Page 96 of The Catacomb King
I gathered my mother tenderly in my arms. I waded out into the Lake, sighing as the frigid water hit my thighs. I remembered what Hades had done with me. No prayer. No ceremony. Just the offering.
I laid my mother atop the Lake surface — she floated — and pressed her underwater. With one hand I opened her mouth. I watched as the water flooded into her mouth and nose. Ipictured it flowing into the empty sac that the mortician had made of her stomach, underneath Mrs. Stammerer’s borrowed dress.
I waited to feel her gasp for breath beneath my palm.
But it didn’t happen.
How long was I supposed to have to wait?
I tried to remember how deep Hades had carried me. Maybe if I pushed my mother in a little farther. I waded out as far as I could, up to my breasts, feeling out the smooth Lake floor as gingerly as I could, terrified the floor would drop suddenly and I would fall and drown.
But no, this couldn’t be right. Hades hadn’t even been hip-deep when he’d put his hand on my throat in the Lake.
And whatever strange movement I thought I’d sensed around the Lake earlier — the cocoons, the eddying candles — was gone.
My stomach sank, even as my heart rose with panic. No, no, no. This couldn’t be. I had already eaten the fruit.
Through the soles of my feet, I recognized the vibrations that meant the catacombs were shifting again.
The underworld was opening up. Letting other people into the throne room — or letting me out.
The Monarch had not accepted my sacrifice.
He would not resurrect my mother.
Goddess
Ileft her there. Floating facedown. Her dress like dead skin, her hair like dead plants.
This time, the catacombs didn’t fuck with me. Perhaps they knew they had better not.
I navigated directly to the bathhouse. I found Hades’s prison room. I slammed the door open so hard I knocked over the brazier.
Hades surged to his feet like he was made of water. He’d dried himself in my absence and donned his trousers, though not his shirt. Ointment glistened on his bare chest and chiseled biceps like oil. Elke had still not managed to bully him into using any bandages, though, the fucking idiot. He had tucked his hair behind his ears.
“Persephone? What —”
I strode forward and hit him in the chest. He barely startled, the motherfucker. “It didn’t work,” I hissed. “I ate your fucking fruit so the Monarch would bring my mother back from the dead, and it didn’t evenfuckingwork.”
Hades’s face was rigid. “You what?”
I bared my teeth so he could see the pomegranate stains.
He reached out a trembling finger. He touched the enamel in my open mouth. He said, “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Don’t you dare be angry.Iget to be angry.”
“Every day,” he whispered, “I resisted feeding you. Every second of my life since I met you has been a battle not to pin you down and feed you those pomegranate seeds just to make sure you’d stay by my side. Every moment that I knew you might escape from me was hell. And now you have the audacity to walk into my prison cell and tell me thatyou did it to yourself?”
My blood pounded. But my grief was like a wall. I would not have believed that I could hurt this much. It was worse than when I had found out my mother had died. “This isn’t about you!” I screamed. “This is about me!” My knees buckled; Hades caught me. “Get off me.Get off me!”
“Goddess.” Hades’s voice was hard, but gentle. “Persephone. Mütte. It’s okay. My mother’s dead, too. I understand. It’s okay.”
“It’snotokay.” I was sobbing. I felt like someone was clawing my lungs out.
Hades drew me tighter into his wounded chest. “Okay, you’re right. It’s not okay. But I’m still here for you, okay? I’m not going to let you go.”
I sobbed so hard I couldn’t make words anymore. I clung to him, heedless of the way my fingers were digging into his bruises. I cried like that for what felt like an hour.
