Keep going. I pump my sandbags for legs and pray I don’t miss a step. If I slip now, it’s all over.
“Three.”
Almost there.
“Two.”
It’s going to be close.
I’m still a body length of steps away from him. I don’t have a choice… I leap and fly through the air, and for the briefest moment I think I might actually get to the top safely, until gravity yanks me down and I belly flop on the stairs with a shock of pain splintering out from too many parts of me—all the parts that hit sharp corners.
And with the final toll, my hand lands on the well-polished black leather toe of Hades’ shoe.
Did I make it? The ringing of the bell is still fading away, and I’m still on the stairs. Did I make—
A sucking feeling, like the time I got caught in a tide in the ocean, drags me away. And suddenly I’m lying not on stairs but on a flat, smooth, blessedly cold floor. I manage to push to my hands and knees, but I’m too exhausted to lift my head, and my vision is still fuzzy. My breath rasps harshly in and out, in and out, as if I’m still running the race.
A fire-and-flame rumble of a voice reaches me from far away. “I knew you had it in you.”
I lift my head, smile at Hades…then vomit all over his fancy shoes.
16
Why Do These Things Happen To Me?
If there’s anything that should earn me punishment from a god, it’s emptying the remains of my meager dinner all over his shoes. Which is why I flinch when he reaches down. Except he brushes my hair out of my face and holds it back while I catch my breath.
“You didn’t like your shoes anyway,” I grumble between gasps, then scoot away from his strangely comforting touch, and also away from the puddle, because gross.
“I’ll give you this, Lyra Keres. You are unpredictable.”
It would be really nice to take a moment to unravel that, but my stomach heaves again. This time, I manage to keep it in. Unfortunately, I’m a sympathetic vomiter. If I see it, hear it, or smell it, I make more of it.
“Here.” A snap sounds above my head, and the vomit disappears. Not only that, but his hand comes into view holding a cup of ice water so cold the glass is already sweating.
If anyone is unexpected, I’d say it’s him.
I take it and gratefully gulp the cool liquid down between quick breaths, sucking air into my still-starved lungs. I focus on that, on getting a handle on my bodily functions, until I can breathe enough to talk.
That’s when I finally look up at him. “Thanks.”
I hope he knows that I’m not just thanking him for being decent just now, but for the butterfly, and the crypticode, and making me mad enough to keep pushing, which I’m pretty sure is him breaking the interference rules and just not getting caught, unlike Ares. So I’m not going to say any of that out loud.
Hades crouches in front of me, hands loose, gaze searching. “I’m not someone you thank, Lyra. I’m someone you fear.”
Like everyone scattering away from him every time he walks close? Does he really believe that? Or is he playing into a reputation that I’m starting to question just a little bit? If he’s truly evil or unfeeling, he wouldn’t have given me water. “Consider me shaking in my boots.”
His lips hitch. “You’re not wearing any shoes right now.”
“I never would have made it with heels on.” Images of snapped ankles and concussions dance through my head, and I give a delicate shudder.
“And the rest of your outfit?” he asks.
I glance down. I’m now only wearing the pantsuit—I ripped the beautiful jacket off somewhere along the way up. “It was getting in my way.”
“I see…”
I take another swig of water.
“So…do you wish to receive your gifts or not? You certainly earned them.”
Oh my gods. The entire reason I nearly killed myself getting up here in the first place. He holds out a hand, and after only a brief hesitation, I take it and let him help me to my feet. Which is when I finally bother to look around.
The room isn’t what I’d expect. Not Grecian but instead maybe Victorian? The walls are red silk brocade with intricate black wainscoting at the base. Red velvet curtains hang over the door and windows. All the furniture—a table and chairs and a chaise longue—is black wood and red velvet. And the ceiling… A dragon carved of black wood curls around the base of the chandelier.
“Where exactly are we?”
“Still in Olympus.” His voice has gone dry as dust in a drought. “This is a room in my house.”
Really? “I thought you never stayed in Olympus.”
“I don’t.”
I raise my eyebrows, still looking around. “I see. So they just, what…hold a place for you?”
“Something like that.”
