the cosmos.
There’s a flat, narrow balcony without a railing that circles the pillar just below the ceiling, so we can walk around up here.
But I’m not looking at where the root punches into the rock and, I assume, keeps going. I’m looking at—
“What happened here?” Boone demands, and I turn to find him coming up over the ridge, gaze glued to what I was just staring at.
Persephone follows his look to the marks—scorch marks, blast marks, claw marks—all along the stone where the roots penetrate.
Permanent scars of violence.
“Oh.” She waves an uncaring hand at them. “The Titans have tried everything to get out of here.”