Chapter 4
As I watched, too stunned to do anything else, the white began to leak from her eyes, and her grin slipped as electric blue irises and dark pupils began to form.
“No. Fucking. Way,” she said slowly.
I moved my mouth but no words came out. I just gaped at her, and she gaped back.
“He found you. He actually fucking found you. Oh gods, Hades is gonna... Oh shit. Oh shit, shit, shit!” She stamped her foot, her silky voice rising in pitch and her hands flexing into fists.
“Who found me?” I half-whispered. “And... why is everyone talking about Hades?”
The woman chewed on her bottom lip as her black brows drew together. She shook her head.
'Zeus. Zeus found you. I don't believe it.”
I let out a barked laugh and she leaned one hand on her hip, unsmiling.
“It's not funny, it's a fucking disaster.”
“What are you talking about? And who are you?” I said, my confidence growing at her words. I'd been obsessed with Greek mythology since I was a kid. This was definitely something my stupid-ass brain would make up.
“I'm Hecate. And you're Persephone. And you're not supposed to be here, that's what I'm talking about.”
“Hecate? As in the goddess of magic?”
“Amongst other things, yeah,” she said, regarding me. “So... you remember some stuff then?”
“From classical studies? Yeah, I remember loads,” I said, frowning. “I carried on studying Greeks and Romans after school.”
“Classical studies. Right,” Hecate said, nodding slowly. “You remember nothing from...” she trailed off, raising one perfect eyebrow at me. I raised both of mine back at her.
“What are you talking about?” I said eventually, when she didn't speak. She blew out a sigh.
“Hades is going to lose it when he sees you. But I guess that's what you get for pissing off the Lord of the Gods. Fucking idiot.”
“Hades is a fucking idiot?”
“Yeah. But for the sake of the gods, don't say that in front of him. Or tell him I said it.”
“I had no idea I was this imaginative,” I breathed.
“What?”
“This isn't happening,” I told her. “I've invented you.”
A lopsided smile took over her face, and her blue eyes twinkled.
“Is that right?”
“Must be,” I said. “Zeus and Hades and Greek gods don't exist. I'm sure we'd have noticed by now if they did.” Even as I spoke the words, doubt and panic were warring with them.
Something was wrong, Very, very wrong. That'll be the fact that you're probably gravely injured or dying somewhere in the real world, I reminded myself.
“You've been in the mortal realm a long time, Persephone,” said Hecate, quietly.
“New York,” I told her. “And I've been there twenty-six years. My whole life.” I stressed the last sentence.
“Sure you have,” she said, in a voice that said I was totally deluded. “What the fuck am I supposed to do with you now?”
“Well, you were obviously expecting someone,” I said, thinking back to her white eyes. “You welcomed me to hell.”
“Yeah, I was expecting the last contestant for the Hades Trials. I just didn't expect it to be you.”
“The Hades Trials?”
“You know, for someone who's made all this up in their head, you have very little clue about what's going on,” Hecate said. She had a point. My stomach lurched uneasily again.
“So why don't you tell me?” I put my hands on my hips in an attempt to regain some sort of semblance of control, but the woman in front of me was clearly a hundred times more fierce than I could ever be.
“OK. Zeus has decided that Hades needs a wife. Women have been trying to earn the position of Queen of the Underworld by completing a series of Trials. I was supposed to meet the last contestant here today.”
“Can Hades not just choose someone he likes?” I asked, frowning at my own question. This was absolutely mad.
“No. He swore after his first wife that he would never remarry, but he upset Zeus in a pretty big way recently. And the big man's punishments cut deep.”
“Hades is being forced to marry as a punishment?”
“Yep.”
“So... what's this all got to do with me? And how do you know who I am?”
A worried look crossed her beautiful face, then she let out a big sigh and closed her eyes.
“What a fucking mess,” she breathed, and opened her eyes again, fixing them on mine. “I could refuse to tell you, but I guess you'll find out sooner or later.”
“Find what out?”
“You're Hades' first wife.”
My head swam for a moment as I gaped at her. Then a laugh, bordering on hysterical, bubbled from my lips, getting louder and louder as the words repeated themselves in my head.
“How the hell am I coming up with this?” I gasped through laughs. “I've made myself the wife of the king of the dead? What the actual fuck?”
Fresh laughter welled out of me, my ribs starting to ache as I leaned over, pressing my hands on my knees. “I mean, there's being into bad boys, but Hades? Lord of the Underworld? Talk about extreme!”
“This is so not how I saw today going,” sighed Hecate.
She let me laugh a while longer, tears streaming from my eyes as adrenaline-fueled instability took over my senses. “Are you done?” she asked, when the laughter began to ebb away, and I dabbed at my wet cheeks. I nodded.
“I'm so done. Done with all of this. I need to wake up now.”
“Persephone, this isn't a dream,” she said, stepping forward and gripping my arm hard.
“Ow!” I exclaimed, my laughter dying out abruptly.
“See? You can feel that?”
“Yes,” I said sharply, tugging my arm back.
“This is real. And trust me when I tell you, you don't want to fuck with Zeus or Hades. Or any of the Olympians for that matter. If Zeus found you and brought you here, then you have to compete in the Trials. And that has... ramifications.”
I scowled at her.
“No. No, I'm sorry.” I turned, and my stomach lurched as I bumped into a wall made from solid earth. “Where's the corridor gone?” I asked, my voice weak. Blue light flared around me and I spun back to Hecate.
Her eyes were milky white again and her hands were raised by her face. Thin wisps of purple smoke were trailing from her palms, and slowly they convalesced into a dagger, spinning gently in the air in front of me. My heart hammered in my chest.
“I need to sit down,” I said, my legs unsteady beneath me.
“Persephone, you have a past in this realm. A past I am not at liberty to divulge.” Her voice had gone weirdly formal, compared to how she'd been speaking before.
“But I can tell you that Hades will be very shocked, and very angry to see you. And there will be many others who will be less than pleased. This weapon will work here in Olympus, even on a god, and you should keep it on you at all times.”
The dagger floated towards my shaking hands, and I tentatively reached for it. It was warm to touch, and had a little green stone set in each side of the pommel. Other than that it was unremarkable.
“Thanks,” I muttered, staring at it. It felt real in my grasp. Too real. I squeezed my eyes closed. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Sam, where the fuck are you? Wake me up!
Nothing happened. That didn't mean anything though. There was no way I was the wife of Hades. I'd been watching too much Netflix.
But something in my core was straining, almost longing for this craziness to be true.
Why? Why would I want that? In what world would I want to compete to be the wife of a god I had apparently already been married to once, then completely forgotten?
I wanted to design gardens! I wanted to grow living things! I didn't want to be in a cave with a magic dagger and angry gods!
“I want to go home,” I whispered, looking at Hecate. “I was going to have a meeting today about my scholarship.”
A flicker of pity flashed across Hecate's face, her eyes blue again.
“I'm sorry,” she said quietly. “Zeus is a prick. Don't tell him I said that either.”
“Can you send me back?”
She shook her head sadly.
“For your sake and Hades, I wish I could. But there's no crossing the big man.” She cocked her head at me again. “You know, deep down, that this is real, don't you?”
I looked at her.
“I know something is wrong,” I admitted.
“Maybe when you see the realm, some of it will come back to you. Hopefully not all of it,” she added quietly. I frowned.
“If what you're saying is true, why will Hades be angry to see me? Did we fall out?”
“Something like that. Only he can tell you what happened. And he will likely choose not to.”
“Why?”
“Persy, I can't tell you, so don't ask, alright?” she said, a flicker of exasperation in her tone.
“Persy?”
She gave me an apologetic look.
“Sorry. That's what I used to call you. Before you... left.”
“Were we friends?”
“Yeah. You had cooler hair then. And much better dress sense.”
I looked down at my leather jacket and ripped jeans, then at her sleek black catsuit.
“Oh,” I said, not sure what else to say. My brain seemed to have slowed down completely, almost like it was refusing to process anymore. “I can't think straight,” I told Hecate. “And I feel very tired suddenly.”
“Let's get you some food and dry clothes. Maybe a stiff drink. The gods know, I need one,” she said and held out her hand.
I paused for a second, then took it.