They changed direction and made for the staircase.

“Hermes!” Andie waved for him to follow.

“I can’t leave Hephaestus!”

“Go, friend,” Hephaestus said. He struggled with Atropos, but the fight was lost. In the scant seconds it took for Henry to reach the ground level, she had already turned one of his elbows around the wrong way, and stripped him of one of his leg braces. He looked at Hermes sadly, and smiled. “Come back for me, if you find her.”

“I will,” he replied. I will.

“Move, move!” he shouted to Andie, and she and Henry fled down the stairs. Down, and down, and down into the dark. The house had not near so many floors above as it had below, Hephaestus said. Hephaestus had no shortage of escape routes, and the stairs would take them far away from the grip of the Moirae. They would take them all the way to the underworld.

15

HADES

“It’s like being inside a snow globe.”

“What is?” Athena asked.

“This place.” Odysseus gestured around, careful to keep his eyes from lingering too long on the black forever above their heads. “It feels contained. I can’t stop thinking about up there. Or out there. The real world. I’ve never wanted to smash through something so much as I do these walls.”

Athena studied the underworld, tall rock in uneven colors of red and orange, gray and rotten purple. Blue and black in the shadows. The creeping, silent river that ran to nowhere in both directions. The dying gods who sat nearby, one of whom looked like a pet corpse they’d been dragging around for a month in warm weather.

“It’s only an illusion,” she said. “The world still exists outside. It still breathes. It’s still green. The edges do touch, in places.”

“That’s what makes it so maddening, I guess. The memory of it. Knowing that it’s there. Death would be kinder if we forgot.”

Across the river, a few shades lingered, hopeful of another taste of blood. Just one more drop, to quicken them and give them will. They circled and sniffed like dogs beneath an empty table.

Death would be kinder if they forgot. But death was rarely kind.

“The edges still touch,” Athena said once more, to make herself believe it. She should’ve said that they weren’t dead. Being there so long, even she had begun to despair of ever getting loose. She couldn’t imagine what it was like for Odysseus, a living mortal, to sit there stuck. He’d only been conscious for a little while, and already seemed halfway to tearing free of his own skin, just to be free of something.

“Tell me we’ll get out,” he said.

“We’ll get out.”

He smiled. “I almost believe you.”

“Believe me. You’ve been here before. You know there are ways.”

“This time feels different.” He scratched at his wrist. “This feels … like it won’t end.”

This time was different. This time the way was shut. Wherever Uncle Hades was, he knew they’d toyed with his boundaries. They’d taken back Odysseus without permission. So now they had to sit until they paid for their transgression. Or until they struck a decent bargain.

Athena felt Persephone’s dead eyes on them, dead eyes made eerier by the fact that Persephone was, in fact, alive.

“God,” Odysseus whispered, barely moving his lips. “I wish she would blink.”

Athena snorted. “I’m just glad she’s tied up.” Persephone sat silent, a good little bargaining chip, all bones in a black, rotten shroud, wrists bound loosely with strips torn from Aphrodite’s dress. At first it had seemed like a waste of time. But Persephone’s stillness wasn’t a beaten stillness. She’d move quick enough if they weren’t looking. A dead-eyed doll sneaking up behind the rocks.

Hades would come for Persephone soon. Athena wondered how he would be when he got there. Would he arrive in a cloud of rage and disease, bleeding filth?

This is his place. He can come however he likes.

“Hey,” Odysseus said, and pushed Athena’s hair back over her shoulder. She’d seen him do the same to Cassandra, and to Calypso. It shouldn’t bother her that he did the same thing to her. It shouldn’t make her feel so strangely jealous.

“I need to walk.” She stood.

“I’ll keep an eye on the undead princess.” Odysseus made a face. “Don’t be gone long.”

She nodded and went, not sure where or how far she intended to go. But walking didn’t feel as good as she’d hoped. Passing by the strangely shadowed walls and listening to the hateful whisper of the Styx should have felt better. Even the complete lack of wind across her face and arms should’ve felt amazing, because Odysseus was alive.