Chapter 75
Souls
LYRA
Time doesn’t drop me off in the same room as Cronos.
It carries me all the way to the arched door of Hades’ Lock.
Hades’ copy still doesn’t know whether I’m injured or not after my blood dripped down to him.
I raise my hand to the glowing symbol in the center of the wall, not sure if he’s even going to let me in. Not after the last time we talked.
I place my hand over his symbol.
Nothing.
“Hades?” His name comes out soft. Tentative.
The door opens so fast I can feel the movement of it in the rush of air against my skin.
Then he’s there.
Standing on the other side, looking enigmatic. Cold.
“So,” he drawls in a bored voice. “You’re alive.”
I open my mouth to say yes, then realize that’s not entirely true.
He must see the way I pause, because the cold drops away to reveal something I might once have mistaken as anger. But because I know Hades, the real Hades, I see the worry behind it, even in this replica’s eyes.
“What happened?” he asks.
“I… Well…” How to explain? “A future version of me—now a past version, I guess—died.” Was that technically still today? I’ve lived over a hundred days since then, with extra days in the Underworld sometimes.
“What?” He takes the tiniest jerking step forward, and the toe of his boot crosses the threshold. Hades grunts, expression twisting in what might be pain before he disappears entirely, and the door slams closed again. His symbol goes dark. Like the lights are off. No one at home.
I’m left standing with my jaw hanging open, staring at the carved symbols on the rock face.
“That was quite careless of him.” I jump at the sound of a female voice echoing through the chamber. A familiar voice. “He won’t return for some time, I’m afraid.”
After a terrified glance at the Pandemonium tunnel, I back up slowly and scoot right until I can see Demeter standing in her own doorway.
I was busy when I unsealed her Lock, and I don’t think I’ve looked at the symbols on her archway until now—a cornucopia, a plow, a torch, poppy flowers, and snakes.
I’m guessing the symbol in the center is a sheaf of wheat, but with the door open, I can’t see it.
“Sorry,” I say. “But what?”
She cants her head in the direction of Hades’ door. “If we cross the barrier, we have to regenerate. It takes time.”
I frown, looking between her and the closed Lock. I have so many questions. “Regenerate from what?” I ask. “What are you, exactly?”
Demeter tosses her coppery golden hair over her shoulder. “When we made this place, we left small pieces of our souls—our essences, I guess you could call it—in these Locks. As guardians.” She peers closer at me. “Didn’t they tell you?”
I shake my head slowly. Pieces of their souls?
I glance again at Hades’ Lock, heart turning over even while my mind twists to make it make sense.
It’s him in here. Not him him, the real him, but still a piece of him, in a way I don’t really understand, and yet something inside me is telling me that this means more than I thought.
He’s not just a recording or a trick, but a piece of Hades’ own soul.
I open my mouth, then close it again, thinking. “But Hestia…”
How do I say that she wasn’t really there?
It turns out I don’t have to. At the sound of her sister’s name, Demeter appears to shrink in on herself, her eyes gaining shadows that seem to come from within her.
“Our sister died in the Overworld, and it affected the remaining piece of her down here. We are like shadows and draw our existence from the souls we were cut from.”
In other words, if Hades dies up there, then he dies down here, too, leaving behind a glitching version of himself that can only repeat basic instructions. The way Hestia’s replica did. “Is that true the other way around?” I have to ask.
If Hades dies down here, is the real Hades above affected?
She shakes her head. “We’re from them, not them from us.”
“I see.” Not really, but close enough. My heart isn’t quite sure how to handle that truth. “If you can’t leave the Locks, then what good are you as guardians?”
Another toss of her hair, but this time in irritation. “It’s better than no eyes down here at all.”
Trapping their own souls in the worst part of the hells doesn’t seem like all that great a solution to me.
“Can you feel them?” I ask next. Then take an eager step forward. “Talk to them?”
“We can feel them sometimes.” Now Demeter’s just toying with me. “When their emotions are high.”
I deflate. “That’s it?”
Although…it seems to me that Hades’ emotions must be pretty high at the moment where he is. Is that why the Hades down here seems more and more like my Hades with each interaction? Because he can feel what my Hades feels?
I’m hating the idea of this more and more. Hades trapped himself, or part of himself, down here. Forever. Alone.
They all did.
They were that desperate. A desperation built on lies, but still, no wonder his replica was so pissed at me.
“At least you can move between the Locks.” So they aren’t lonely.
Demeter’s perfectly curved eyebrows shoot up. “How do you know about that?”
“Hades helped me during your Lock—”
Her eyebrows go from high to low in a fierce frown. “He did what?” Her face contorts with fury. “That squirrelly cheater.”
“Didn’t you see?”
Without so much as a “see you later,” she’s gone, and the door to her Lock closes. The wheat sheaf that is Demeter’s symbol glows golden in the center of the archway.
“Hey—” I cut off whatever I was going to say in my throat.
No point in arguing now. Then I lift my gaze to the ceiling and past it—past the Underworld, past the Overworld, all the way to Olympus.
“When I get back up there,” I tell all the gods who can’t hear me, “we’re going to do seminars on better communication. ”
No wonder Hermes is so grumpy, being that he’s the messenger god in charge of communication and all. His family must drive him to distraction. His job must be like a game of adolescent giggling girls at a sleepover playing telephone.
Not that I ever played the game, but that’s neither here nor there.
The sound of boots coming down the tunnel toward me has me turning around. Because whoever is coming—and it’s not the Pandemonium because those fuckers are silent—is not walking. They’re running.
Boone bursts from the tunnel, only to skid to a halt at the sight of me, followed by a fierce glower. “What in the name of the Underworld are you doing down here?”