Page 107 of Raising Hell
“Thank you, Father.” She looked at me. “Thank you, too. You’re a good mother.”
Not knowing how to respond to that, I stuffed a bite of honey cake into my mouth. The few moments of comfortable silence that followed felt like enough of a reset that I could talk about something else after I swallowed.
“This room is amazing, but I think Zotera should have a shower too. It’s so much easier than a bathtub.” A thought occurred to me. “Would Zotera be able to magic hot water?”
“She would.”
As soon as we finished our breakfast, Hades changed the far side of her room so it included a water closet and a shower like ours. However, he didn’t bother with a privacy screen, which made sense. Zotera’s face filled with doubt as I described how it was supposed to work. But quickly changed to awe when the water started to sprinkle down.
“I can’t wait to try this,” she said, twisting her hand this way and that under the hot water.
“If you want to try it now, we can leave,” I said, already reaching for Hades.
“No,” she said, jerking her hand back. “I can do this while I’m waiting for you to wake. I’d rather play more games of chance with you now.”
Her eagerness reminded me of how the others had acted earlier, wanting to share their stories. No one had anything real to do, just like I hadn’t had anything back home. They’d gathered in the bathing pools to talk and in the festival room until things went wrong there. They needed more options to entertain themselves and do things.
“Games sound fun. What do you think of making a whole room dedicated to games? Games of chance. Strategy ones like the checkers we played. And some more active ones that I could explain to you, like ping pong. We could put it all near the festival room so everyone can use it whenever they want.”
Zotera gave Hades a worried look that he didn’t catch because he was too busy staring at me with open hopefulness.
“What?” I asked her. “You don’t think they’d like it?”
“They would, Mother. Very much.”
Hades stood. “Come. We’ll start now.”
He held out a hand to me.
“Zotera too,” I said with a nod at her as I took his hand.
He hesitated only a moment until extending a hand to her too. Zotera’s eyes couldn’t have been wider as she took his hand.
Her pretty new room melted away into the hallway outside the festival room. A new door now existed across from it. Looking through the open door, I saw the space matched the other one in size and wasn’t filled with crappy old stone but the same beautiful marble as the festival room.
“This is perfect,” I said, my voice echoing. “How many games of chance should we have?”
The three of us worked together to decide how to divide the space into different areas.
They weren’t sure what I meant by active games, so it took some time to explain games like ping pong and bags to Hades in a way that he could come up with working examples. Once he had something close, I demonstrated how to play, and from there, we came up with how much space each active game needed.
After setting aside a third of the room for the active games, we were more thoughtful about how to fill the remaining area with games of chance and strategy. We added other small touches, too, like lounges for people to spectate games in play and borders around the active ones so no one would accidentally interfere.
Our talking and laughing drew a few curious souls to the door where they would peek in and quickly leave again.
We were close to finishing when I noticed a low murmur of voices coming from the hall.
“They’re waiting until we call them,” Hades said when he saw me glance at the door. “Are we ready?”
I looked around the room. It was cozy with sitting areas for conversation, tables for snacks, and tons of entertainment options, and I couldn’t wait for their reactions.
“A few more lamps. We want it bright in here. And some rugs under those tables.” I pointed to the two closest ones that held the strategy games.
As soon as Hades made the changes, I nodded.
“Children!” he called. “Come see what your mother has given you.”
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
