But before she could go, Aphrodite grasped her arm.
“You have to protect him,” Aphrodite cried.
“Who?”
“Ares. You promised.”
Athena scoffed.
“He didn’t have to come here,” Aphrodite said. “And he doesn’t have to stay. He can leave whenever he likes and let you deal with Hades. Leave you alone to bargain for Odysseus.”
“Except he won’t,” Athena said, tugging free. “Because he needs me to stand between you and Cassandra.” She paused. “You keep saying ‘him.’ ‘Him’ and not ‘us.’ Not ‘we.’” She looked at Aphrodite, and Aphrodite looked back, imploring her to figure it out so she wouldn’t have to confess. But reading emotion wasn’t a skill Athena had much practice in.
“I’m not going back with you,” Aphrodite whispered. “I’m staying here. Where I’m sane. I want to be sane, for as long as I can be.”
“Down here? With Persephone? Just the two of you, doing what? Playing bridge?” The words didn’t have the heat Athena had intended. They came out gentle and filled with more wonder than malice. To stay in the underworld— to be functionally dead—seemed like torture.
“Up there you can’t trust me. Up there I’m useless,” Aphrodite said. “Up there I’m mad.”
“You don’t think we stand a chance. Against the Moirae.”
Aphrodite’s eyes drifted toward Ares.
“I think some of us need to fight to the end,” she said. “And some of us don’t.”
“Does he know?” Athena asked, and Aphrodite shook her head. Ares wouldn’t be happy when he found out. But Aphrodite was right. Without the borders of the underworld to keep her death in check, she was a wild dog.
“You probably think I’m a coward now,” Aphrodite said. “Not that you ever thought I was anything else.”
Athena looked at Aphrodite’s torn dress and the bruises that spotted her skin from ankle to cheek.
“I think you’re conniving,” she said. “And silly. And a bitch.” She watched Aphrodite bite her tongue on every retort. That Athena was cold. Self-righteous. Also a bitch. “But never a coward.”
* * *
Persephone gave away Hades’ arrival. Not even her deadest eye could hide its brightness, its happiness at his homecoming. Athena, too, felt something dense and heavy the moment he crossed over, a black hole opening up in the back of her head. Ares leapt quickly to Persephone and dragged her to her feet. His wolves circled around them both.
“It feels different now,” Odysseus said. “Not so empty.”
“It isn’t empty anymore,” Athena said. “He’s home.”
A shadow flashed in her mind: Hades, black as a bat’s wing, titanic as his sister Demeter stretched across miles of desert. In her mind he wrapped them in cold, and spit them out as bones.
“He’ll let us go, right? We’re fighting for his side.” Odysseus drew his sword, for all the good it would do. It didn’t matter that they fought for the side of the gods. It didn’t matter that Athena had been a good niece up till then, and had gone out of her way to keep from pissing him off. She’d stolen one of the dead, and the dead were his. It was his only rule.
When Hades came into view, he looked as young and handsome as Ares or Aidan. Not a walking embodiment of death or disease. It hadn’t taken him over like it had his brother Poseidon. But Athena knew that what she’d seen in the back of her mind was the true Hades: a great, black shadow contained in skin and an expensive shirt. Just the sight of him made her mouth go dry. His voice made her shudder, even though he didn’t address them.
“Persephone. Are you all right?”
Odd thing to ask when she looks six months into her coffin.
“As well as one can be, when one is held prisoner in one’s own home,” Persephone replied.
Hades looked over every inch of his bride with affection in his eyes. He didn’t flinch from a single, terrible bit, not the purplish wrinkles in her skin or the bare red spots in her scalp. His gaze lingered on her face and, finally, on her bound wrists.
We should untie her. We shouldn’t have tied her.
Ares apparently thought the same thing; his hand twitched over the knots where he held her fast to him, like a human shield. Aphrodite went to his side and put a hand on Persephone’s shoulder.
“We haven’t harmed her,” she said sweetly.