Chapter 35 Reality Bites
Reality Bites
LYRA
Without being stopped or bumping into anyone else, I make it to the chamber that circles the Locks, but I don’t place my palm on the etching of his bident.
I’ll just stand here struggling with the need to see his face, to touch him, even if it’s just to hold his replica’s hand.
I’m even tempted to track down a broken piece of time and jump in it to find the real thing.
But I won’t. It’s not going to help. Deep down, I know that.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been standing here when the Lock unexpectedly changes. The etching in the hard rock sparks to life with glittering blue light. Like he knows I’m out here and is inviting me in.
My heart twists around itself, aching behind my ribs.
A sensation I push down deep, where it can be smothered. But I also don’t leave, standing with my arms wrapped around me, staring at that symbol, lost in the swirl of my own thoughts and trying not to feel.
“I didn’t think you were going to practice more.” Boone says the words quietly, and I jump a little.
But I don’t turn.
“He’s not there, you know,” Boone says next.
“I know.”
I feel more than see him move to stand beside me, looking up at the symbol that flares briefly, almost like a warning. Message clear: Boone is not welcome in the Lock.
He leans closer, voice low. “I think we need to be careful down here.”
“Duh.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “This place is a mind fuck, and that might be the most dangerous part of it.”
I frown at him, because he’s not being general right now. “What do you mean?”
He makes a face, like he doesn’t love telling me this. “I’ve seen Persephone before.”
That gets me to turn away from Hades’ Lock. “What?”
He reaches up a hand, I assume to rub at his beard, because he stops when he encounters smooth skin and drops it again. It’s surprised me a few times since Hestia’s Lock, when it changed. He’s worn the scruffy beard for a few years now.
“She’s foiled a few scores for me.”
I practically stumble back at that. “What the hells, Boone? That’s important information. You should have told me—”
“I wanted to make sure it was…real first. But…” He glances behind us toward the tunnels. “I don’t know how to do that. Not down here.”
I think through that, and he’s not wrong. We don’t know what to believe or trust. “Foiled your scores how?”
“I thought she was another thief, maybe from another den who’d earned her way out of debt and went solo. She would show up out of nowhere and do something that would cause enough problems that I’d have to cancel the score, and then she’d disappear like a ghost.”
Or like a time-traveling goddess trapped in Tartarus. “That must mean she’s gone through the broken time like us, and it took her to you.”
Several times, it sounds like. Is this how Hades felt about my random visits? Did he resent me? Not trust me? Hate me, even?
My stomach turns.
“That’s what they want us to think it means.” Boone still doesn’t trust anything about those cracks.
“What does Persephone say?”
He scowls. “I’m not talking to her about it.”
“Why? Ask her for details and see if her story lines up with yours—”
“Hestia’s Lock revealed things I wanted most.” He cuts me off. “Things no one else could know. A partner for my business. I never told anyone about that. Not a damn soul. If they know things like that already…”
Persephone could already know about those moments, or they planted those memories in his head to get him to trust her down here.
I see where he’s going with it.
I frown. “If you don’t believe it’s real, then why tell me now?”
He hitches his chin at the Lock. “Because you’re here.” Then Boone gives me a look that’s part pity, part hard truth. “Why are you down here, Lyra?”
Heaviness tries to drag my heart down. “I wanted to talk to someone.”
To Hades.
Boone nods. “Then talk to me.”
I press my lips together, holding back the words. He’s already dealing with enough of my shit.
“I mean it,” Boone says.
“Perhaps she doesn’t wish to talk to you.”
I spin around on a gasp to find that the arched door to Hades’ Lock has opened and the replica of my god of death is standing right at the edge. Lounging indolently, more like, leaning one shoulder against the thick stone opening.
“We didn’t open the door,” Boone says.
Hades picks at a piece of nonexistent lint on his brown cloak. “You were both making such a racket, I couldn’t sleep.”
I can’t help my amusement, because that is just such a Hades answer. He’s messing with Boone for the hells of it.
The way Hades’ eyes flick to my mouth and the corners of his own draw up just the barest little bit is also him. But now that ache is back.
Because it’s not him. Not really.
I expect Boone to snarl back something about apparitions not needing sleep—not that gods truly do, either, and we sleep anyway, or more like rest our minds. Instead, he slips an arm casually around my waist, allowing his hand to drift dangerously close to my ass.
I go stiff because we don’t touch like this. It’s not our dynamic.
Hades also goes still. The warning kind of still when he’s debating how best to strike.
Boone studies him right back with cocky arrogance in a smirk that, as the lengthening seconds pass, grows to a taunting grin.
Then he turns that grin on me. “I don’t think he likes me touching you.”
I give him a flat look. “Don’t use me to poke at a god’s facsimile.”
A flash of emotion crosses his features, tightening them, and I think it might be hurt. “That’s not what I’m doing, Lyra.”
“What are you doing, then?”
Boone doesn’t remove his arm, but he turns as serious as a reaper. “Proving a point. That this Hades isn’t real.” He points. “He’s bound to that Lock. He isn’t him.”
I glance between my friend and a version of Hades that feels so real it hurts.
“Don’t trust anything or anyone down here,” Boone says.
My heart cracks right down the center. Because Boone is right.
The real Hades wouldn’t just stand there silently watching this exchange. He’d put an end to it.
I turn away from this pale imitation, even while everything inside me screams at me to stay. “Let’s go.”