“It’s already done.”
And then they’re gone.
54
Fault
Charon and Cerberus greet me at breakfast the way they have the last two mornings since Dionysus’ Labor. Zai is sitting at the other end of the table on the terrace, far away from them. Cerberus might scare him more than Hades does. That could also be the allergies speaking.
He made it out with the others. Barely. They had to use all the rest of the vodka to do it. Diego also used all of his. Which made Jackie, with her two bottles, the winner.
Hades, however, hasn’t been home since the Daemones took him.
Today is no exception.
I stare at the chair where he should be seated. The swirling pit in my stomach is a new constant companion. It’s more than worry about not being able to get through the Crucible alive without him. It’s much more.
I don’t want to feel more, though.
“Any word yet?” I ask as I set my axe, which Amir returned, on the table.
Charon is watching me closely, like I’m a grenade that might explode at any second. “Some.”
Not bothering to grab food from the sideboard, I drop heavily into the seat beside him. “What?”
Charon hasn’t said, but I’m pretty sure Hades being absent from the Underworld for days is causing all sorts of chaos. And yet he chose to be taken anyway. Away from the thing that makes him who he is.
“So…what have you heard?” I ask again.
“You should know the Daemones already came for him once before this,” Charon says instead of answering. Cerberus nods all three heads.
“What?” I sit up. “When?”
“When you used the dragon teeth and the axe,” Cerberus says.
Exactly like Hades warned me would happen. Only he didn’t say they’d come for him. That sounds…more serious.
“He convinced them they were relics you already owned and brought with you.”
“Those are mine,” I say. “Why didn’t you mention this before?”
Charon leans back in his chair. “He told us not to tell you.”
Of course he did. “Why are you telling me now, then?”
“Because he’s being a stubborn prick.”
I latch on to the important part of that. “‘Being’? As in you’ve seen him? Talked to him? Is he—”
“He’ll be fine,” Charon assures me.
My stomach bottoms out. “Which means he’s not fine now? What did they do to him?”
Charon exchanges another glance with Cerberus.
“He had no choice but to explain about giving the pearls to you with the tiara before the Labors officially started and not telling you what they did,” Cer says. I think he’s trying to be gentle, though it’s hard to tell in that rusty voice. “They threatened to kill you because he bent the rules.”
They threatened…
I can feel the blood drain out of my face.
Charon speaks slowly, as if choosing his words carefully. “He convinced them no rules had been broken and to give him a lesser punishment in your place.”
“Holy shit,” Zai mutters, then grimaces. “Gods, right?”
I return my attention to Charon and whisper through stiff lips. “What punishment?”
He looks away. “They cut his palms with the Dagger of Orion. For mortals, it creates a wound that never heals. For gods… He’ll heal, but it will take another day or two.”
I swallow hard. “Why didn’t he warn me?” I’m asking myself more than them.
“I warned you,” Charon says, turning harder than he has been with me until now.
“Not enough,” I snap. “You said I’d be punished. I was thinking restricted meals or solitary confinement or something. Not this.” I look down at my own palms, picturing the slices, and my stomach sours.
“Would you have not used the pearl if you knew?” he shoots right back.
