While a handful of other gods were still alive, none of them were as powerful as they’d been before. Most of the power my mom had went to keeping her alive. Hades could do quite a bit more, but his power maintained his whole realm. It was a heavy burden. So the gods pretty much lived like regular people now. That was part of why mom had tried to raise me like a human. So many gods failed to adapt to the lifestyle and burnt what little power they had left. She didn’t want that for me, so being human was all I knew. But of course that had come with its own price.
Mom shook her head. “Hades assumed Zeus died when the rest did, so he extended Zeus a personal invitation to Olympus. Olympus is different from the rest of the Underworld. It was Zeus’ realm, so he was able to come and go until his powers dwindled away. He lost his ability to return to Olympus a while ago.”
“How long have you known?”
“You’re seventeen. Do the math.”
I gaped at her, “You said that you waited until the world was safe to have me.” She’d made it sound like she’d had some sort of crazy everlasting pregnancy.
“I did wait until the world was safe to have you. You weren’t unplanned.”
“Do you even know how to tell the truth?” I was far too angry to heed the disapproving look my tone provoked.
“Persephone—”
“Don’t!” I stood so fast the chair knocked over and fell to the floor with a crash. “There’s no point in listening to you if you never actually say anything. I’m going to Cumberland Island to figure out what that dream meant. If I’m lucky, Poseidon will give straighter answers than you do.”
Something akin to fear flashed across her face, but it was gone before I could figure out what it was. “Persephone, Zeus is a powerful enemy, and he didn’t want anyone to know he was alive. That’s why I misled you. I don’t want you getting involved in this.” She spoke calmly, as though she thought laying down the law meant I would obey.
Did she know me so little? Did she think her opinion even counted anymore?
“I have to go,” I argued. “Who knows what he’s up to? It could affect all of us!”
Mom must have heard the conviction in my voice because she stopped arguing and said, “I’ll come with you.”
“No.”
“Persephone, I know we’ve practiced using your abilities all summer, but you’re not ready to try anything on your own yet.”
“I know. That’s why you’re going to give Hades permission to travel to this realm and come with me.” Hades didn’t technically need permission, a fact that became obvious when he surfaced last year to take me to the Underworld, but trespassing into another god’s realm was not something to be taken lightly. Everything would go much smoother with her consent.
“What?” my mother demanded, brow furrowing. “Gods, no! If you’re going at all, I am going with you, not that—”
“Be very careful what you say next. That’s my husband you’re about to insult.”
She threw her hands up in the air and stood. “A technicality.”
I took a deep breath and tried to still my shaking hands. There was a time to be angry, but this wasn’t it. I needed to be logical. “I trust him, in a way that I can’t trust you.”
“Persephone!” Mom tucked her chair under the table with more force than necessary.
“He’s never lied to me, never misled me, and he saved my life on more than one occasion. I need someone at my back whom I can trust, and at the moment you don’t fit that bill.”
“I—”
“Did what you thought was best for me, I know.” At her surprised look, I rolled my eyes. “Gods, Mom, I’m not stupid. I didn’t think you were lying to be mean. You’re my mother; you love me. But you keep trying to protect me when all I really need is to know what’s going on. If Zeus really is as dangerous as you say, then I’m going to need someone who will tell the truth, not what they think will be easiest to hear.”
She fell silent for a long moment. “Fine,” she acquiesced. “You can go tell Hades.”
“I told him before I came downstairs. He should be here soon.”
She grimaced. “Of course you did.”
I tensed, ready for another argument about how I spent too much time with him. A sharp knock at the door saved me from the familiar lecture. I threw the latch to let Hades in.
“Hello.” He gave me a rakishly handsome grin.
My knees felt weak, and I’m sure I turned three shades of red, but he had the grace to ignore it.
“Demeter.” He nodded his head.
She nodded back and turned her attention to me. Her green eyes flickered over me, and the corners of her mouth turned up in an amused grin. “Persephone, I’m sorry but I can’t allow you to leave in that.”
Hades glanced at me, and I followed his gaze down to my Eeyore nightshirt. We shared a look. I did have to go get dressed, but I didn’t want to leave Hades to be interrogated by my mother. He gave a slight nod, and I sighed and raced upstairs.
Their murmured voices drifted up the stairs behind me. When I reached my room, I threw open my closet and switched on the light. What in the world was I going to wear…?
Forget what I was going to wear! Hades was downstairs with my mom. Alone! Who knew what she was saying to him? I threw on a floral printed dress, ran a brush though my hair, yanked on a pair of sandals, and ran down the stairs.
“…not angry,” Hades was saying. “I know better than anyone how intimidating Zeus can be.”
I paused on the last step, standing behind the wall. The soft light cast shadows of my mother and Hades on the pine floor before me.
Her voice was barely a whisper. “Hades, I don’t want her involved with any of this.”
I stared hard at the yellow wallpaper with lines of miniature pink roses.
“Normally I’d agree with you,” Hades replied. “But, I think she needs to do something. She’s terrified; I can feel it. You know her better than I do, surely you’ve noticed.”
“Of course she’s terrified. She watched her best friend die, and then she killed someone!” Mom’s breath caught, and she lowered her voice. “She can’t handle any more of this—”
“What? ‘God stuff’? This is her life, Demeter, whether you want to admit it or not, and honestly, I don’t think she’s mature enough to sit things out when she’s in over her head. Look at what happened with Boreas.”
You mean besides me saving the day? I wondered. Yes, going after Boreas alone had been stupid, but they kept overlooking that everything had ended up more or less okay. Melissa was back from the dead, and Zeus didn’t have me yet. I called that a win.
“I didn’t say she wouldn’t want to get involved, Hades.” Glasses clinked against the kitchen sink, and there was a sudden rush of water. “I said she shouldn’t. She’s not mature enough to sit out when she’s over her head, but that doesn’t mean you give in and let her.”
“Yeah, I’m really not going to handle her that way.” Hades sounded amused.
“If you can’t handle a little immaturity, then maybe you shouldn’t rob the cradle.”
I could almost hear the muscles in Hades’ jaw tighten. “I don’t need to handle your daughter, Demeter. I need to step out of her way and let her handle herself. In case you haven’t noticed, she has a way of getting things done. Now, I could tell her to stay home, and you could watch her like a hawk, but you and I both know that she’d do everything she could to slip past you and end up on Poseidon’s beach, alone. And neither one of us wants that.”
“I just wish it wasn’t Poseidon.”
There was something in Mom’s voice. Vulnerability? Fear? I frowned. Poseidon was one of the good guys, wasn’t he?
“I won’t let anything happen to her.”
“Your concern for my seventeen-year-old daughter is touching,” she said dryly.
I walked off the last step with a stomp. They fell silent when they heard me.
“I’m ready,” I said in a cheerful voice, roundin
g the corner.
“You’ll call me when you get there?” Mom asked, sounding exactly like any other worried mother.
“Of course. Oh, and I used your card for the thing.”
She blinked. “The thing?”
“UGA.”
“Ah, yes. Good luck with that.”
I cocked my head and stared at her in surprise. She sounded sincere. “Thank you.” I gave her a hug and walked down the wooden steps of our porch with Hades.
I froze mid-step when I saw a pink, unicorn-shaped bag, complete with legs, a tail, and a stuffed head, on the hood of my yellow bug. “What is that?”
Hades gave me a confused look. “Your luggage. I hope you’ll forgive me for putting a few of your things in my bag. Cassandra said you’d forget to pack, and she was insistent that you’d want your bag, but it doesn’t have a lot of room in it…” He trailed off, looking between my amused expression and the unicorn. “That’s not yours, is it?”
I giggled, imagining him carrying that bag all the way here. Cassandra was a prophet who’d died in the Trojan War. She was Hades’ most trusted advisor, but she got bored easily. Picking on Hades was her favorite pastime. “Nope. How long will we be gone?”
Hades opened my trunk and tossed in a nondescript black bag along with the unicorn. “At least two days, maybe more.”
“Why drive? I can teleport there.”
“You can’t teleport with me. This isn’t my realm.”
“I can share.”
Hades gave me a knowing smile. “Try it.”
I narrowed my eyes at his smug look and grabbed his hand. “Hold on tight,” I cautioned, closing my eyes. I painted a picture of Cumberland Island in my mind, visualizing the live oaks, feeling the humidity, smelling the air, heavy with salt and flora.
The air whirled around me, then with a sudden yank that threatened to rip my arm out of my socket, I stumbled back into place. Hades’ arm weighed me down like an anchor.
He steadied me. “See? Not. My. Realm.”
“I teleported with Melissa.”
“She’s a native of this realm.”
I frowned. “Can I give you the ability to teleport here?”
“You don’t have the authority to give away teleportation rights.” Hades slammed the trunk. “Only your mom can do that. She rules this realm. So we require…transportation.” He looked at my car and the left corner of his lip quirked, but then seeing my expression, he rubbed at his chin, covering his mouth with his hand.
“What?” I snatched my keys out of his hand. I love my car. I’d worked in my mother’s flower shop for countless hours to buy the daisy-patterned rims, brake-light cut outs, and wildflower vanity plate.
“The Queen of the Underworld drives a bug,” Hades snickered. “Sorry, it’s just funny. Allow me to drive. I know the way.”
“Hell no!” I slid into the driver’s seat. Part of me wanted to ask why we didn’t just go back in the house and demand my mother give Hades teleportation rights, but the rest of me was excited at the prospect of taking a long drive with Hades. We didn’t get much time alone. Plus, as much as I’d love to assume he had the same motivation for not asking my mom, there was probably a long and boring explanation why he wouldn’t. Gods were weird. “This is my car, and besides, do you even have a license?”
He shot me a withering look.
“Didn’t think so,” I said triumphantly.
Hades rolled his eyes and slid in after me. I took a final look at my mother’s silhouette in the doorway and tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
Hades followed my gaze. “She was trying to protect you.”
“I know. That’s the worst part. I’m just tired of her deception. I mean, keeping the fact that I was a goddess from me my whole life was one thing, but to still keep something from me? That’s just…” I couldn’t put words to the feelings that were bothering me.
“You wanted her to be as honest as you’ve always perceived her to be.”
“Yes.”
“It could be worse.”
“How?”
“My father ate me.”
Chapter III
We couldn’t actually drive to Cumberland Island. Instead, we had to drive six hours to St. Mary’s Island and then take a ferry.
“You look like you’re going to be sick.” Hades studied me from the corner of his eye.
I focused on the dimly lit road. The deformed shadows of trees whipped by as we drove down Highway 316. “I don’t like the ocean.” I shuddered, remembering my class trip to Georgia’s islands. I’d been so excited to see the ocean. When I took my first hesitant steps onto the beach and looked into the cerulean waves, I’d felt a horrific certainty that something terrible was lurking beneath them. It was another world down there, and I didn’t belong in it.
“That’s natural.” Hades adjusted his seat, pushing it back so he’d have more leg room. “The sea is Poseidon’s realm. You wouldn’t want to enter without an invitation.”
I held up my hand and squinted against the brights of a car in the other lane. I hated driving at night. Everything was too dark to see or blindingly bright. “Didn’t my mom think a complete inability to enter the ocean was important to mention? What if the ferry had sunk or something? Or, I don’t know, I just wanted to swim?”
“Poseidon’s not unreasonable. Technically you can enter; you just have a strong desire not to. Just like me being here. It feels more comfortable with your mother’s permission, but I’m capable of entering her realm without it.”
I frowned. That didn’t work both ways. My mom couldn’t enter the Underworld with or without Hades’ permission. No gods could. Humans either, unless they were demigods, but demigods were just odd. But I guess it made sense. People crossed into Poseidon’s realm when they went swimming or Zeus’ realm skydiving, but there was no spelunking down to visit dead relatives. The Underworld was just different.
I’d been so excited to go on that trip. I remembered planning, packing, and talking about it for weeks. And my mother had just watched, knowing I would be disappointed. I’d been lonely watching my classmates play in the waves. What else would I learn about my divinity? How much had I shrugged off as normal? How deep had the deception gone?
Hades broke the silence. “What did you use your mom’s credit card for?”
I glanced over at him then back to the road. “Come again?”
“You used your mom’s card, for a thing?” He fiddled with the vents, adjusting the air.
I gave him an incredulous look. “Nosy much?”
Headlights illuminated his electric blue eyes as he glowered at me. “Considerate, actually. I could tell you wanted to talk about something else.”
“That’s a half-truth if I’ve ever heard one.” I laughed. “You’re curious. Maybe I used it for something personal.”
“Fine. Don’t tell me.” Hades turned to look out the window.
I sighed. “It was an application for early enrollment at the University of Georgia.”
Hades gave me a look full of pity. “You still plan on going to college?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“You know you’re going to be coming into your powers in the next couple of years.” Hades reached for the dial on the radio.
“Don’t even,” I warned him. Hades’ eyes sparkled in challenge, and he started thumbing through the songs on my playlist. “Besides, I know how to handle my powers now, thanks to you. Don’t worry; I’ll still visit the Underworld when I don’t need you anymore.” I smiled to show I was teasing.
Hades had to channel away all my extra power every night thanks to Orpheus going public with his adventures in the Underworld. The rock star demigod thought that was doing me a favor. Most gods want worship, or people simply thinking about them, which constitutes as worship today. But since I hadn’t come into my powers, the extra powers that came with “worship,” or in this case people speculating whether or not Orpheus had gone nuts, were dangerous.
I wasn’t complaining. More time with Hades was always good in my book, and it meant that however much my mom wanted to, she couldn’t forbid me from seeing him. He was my lifeline.
“Just be careful.” Hades pulled at his seat belt and adjusted it over his shoulder. “I think you’ll find once school starts, you’re being too ambitious with your schedule between attending court in the Underworld, lessons with your mom, working at the flower shop, and school. College is going to be a lot more demanding…And unnecessary.”
I frowned and turned on my blinker. Mom said the same thing. I was probably the only teenager on the planet being dissuaded from attending college. I passed a silver car and moved back into the right lane. “How is college any more unnecessary than high school? No one’s suggested I drop out of high school.”
“Because you need to blend in,” Hades explained. “The socialization you learn in school alone is valuable. People get suspicious when they can’t find a diploma in your records. It’s another mark on the paper trail. You came from somewhere, no reason to suspect you of being anything but human.”
I paused, considering. “What about in a hundred years? I’ll still be around then, and somehow I doubt my diploma—”
“So you go again. No doubt the customs have changed, so there will be more to learn. Unlike the rest of us, you’ll probably look young enough to pull it off without a glamour.”
I scowled. I was not repeating high school. Once was bad enough. I also didn’t like the reminder that I was probably going to look seventeen for all eternity. I was supposed to grow into my early twenties and then stop aging. But dealing with all the power from Orpheus was probably going to make me come into my powers earlier than usual, which was good, and make me stop aging sooner, which was bad.
Daughter of the Earth and Sky Page 2
