Page 17 of Whiskey, Thieves, and Bastards
Ericot:The Jaminas are in. Who is writing it?
Amelia:The Jaminas need to adopt this even when we aren’t working with the Maenads because some of you don’t know how to behave. Let’s do this.
I exited out of the comments and turned to Benji and Dionysus.
“Do you trust your followers?”
“Idon’t trust some of them,” Pax said. “Remember that guy who stalked you all the way to town and was asking around?”
“He was so cute,” Benji giggled.
“He was not. He could have exposed us all!” I growled.
“There’s probably going to be a few of them on both sides, but the majority of our followers are good people. When we’re in the Underworld, it’s going to have to be me that responds. The living have to take the ferry but gods can portal in and out.”
“Speaking of, you should probably go,” Jezebel said. “My bestie needs answers. We’ll hold down the fort.”
I leaned in to Dionysus.
“Do you trust Hephaestus and Athena to stay behind?”
Because I trusted Hephaestus. He practically adopted my mate and tried to help get her out. It was Athena I didn’t quite trust yet.
“Hephaestus adores her like a daughter. Athena is a decent person. I know what she did and I’m not making excuses for her. She’s still my half-sister, and she’s trying to make it right.”
I just grunted. We would see about that. I guess we were going to the Underworld.
We had to get supplies to travel to the Underworld. I used to be able to make this trip with a coin once Hades and Persephone told Charon I was okay to take as a living person. Everyone thought it was respect for the dead and Charon didn’t care about the coin, but he did. He wouldn’t take you across the river without it.
He'd still take the coin if you didn’t know better, but if you were a repeat offender taking trips to the Underworld, then he wanted treats. Charon decided he liked poutine and meat pies, so that’s what I had to bring him. Gods could portal to the Underworld, but if you had a single drop of DNA that wasn’t divine, you’d be vaporized if you didn’t go by ferry.
We got to the entrance and Dionysus portalled away to get poutine and Benji said there was this place in Louisiana that made the best meat pies. Benji also said it was morally reprehensible to give the ferryman of the dead cold meat pies, so he’d be back with hot ones.
Dionysus came back first and Benji also came back with a box from a bakery.
“I grew up in Louisiana. I figured if Charon is taking all of us, he might like a Doberge cake, too,” he said, smiling shyly.
I kissed him on the cheek.
“He’d love that.”
Since we weren’t dead, calling Charon didn’t come naturally. Luckily, it wasmucheasier than it used to be. Demigods used to have all kinds of rituals to summon him when they needed to break into the Underworld for some kind of quest. I was really the onlylivingperson trying to get into the Underworld now and I happened to have the cellphone number of the ferryman.
“Hi, Charon.”
Charon let out this long-suffering sigh.
“I suppose you need me to fetch you again.”
“I’ve got friends with me this time, so we’ve got a lot of treats. One of my mates brought some kind of special cake from New Orleans.”
Charon sighed again. He always pretended to be annoyed with me, but we were secret besties.
“I suppose you’d better show me then. I’ll be there in two minutes.”
Benji had alotof bags. Like, way more than Charon would need. I just noticed because I needed to call Charon and I was a little worried meeting the furies.
“What else do you have in there?”
