I gave a tight smile. “Tell me what you really think.” I lifted the dress, intending to to hold it up against her for size. But the second I picked it up, all the flowers started to die.
Oizys smirked. “That’s more like Hades.”
I grimaced. “Of course it is. Dying springtime.” The petals felt dry and brittle. Their edges curled in on themselves, brown, droopy and wrinkled. I waited to see if they would start falling off, but despite looking like they were on their last gasp of life, they held on, not going anywhere.
I brightened. “On the upside, it’s just your style now. Life-sucking. It would fit you perfectly. And look. There’s a matching mask.”
There was, but I don’t think she was convinced. Oizys crossed her arms and gave me that flat stare that I was kind of getting fond of. “Why should I wear it? What will you be doing?”
I gave her a sweet smile. “Freeing Prometheus.”
Red tinged her eyes.
“It’s our best hope,” I said, soothingly, and took a few steps back just in case, the dress held out like a shield. I had no desire to be ripped apart as easily as she scrapped wooden doors and bronze fences. “With you wearing this, I’ll appear to be at the ball all night. The perfect plan.” I put the offensive dress down on the bed.
Oizys looked like she couldn’t believe what I was saying. “Hades wants you to wear it.”
“He won’t know the difference.”
“He’s not an idiot,” she fired back. “We look nothing alike.”
“Really?” I waved a hand between us. “You’re just as curvy as I am. We’re basically the same height. We’ll dye your hair and arrange it so that it looks like some updo that I’d have. You even have green eyes.”
“That are blind without my glasses,” she protested.
“Don’t move around much.”
“That’s your solution? One conversation and he’ll know it’s not you.”
“Listen and nod. He likes that better anyhow.” I lay the dress down again.
Oizys shook her head, making for the door. “No.”
I pounced before she got to the knob. “Stop being so stubborn and think about it. The only one who actually has to go rescue Prometheus is Hephaestus. He’s the one who knows how to unbind him.”
Oizys twisted free. “Not true. I’m the one who knows how to get in and out. I’m the one that the Hekatonkheires will recognize and accept the nectar from.”
“So I’ll dress as you. Festos won’t go with just you, Underworlder. He won’t and you know it, so don’t even bother to argue. And if Hades wants me at the ball, then our only option is for you to impersonate me and tell me the way back to Prometheus.”
She pushed her glasses up her nose and glared. “You want me to let you go with Festos and drug the giants, while I play dumb at the ball?”
“Play goddess,” I corrected.
“Same thing.”
I motioned at her with a very specific finger, taking petty pleasure in her surprise.
Honestly? I didn’t think she was actually going to agree. I mean, it was kind of a harebrained, Olsen-Twins-movie-of-the-week idea. Except for the part where we weren’t twins. But it was really our best hope at this point.
A crafty look stole over her face. Like she’d found my deal breaker. “What about Kyrillos?”
Yeah. That was the one potential disaster. Not enough to scrap the plan though. I wagged a finger at her. “Avoid him. At all costs.” He’d know in a second. “He wouldn’t out you to Hades, but he would try and find me. Stop me from getting to Prometheus.”
“I’m not kissing him.”
I eyeballed her. “Good. ‘Cause you do and you lose your lips.”
She shrugged. “Long as we’re on the same page. You really think this will work?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Crazy as it is, I think it will. People see what they want to. Anyone looking at you in that dress will see a humiliated goddess. And anyone who sees me, will be looking at the scowling goth princess they know and tolerate.” I held out a hand. “Deal?”
She ignored my hand. “Deal. But when it goes horribly wrong, I’m so killing you.”
I busied myself with the dress, oddly hurt at her dismissal of me. “Yeah, yeah.”
That’s how we spent the next twenty-four hours. Prepping for the equinox masquerade ball, and hiding in Oizys’ room to avoid Kai. First, we had to dye our hair. That was the easy part. Oizys had a hard time moving around without her glasses. It wasn’t pretty. She kind of held her hands out and shuffled forward.
“We’re going to have to tell everyone you’re drunk,” I said, watching doubtfully.
“That’s not a bad idea.”
At least the preparations kept me from dwelling on all the insanity that was going to rain down on my head soon enough. I was grateful for every minute of Wednesday. Aware of each precious second that counted down to midnight, and the ball, and the start of all the madness, because these hours were the last normal ones I’d have until I defeated Hades and Zeus.
And even when that happened, the giant blank slate of my future was almost scarier. Since last Halloween, I’d been dealing with one crazy adventure after another. Planning and training, and then throwing all the plans out the window and starting again. Many many times.
But at least I’d been goal-oriented.
What was I going to wake up to on Friday morning? With no school, no home, no family, and a question mark where my future was concerned. What exactly did a girl do for an encore after saving the world?
Those thoughts made up most of my Wednesday afternoon. Honestly, they weren’t any less terrifying than thinking about freeing Prometheus, breaking the enchantment, and fighting the battle itself.
Just different.
Late afternoon. I stared out Oizys’ window, drumming my fingers in a slow rhythm that worked as a kind of white noise to keep me calm.
Eventually, the sky turned to full black and night fell.
“It’s time.”
I startled out of my reverie at Oizys’ words and pressed my hands to my heart with a delighted gasp.
“Don’t. Say. A. Word.”
“You’re so pretty,” I cooed. “The dead flowers really bring out your eyes. And now we get to do each other’s make-up.”
“This is the worst day of my life.”
Lucky her. I wished I could say the same.
***
“Shut up and stop blinking. I can’t do your eye shadow properly.” I had paired the dress with the girliest makeover imaginable, painting Oizys’ face in hues of pink ranging from Bubblegum (lipstick) to Princess Poo (blush). I’d mentally dubbed the pale pink glitter on her lids as “Fairy Spew.”
Her hair was now dark brown and curled into frothy ringlets. I topped it with a giant tiara. I’d pinned her bangs off her face so that no one could tell she had them at all.
“It itches,” Oizys groused.
I slapped her hand away from her hip. “Stop plucking.”
Finally, she grabbed my wrist to keep me from applying one more shiny coat to her lips. “Enough.” Her eyes glinted. “It’s your turn now.”
She dolled me up in her clothes, cut my hair to give me bangs and then pulled the rest of my new black mass back into the same tight bun she wore. I wouldn’t be able to wear her glasses, but we figured that copious amounts of eye-liner and purple lipstick would sell the effect.
As Oizys applied my make-up, she detailed my route in and out of Tartarus. She made me retrace the path, and repeat what I would say when I met the giants over and over, until I had it down pat.
Once I was fully made up, she cocked her head and looked at me critically. “A pale imitation, Springtime.”
“Right back at you.” I studied us both in her mirror. Unless we were standing side by side—under scrutiny, we looked pretty convincing. Normally, I would have found my resemblance to an Underworlder disconcerting. But if I could handle looking like Persephone, all else failed to rate. “It’s go
ing to work. Except …” I glanced down at my bare feet. “Pony up the boots.”
“No,” she whined.
I gave her my sternest look. “Oizys, Spirit of Misery and Woe, I demand that you suck up your foot issues and hand me a pair of your stupid boots.”
She muttered something mean and flung a pair my way. “I hope they pinch your toes.”
I grinned and, shockingly, she grinned back. I felt a deep pang of regret. Maybe Oizys and Persephone had come to some kind of weird truce, but I knew that wouldn’t hold when she found out who I was.
The Persephone in this enchantment hadn’t betrayed anyone yet. Hades had no idea that she and Kai were planning anything for the equinox. The Underworld didn’t hate her. Maybe they did on principal, but not with any specific vendetta. Once the enchantment was broken, this Persephone wouldn’t exist anymore. Which would just leave me, Sophie Bloom, mortal enemy numero uno.
Regardless of how Oizys felt about her fellow Underworlders, she wouldn’t stay loyal to me just because we’d had a magically induced moment or two. I’d rather not see the look on her face when she decided to get in on the “kill Sophie” action, too.
“For a daemon who feeds off other people’s misery, you’re not so bad,” I told her.
“Yeah, well, for a goddess who cavorts in meadows,” she shook her head. “Nah, you still suck.”
Damn Hekate. And damn this enchantment. I wished I’d never met Oizys. She was going to be one more loss in my life.
By 11:30PM, we were as perfect as we were going to get. I tied the accompanying mask around the back of Oizys’ head. It was a simple black thing, but dotted with pink sparkly crystals. While the mask itself obscured much of her face, enough of her pretty pretty makeover was visible that the overall effect sold her as me.
“I think it’s perfect,” I said, forcing her to do one last pirouette. “In that make-a-total-mockery-of-Persephone way that Hades intended.”
Oizys gave me a weird look. “Talking about yourself in the third person now?”
Whoops. Luckily, I had just the thing to distract her. “Hang on. There’s one last piece.” I scrambled under her daybed and pulled out a pair of sparkly gold heels that I’d snagged from Persephone’s closet.
Oizys stared at them in abject horror.
“You didn’t seriously think you were going to wear any shoes you owned, did you?”
Poor Spirit of Misery and Woe. She looked like she wanted to die as she shoved her feet into the shoes.
Correction. She looked like she wanted to kill me. Either way. It would add to her aura of deep humiliation. Which would, in turn, delight one and all.
I wanted lots of attention on her. I wanted Hades entertained by her embarrassment. The more he was distracted, the better the chance I had of sneaking out with Fee to free Prometheus.
I put my hand on her shoulder. “Good luck.”
“Bring him back safely or die.” Oizys flung my hand off of her. “And don’t get caught.”
With that, she stomped out.
“Less lead foot, more goddess floating,” I called after her.
She tossed back a rude name and headed out of sight.
I gave her ten minutes before I went downstairs myself.
I was lost in the throng of guests long before I got to the throne room. Costume-wise, all of the Olympians were represented, most of them in multiple versions. Except for Zeus. One guess who had decreed that costume for himself.
The outfits were lavish. Sumptuous. Also twisted, lewd, grotesquely exaggerated, and highly, highly offensive. Everyone’s body language reflected their contempt. Looking around, you’d think all the beings in Olympus were limping, flailing hunchbacks.
The few people that bothered to look my way only rolled their eyes like the lack of a costume and the killing of buzz was exactly what they expected from Oizys. Her reputation served me well.
It was easy enough to keep to the fringes unobserved, yet totally observing everything. While the throne room may have mimicked Zeus’ statue gallery, Hades had opted to drape the rest of the main floor in bordello chic. Not a decor I’d seen during my stay in Olympus. This meant red velvet brocade wallpaper, divans, plants, knick-knacks, and lots of gold gilt and zebra print furniture. Taaaacky. My head throbbed looking at it all. It didn’t help that Zeus’ own clean citrusy cologne was gusting into the room in hissing puffs.
I did my best to breathe through my mouth.
Finally, I managed to skirt my way into the throne room. After all that red velvet, the white and gold that Hades had used to transform it into Zeus’ statue room was blinding. I blinked a few times to adjust my eyes.
When I could see again, I slinked to the far corner and hid behind a massive statue of my father plucking a fig from a tree, while a bird in the branches pooed on his head. The tree had been sculpted in such amazing detail that I was actually able to climb it and hide myself among its marble leaves. This was the perfect vantage point. I had a clear view of the entire room over everyone’s heads.
Some of the guests had obviously gotten a jump start on their drunken festivities. Their costumes were already slightly askew. Masks were already tilted, eyes were too glittering, voices too loud, and too slurred. The buzz of conversation was loud, but from where I sat, just tolerable.
Hades held center court, dressed, just as I’d suspected, as Zeus, in a cream linen suit and matching fedora, that strained against his bloated frame. At first I wasn’t sure how this made a mockery of his brother, until I realized that the suit wasn’t some costume Hades had made for the occasion. It was Zeus’ actual suit and fedora. His favorite outfit. Hades had stolen it somehow, and was wearing it with great pride and swagger. He just had to touch his brother’s things, didn’t he?
He plucked a goblet of wine from a passing minion’s tray and slugged some back. Wine sloshed onto his lapel. I could just imagine his glee when he returned it dirty, ripped, and stained—to my anal retentive, metrosexual father.
An Infernorator glided over to Hades, Oizys in his wake.The minion presented her to his master and floated away.
I watched, curious, as Hades leaned in close to speak to her.
She stiffened, but Hades didn’t notice, or didn’t care. With a pat to her shoulder, he turned from her to get more wine.
I couldn’t imagine what was going on, but whatever he’d said kept her close at his side.
And glowering. Her eyes sliced through the room. She looked ready to kill.
Maybe I was projecting that part, since her mask covered much of her face. But I didn’t think so. I had a sinking feeling that her death rays were intended for me. I’d gotten her into whatever Hades was up to.
Well, I couldn’t worry about it now. Everything, for better or worse, was in motion.
I watched them for a few more minutes, but nothing changed.
Nor did Kai appear.
Which begged the question of where he was.
I didn’t see Festos either. I hoped he was off convincing Aletheia to show up. Gotta hand it to him, his chandelier was one of the most spectacular things I’d ever seen. The light hung high overhead, its candle holders and metal twists spanning a good ten feet.
It reminded me of dancing fountains, like they have in Vegas. Or rather, hundreds of tiny dancing fountains, all held in their own individual candle cups. They were made of lava and fire, and they syncopated in a gorgeous ballet of reds, oranges, and blues. Hundreds of teardrop crystals reflected all the color and heat into endless prisms of light.
It was mesmerizing.
I couldn’t believe that nobody found it as entrancing as I did, but everyone else seemed too engrossed in being as loud and obnoxious in their Olympian impressions as possible.
Except for Oizys. Even from half a football field away, I could see how still she was. Looking for me. For a second, I thought she’d found me. Her gaze seemed to hold on my area of the room.
I pressed myself farther behind the marble leaves and into the sha
dowy corner. I held my breath. I don’t know what would have happened if she’d had even one more second to glower my way, but a sudden blare of trumpets made everyone turn toward Hades.
“Friends and honored guests,” Hades boomed out, his voice reaching even this far corner, “Welcome to my ball.” His words were drowned in a cacophony of catcalls, whistles, and stomping feet.
He held up a hand for silence. “On this eve of the spring equinox, we celebrate the union of light and dark. And what better way to start the evening’s entertainment than a first dance between the Prince of the Underworld and a Princess of Olympus?” He shot Oizys a sly look, as if the dance was just the first of many “entertainments” he had planned for Persephone tonight.
Oh, crap! My stomach lurched.
A darkly sensual waltz played. The crowd parted and there was Kai. He stepped into the circle, clad in all-black, save for a glittering red mask. So much for avoiding him at all costs
Oizys stood there, chin jutted out, tense.
It was like a car crash that only she and I knew was happening. Our entire charade was about to be blown.
I had to get out of here before Kai could find me. I dropped out of the tree. The sound of the crowd “ooohing” with delight at the obvious tension between “Persephone” and Kai, worked in my favor. Everyone was focused on them.
I skittered around the edge of the room until I was in line with the throne itself, sparing a glance for the dancing couple. One look at their body language—Oizys unnaturally rigid, and Kai holding her in an iron grip and wearing that stupid poker face of his—and I knew the jig was up.
I shoved my way through the throng, and over to the base of the throne. It wasn’t 2AM yet, but I figured the best place for me to hide was in the room underneath it where I was to meet Fee. Of course, this meant hanging about in the place where Persephone had been murdered seventeen years ago. And now that I had all her memories in glorious living color, it was going to be quite the trip down memory lane.
I put my hand to a specific stone near the back of the base and pushed. The heavy obsidian swung open and I slipped through. It whispered shut behind me.
My Life From Hell Page 23
