“If you died, which section would you be placed in?” she asked.
“Me?” The question had thrown him, and he was at a loss. “I cannot die.”
“But if you could,” she went on. “Where do you think you would end up?”
He considered for a moment and took a sip of wine, for they were in the throne room, partaking in sustenance. “Honestly? I would probably be left to linger in Erebus for eternity. If anyone stumbled upon my lifeless body, I doubt they’d take the time to give me a proper sendoff, let alone part with coins for Charon’s passage across the Styx.” He laughed darkly, but she was not amused.
“That can’t be true,” she insisted, but she wasn’t at all sure. She knew he heard the mortals when they cursed his name, and he claimed it happened all day, every day. Since being with him, Persephone had begun to hear whisperings of her own name from above, but she was yet to be cursed.
“You would be in Elysium, obviously,” Hades continued, refilling her wine. He’d been offered a cup-bearer and declined. Persephone couldn’t say she minded much, watching his strong fingers grip the handle of the jug.
“I’m not a hero,” she pointed out. “I’ve never done anything great.”
“You’re putting up with me,” Hades said. “A heroic feat, some might say.” The corner of his mouth twitched, and when her own mouth threatened to do the same, she had to cover it with her hand, lest he see and think her thawing.
Persephone learned several things that first week back with Hades, beyond the difference between the Fields of Punishment and Asphodel, and the muscles in Hades’ forearms as he poured wine. She learned Cerberus liked belly scratches and Hades was an early riser. She learned the black poplars were not truly black, but a deep, dark green, and that Hades read an awful lot, receiving plays from Hermes on the regular by Greece’s best playwrights, as well as philosophical doctrines and scrolls of art. One morning, she woke to find a painting of Eleusis waiting for her at the dining table.
Hermes never lingered to speak with her though, not when Hecate was there. She learned he loved little more than seeking Hecate out within Tartarus, and she learned Hecate loved being sought.
She learned none of the gardens suffered for Ascalaphus’ absence. She learned, because of this, that Hades had permitted the gardener to garden simply because he’d loved it in life and not because it was necessary. She learned Hades was prompt with his promises when, only days later, he informed her that Patroclus had been relocated to Elysium. She learned the jewels he continued to gift her were always chosen meticulously, never randomly, and that they always matched her eyes, or her new gown, or her hair, or they were simply the color of her favorite flower.
She learned, with more than a little alarm, that Hades was learning about her.
But there were some things that could only be learned by doing. And after her first few weeks, Persephone was confronted with one such thing, in the form of a man named Sisyphus.
He came to her when she was alone, taking her daily stroll through the poplars. He stepped from behind one of the trees, startling the breath out of her. She hardly had time to recover before he fell to his knees. He grabbed at the hem of her gown, and she knew not what to do. Though she’d been in the Underworld a few weeks, she’d never confronted one of the dead directly, besides Ascalaphus.
“My lady, my lady,” he begged. “There has been a most terrible mistake!”
“A mistake?” she asked, gently freeing her hems from his grasping hands and helping him rise to his feet. He was a tall man, well-muscled, with a kingly look about him when he was not cowering and crying. Her sympathy was heightened, and she felt herself become determined in the matter of helping this one soul, with whatever problem he might have. Better yet, she could do it without asking Hades for help. She was Queen of the Underworld, was she not? It was time she began making some decisions. “Tell me what’s troubling you,” she said sweetly. She was still unused to being so close to a man, even if she’d become used to having Hades near, and took a tentative step away from him, as far as she could without appearing impolite.
“I shouldn’t be here, my lady,” he said.
“No? Are you not dead?”
“I am dead, but my wife did not properly care for my body after my passing.”
“You should be in Erebus. How did you get past Cerberus?”
The man shivered at the dog’s name, and she supposed he could be scary to the newly dead, even if she found him nothing but soft and doting. “Never mind that. That is the mistake. The truth of the matter is that my body was not properly buried.” He took Persephone’s hand.
She was too shocked to wave him off. Not even Hades dared touch her so familiarly. But this man was in shock, and so, even when her senses returned, she did not shake her hand free, but gripped his in return. “If your body has not been seen to a proper burial, you must go back to Erebus,” she told him, knowing it was a terrible fate, waiting forever and ever, with all the other aimless souls, with no way to cross the Styx.
“But my lady,” the man begged, “please.”
“What can I do?”
“I should not be here,” he said. “And so it is almost like I’m already not here.”
She felt her forehead wrinkle in confusion. It used to never hold a wrinkle, and now it seemed as if there was a constant placeholder in the middle of her brow, always ready and waiting for one.
“If you would only grant me permission to return to the living world, I could see to my burial and then be here legitimately.”
“But no one is allowed to leave,” she said, repeating what Hades had told her time and time again. She’d thought it to be true, but then she had left, and Ascalaphus had left in Hermes’ chariot, and Hecate would leave in a few months. “How long would you need? To see to your burial?”
The man heaved a ragged sigh. “I would be gone no longer than three days, my lady. I swear it to you. Grant me three days to bury my body and then I will come right back, and bring with me all my thanks.”
She didn’t need to think hard about it. She knew what kind of queen she wished to be. “You have my permission,” she said.
The man looked as if he might fall to his knees again, so she gripped his arm and helped keep him upright.
“Oh, merciful lady. Thank you, thank you. I will return in three days. I swear it.”
“I believe you,” she said, “but could you tell me your name before you go? So I might find you and say hello once you’ve returned?”
“It is Sisyphus, my lady. Though you may call me your most devoted subject. Or I will be, when I come back.”
“In three days,” Persephone reminded him.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Sisyphus promised with a toothy smile. “Three days.”
He was not back in three days.
Or five.
Or ten.
And on the fourteenth day, marking the man’s second week of absence, Persephone was forced to mention something of it to Hades.
“What would you say,” she began casually, “if a newly dead subject told you they’d not been properly buried and needed time to go back and see it done?”
Hades eyed her curiously over the brim of his goblet. They’d fallen into the routine of having a glass of wine together in the evenings, when both were finished with their days and preparing for bed. Their separate beds. In separate bedchambers. “I’d tell them no one leaves the Underworld.”
She set down her goblet and twisted in her throne to better face him. He set his own goblet down in turn, always eager to give her the attention she sought. “What if they promised to return in short order?” she asked.
“Persephone,” Hades began. The name rolled off his tongue easily; it had taken him no time at all to grow used to it. “Are we speaking hypothetically?”
She busied her mouth with her wine a moment and hummed into the goblet. “Mhmm.”
“Very well. Hypothetically,
I would tell this newly dead soul that no one leaves the Underworld, especially not to bury their own bodies. That’s a bit ridiculous, don’t you think? Every other poor soul would be traveling back and forth between the realms, and Tartarus would be in chaos.” He snorted, picking up his goblet once more. “Can you imagine all the ghostly spirits wandering the earth with mysteriously hovering shovels?”
She laughed weakly.
He watched her. He’d become less timid in his interest of watching her as of late. And she’d become less interested in pretending she minded.
“Persephone,” he said again, slowly. “Hypothetically, what would you have done in that situation?”
“Me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Oh, well, I suppose I might have . . . allowed the pitiable soul to return to the living for three days in order to properly bury his body. But only for three days. And then I would have made him promise to return.”
“Ah. And how long—hypothetically—do you think the soul would actually take to return?”
“That’s a fine question. I would have, of course, expected him to return within three days, since he promised. But it would not be outside the realm of possibilities, I suppose, if he instead took, erm, several weeks.”
Hades’ grip tightened around his goblet. “I wonder what name such a foolish, disrespectful soul might have.”
She wrung her hands. “I think Sisyphus might be a fitting name for one such fool,” she replied.
“Sisyphus,” he said. He took a great breath and exhaled it slowly. “King Sisyphus?”
“There might have been something kingly about him,” Persephone replied. “I mean, hypothetically.”
Hades stood from his throne and paced the floor. “Let us drop the hypotheticals.”
She looked down at her lap, afraid to meet his eyes. Ashamed. When his fingers touched beneath her chin and gently tilted her head, her lips parted in surprise. He did not look angry, not with her. His fingers felt cool where they remained tucked beneath her chin, but only because her face was so hot.
“You are kind and merciful,” he told her, “and it is one of many reasons why you will be a great queen. But we all make mistakes, especially in the early days. And in the later ones, as well. As it happens, Sisyphus has now made fools of us both. But he had me as an idiot first.”
His fingers fell away and she stood from her throne to better meet his eyes. “You?”
“Me,” Hades confirmed. His mouth was twisted in annoyance, but there was amusement brightening his eyes as he recounted the tale. “There was an incident not long ago. My brother ordered me to fetch Sisyphus personally and escort him here in order to punish him for some wrongdoing. I was loath to do it, but one does not refuse a direct order from Zeus. As you know.”
“I do know,” she replied darkly.
“Looking back, I’m not sure how he managed it, but he convinced me to . . . show him how to properly put on the handcuffs I’d brought for him to wear.”
A smile spread, uninvited, on Persephone’s face, and she had to slap a hand across it.
“Yes, it’s funny now. Hermes thought so, too.” Hades smiled as he shook his head in remembered distress. “But it was hardly funny at the time. Once he’d tricked me into the cuffs, I was incapacitated. And with me gone from the Underworld, no one in the throes of death could die. Even those beheaded were left alive to suffer. In the end, Ares had to come and save me. Ares, of all people.”
“Oh my.”
“Have you met Ares?”
“I have.” She had, briefly, when she’d sat in her mother’s lap on Mount Olympus.
“Then you know his ego was large enough before he saved me. He’s been intolerable ever since. It was the most embarrassing thing. I still cringe to think of it.”
It was true. He looked awfully embarrassed. He was also more attractive than Persephone had ever seen him. His cheeks were pink. His lips were red from biting at them. His eyes were shining. And he was laughing. It was a small, slight laugh, but a laugh, and it entranced her.
“So,” she said, trying to shake off the sudden magnetism of Hades. “You brought Sisyphus to the Underworld and at the first opportunity he tricked me into letting him return to the living.” She slammed a fist into her hand. “He was so convincing! That rat! I feel like an imbecile.”
“Please don’t. If you are an imbecile for letting him sweet talk you, what does that make me for handcuffing myself?”
“I think it makes us quite a pair,” Persephone said. Her voice came out softer than intended, and he looked at her softly, and they laughed together. Softly.
Then, suddenly, he hardened. “I best call Hermes and have him fetch Sisyphus. Clearly the two of us cannot be trusted to see the job done.”
His hardness didn’t bother her; she was used to his flips of mood, and had learned weeks ago to flip along with him. So she straightened her shoulders, squared her jaw, and declared, “Hermes is an excellent idea. A trickster cannot trick another trickster. I will tell Hecate he is coming, so she might find a suitable hiding place.”
Even through the fortress of his grim face, she detected a flash of amusement. “Unbeknownst to her, she has been training him to find well-hidden people. If Sisyphus is hiding, Hermes should have no trouble rooting him out.”
As predicted, Hermes had no trouble at all, and within the day, he was hauling a miserable Sisyphus by the ratty chiton and throwing him down before Persephone and Hades in the throne room.
Hermes brushed his hands together and fixed a stray lock of his hair. “You see, dearest Hades, when he attempted to have me put on the handcuffs, I said no.”
“Yes, Hermes, you’re very clever,” said Hades. “Thank you.”
The wings of Hermes’ sandals ruffled proudly at the praise and he dipped his head in a polite bow, hardly mocking. “I won’t say it was a pleasure. I’m saving that for Hecate.” He winked at the both of them before disappearing with a dramatic little twirl.
Sisyphus was the only person of interest left to look at in the room, so Persephone stared down at him, and so did Hades. Their combined gazes must have been frightening, for the dead king whimpered beneath the attention and scooted away from them across the floor. He didn’t scoot far before Hades flicked his wrist and had him frozen to the spot on the marble.
Persephone expected him to address Sisyphus, but he spoke directly to her.
“Here we have a prime example of a man who has committed unsavory deeds in life, not to mention personally offended several gods,” Hades said, splaying a hand towards the pathetic heap. “A perfect opportunity for a lesson. Persephone, on special occasions such as this one, the judges of death allow others to place a soul. My brother Zeus has a specific place in mind. Can you name that place?”
“I can,” she answered confidently. “The Fields of Punishment.”
“That’s correct,” said Hades, smiling at her.
King Sisyphus was not smiling. In fact, he was blubbering until Hades flicked his wrist and made him be silent.
“If you’d care to accompany me, I would love to show you exactly the punishment Zeus had in mind.”
She hesitated. She’d not yet been to the Fields of Punishment. It was the only place in Tartarus she’d not visited. Not because Hades kept her from it, but because she’d been uncertain of her desire to see it. But she had to admit that she was curious, and she fancied the idea of seeing the man cowering before them punished. He’d abused her trust, humiliated Hades, and caused the suffering of many. She did not think it would bother her much to see the punishment in store for such a treacherous man.
“I would love to,” she told Hades, and when he did not try to take her elbow, she took his.
As it turned out, Sisyphus’ punishment was a clever one, designed by Zeus himself, and Persephone was not horrified to see it meted out, but entertained.
“So he rolls it all the way up the hill?” she aske
d Hades, who was standing at her side—and had not strayed from it since she’d taken his elbow. “And once he gets to the top?”
“It rolls right back down,” Hades finished with a cruel grin she found oddly enticing. “Oh, look there. He’s almost at the top.”
They watched as Sisyphus strained his muscles and pushed the giant boulder to the top of the hill. It had taken him quite some time to achieve, and he was sweating profusely.
“There it goes, there it goes,” Persephone whispered, squeezing Hades’ elbow, and together they watched as the boulder moved of its own volition and rolled all the way back down the hill. Sisyphus groaned and started after it. He would be pushing it back up for an eternity.
They were still grinning at one another when they returned from the Fields of Punishment, and only when they were having their nightly taste of wine did Persephone begin to wonder if she should feel worse than she did.
“He was a bad man, wasn’t he?” she asked Hades.
“He was the worst sort of man,” Hades assured, and she went to bed unworried and guiltless, and on occasion, when she thought of Sisyphus pushing at his boulder, a laugh escaped her.
Besides finding amusement in the punishment of the deserving and glasses of wine with Hades, Hecate was also a source of enjoyment, and most often—when Hermes was not occupying her time—she was a fine companion.
Persephone spent time with her daily, and the witch goddess accompanied her on her walks through the gardens. She’d taken up a temporary residence within the black poplar grove, and they sat there now, inside a roomy tent strung up with decadently crafted silk scarves and colorful, plumply stuffed pillows. It seemed Hermes had been bringing her all kinds of gifts, and some of those gifts included treats from the world of the living. They munched on the assortment of sweetmeats and sipped spiced wine, and Persephone gathered leaves from the poplars for them to twist into wreaths for their heads.
Persephone enjoyed their time together, and though Hecate had firstly been a friend to her mother, she now considered her, first and foremost, a friend to herself. And friends, she was swiftly discovering, told one another everything. For example, she now knew more than she’d ever wished to know about Hermes.
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