Being banged up isn’t a whole lot better. The first official Labor is tomorrow, and I’m going in damaged while the other champions are in perfect health. Terrific.
What did I ever do to the Fates, anyway?
Eventually, the water cools, and I force myself to get out of the tub. I pause in the doorway at the sight of lavender pajamas—modest, with long pants and a short-sleeve shirt and even a bralette and underwear—folded and waiting neatly on the bed. The other clothes are gone, but the tiara is still there.
I shake my head. “Hades is a good host. Who knew?”
It isn’t until I’m dressed and pulling back the covers that I finally take a good look at the tiara as I pick it up to move it off the bed. I go marble statue–still, staring at the thing.
“It can’t be…”
Black gold, it is designed to look like butterfly wings spreading from a black jeweled center. The wings are dotted with black diamonds and pearls. And that’s what I’m staring at.
Because the black pearls with their hint of pink are familiar. Too familiar.
I count, then count again.
That’s what I was afraid of. There are exactly six.
I execute an about-face a soldier would admire and march out of my bedroom and through the penthouse. I stop in the middle of the living room, not sure where to go. The sound of a blender, of all things, whirs from off to my left, and I follow it to find Hades in the kitchen. His hair is damp from a shower, that errant pale lock curling on his forehead instead of brushed back. He’s changed into jeans and a faded blue T-shirt that’s seen better days that reads, “Sure, you can pet my dog.”
If I wasn’t still thrown by the tiara, I’d laugh because his dog is Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound who notoriously doesn’t like anyone.
Also, Hades is barefoot.
I mean, so am I, but he’s a god. I have never, in my entire life, pictured gods or goddesses barefoot. In a kitchen, no less.
He glances up. “Smoothie?”
What alternate dimension have I fallen into? I shake my head.
“Help yourself to any food in the fridge, then.” He waves a hand.
Just like we’re regular people. Sharing a space like it’s no big deal. But it is. It’s a big deal to me. I’m not entirely sure how to handle this Hades, who is suddenly all solicitous courtesy, which feels wrong coming from him, like wearing clothes that are a size too small. “Don’t do that.”
He frowns. “Do what?”
“The polite-charm thing.”
“It’s how I put others at ease,” he says.
The god of death tries to put others at ease? There’s a disturbing thought. “Are you sure that actually works?”
“I was until now,” he mutters.
We’re getting off topic. I jerk my hand up to show him the tiara. “Tell me these pearls aren’t what I think they are.”
He glances at the tiara, then goes back to making his smoothie. “They are.”
“Why would you—” I stop, then start again. “What possible reason could you—”
“They might help you.” He says this as casually as if he’s listing off the foods in the fridge.
I lower the tiara to my side. “You already gave me my two gifts. You’re not allowed to give more.”
“I gave you the tiara before the Daemones said I could no longer help you, and it’s not a gift. It’s clothing.”
That’s a flimsy loophole if I’ve ever heard one, and thieves are good at loopholes.
I frown. “So the pearls can help me?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“If I don’t tell you, then it’s definitely not a gift. Just a mystery you figured out on your own.”
I stare at him, something finally sinking in with me that should have much sooner. “You know all the loopholes. Don’t you?”
His eyes crinkle at the corners, though his lips don’t lift. “I decline to answer on the grounds that my words might incriminate me.” Then he turns the blender on, filling the kitchen with noise.
In other words, he does.
I drop onto a stool at the large island, across from where he’s standing. “But…these are Persephone’s,” I point out the second the blender stops.
He doesn’t react to her name like I semi-expect—get all scowly, broody, don’t say her name or else, and so forth. Instead, he shrugs. “They can’t help her now.”
Help her? Legend says he used them to trap her in the Underworld with him, not help her. Right? A thousand questions circle in my head like dogs chasing their tails. But I don’t utter a single one. For once. It’s none of my business.
