A Meeting

Kore half-woke to the sensation of Cerberus, his warm body pressed against her. She tucked her cheek against him, smiled at the swell of his ribs as he leaned into her. The dog sighed in that contented way he had, and Kore moved her arm to wrap around him. Fingers traced over her skin, pressing her arm closer to a muscled chest.

Fingers? Dogs didn’t have—

Kore scrambled backwards before she could finish the thought. Sunbeams met her when she opened her eyes, and in the daylight she tried to remember where she was. Giant vines twisted up from the floor, curling like ferns at the top. They formed grotesque statues, silent guards in the tiny space. The low, thick fetters she’d wrapped Hades in still wound in sinister circles on the floor.

Hades.

Kore let her eyes slide sideways, but he did not appear to have woken. Kore let her body sag in relief. She didn’t know what she would have done if he realized she’d pulled him closer in the night, pressed herself against him from ankle to shoulder.

Buzzing sounded from the floor, loud and insistent.

A muffled groan came from the lump of blankets beside her. A hand wiggled out of the covers, scrabbling for the phone. Hades picked it up and answered, held it to his ear for a moment before pressing a button so Kore could hear too.

“...think it’s absurd it’s gotten to this point,” a voice said, strange and synthetic through the phone. “But Demeter has promised to come to the table, and it’s high time you and the girl did, too.”

Hades rolled onto his back. He glanced at Kore, his eyes unreadable. “When?”

“This afternoon. The sooner you all sit down and talk about this like adults, the better.”

Hades seemed to bristle, his lips pressing together. “Two o’clock, then?”

“Sure. Whatever. Just get here.”

The line clicked, and Kore assumed the call had ended.

Hades tossed the phone on the covers. He pressed his fingers into his eyes and lay there, still enough she knew he was trying to quiet whatever emotions clamored through his chest.

“We wanted Zeus to call, didn’t we?” she asked, hoping to at least nudge him in the positive direction.

“We did. I could do without his condescension, however.”

“You got him to break. Small victories.”

He sat up and swept a critical eye over her, cross-legged beside him. If he noticed her, too far away from him, he didn’t say anything about it. “If your mother didn’t kill me after seeing how you were dressed the first time, she’s certainly going to kill me now.”

Kore looked down at herself. Unfortunately, she had to agree with Hades’s assessment. Between the new spots of gold staining her clothes and the giant rip still flapping open on his, they looked like they’d walked through fire together. Which wasn’t far from the truth, but still.

“We might be able to get more on the surface,” she said. She’d heard the girls talk about clothing shops there.

Hades smirked, reaching for the phone again. “We don’t even have to go that far.”

He sent a message, then they slid out of bed and collected their shoes. Hades said nothing as he doused the fires, not about the nightmare or Kore’s request for him to lay beside her or her lying pressed against him, and she didn’t broach the subject. She didn’t want to talk about it, either.

When they were ready to go, Hades slipped the cap back on her head and led the way to those high-rises they’d passed on the way to the palace. He walked into one, not the tallest but big and made of huge panes of glass and reinforced metal. They stepped into a steel box with sliding doors that took them up twenty stories, where they emerged into a kind of foyer. Wood paneling covered the walls, and three couches had been placed at right angles on one side of the room. Kore thought they might have been for guests, places for people to sit while they waited for an audience with the king of the Underworld, but she didn’t ask.

Hades flickered back into reality, and motioned for Kore to take the cap off her head. The electric current humming through her teeth mercifully ceased. She rubbed her jaw to try to lose the phantom feeling.

“Hades?” A female voice drew Kore’s attention to a woman standing on the other side of the room. She stared at them, round face open in surprise. “What happened to you?”

He shot her a wry smile. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I need some help, if you have the time.”

“No one has that kind of time. But what can I do for you?”

“First, Leuce, I’d like you to meet Kore. Kore, this is Leuce.”

Leuce walked towards them, though she stopped short of coming into hand-shaking range. She looked Kore up and down, and Kore winced thinking of what her hair and the three-day-old clothes must look like.

“Kore, like Demeter’s Kore?” Leuce’s voice hitched on Mother’s name.

“The same,” Hades sighed.

Kore managed a nod too. A nagging tickle tugged at her, the feeling that she should know Leuce even though nothing came to mind. She didn’t look like most nymphs Kore knew, her white-blond hair cut to her chin and her face painted with colors Kore had never seen—a beautiful shade of blue around the eyes and a deep purple on her lips. More than that, no nymph Kore knew had such striking, glowing red eyes as the ones currently staring at her.

“Well, I can’t imagine what you’re doing down here,” Leuce said, crossing her arms. “I don’t think Demeter would send you on a field trip below the earth, no matter the reason.”

“No,” Kore agreed. “I stumbled down, and since then it feels like it’s been one wrong turn after another.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Leuce’s taut stance loosened. “I know how that feels.”

Hades cleared his throat. “Zeus has called a meeting. I can’t go home without being assaulted by cameras, and I’d rather not steal if I don’t have to. Do you think you can help me with some new clothes?”

Leuce raised a critical eyebrow, though Kore saw the beginnings of a smile forming. “You don’t want to go into that meeting looking like you fought a Gorgon?”

“I’d at least like to look halfway respectable as I walk to my doom.”

Leuce chuckled. “You two make yourselves comfortable. I’ll see what I can do.”

#

When Hades escorted Kore to the seventy-second floor of a different building, this one in the human world, the two of them looked, relievingly, much more presentable. Leuce had found Hades a suit, one that didn’t fit quite the way it should but did the job well enough. For Kore she’d offered a few options, from a pantsuit to a sundress to a set of slacks and a blouse. Kore hadn’t had to deliberate long—she liked dresses, and with the blazer from the suit to stave off the chill of the Underworld, she felt almost herself again.

They arrived at Zeus’s office ten minutes before two. A young man, almost as dazzling as the wallpaper and gold-plated sconces, greeted them and escorted them inside.

Mother waited already when they entered. She stood from her chair, her face filled with all the harrowed sympathy Kore had thought she’d find on the plains. Mother opened her arms, clearly wanting Kore to run to her like she had before, but Kore hesitated. The last time she’d taken such an invitation, Hades had been attacked and the planet shriveled.

Before Kore could decide what to do, Zeus stood from behind his desk. He matched every description she’d ever heard of him, burly and imposing with ruddy curls and a trimmed beard and all of the presence she’d imagined would belong to a king of kings.

“Thank you all for coming.” His voice seemed too loud even for the cavernous room. “I understand we’ve had a bit of a…scuffle between the three of you recently.”

Hades sank into one of the chairs facing the desk. “That’s certainly one word for it.”

Mother motioned for Kore to seat herself beside her, between her and Hades. It seemed as good a place as any.

Zeus spread his hands in a placating gesture. “I’m sure we can find a reasonable explanation.”

Mother twisted her hands in her lap. Kore hadn’t seen her so nervous in a long time. Could she be worried about their company? Or perhaps regretting the false words she’d spread about Hades?

“Kore? This whole thing seems to be about you, if you’d care to enlighten us.”

When Kore looked up, Zeus’s eyes had landed on her, blue just like his brother’s. And yet, when Kore searched for herself in them, she couldn’t find the fathomless quiet that rested in Hades’s gaze. Only a restlessness and a flicker of recognition, followed by a horror she didn’t understand.

Kore found herself turning away, looking for answers, but Hades stared resolutely out the windows in front of him.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“Let’s start with what happened.”

Mother leaned to take one of Kore’s hands in her own. She squeezed, the gesture familiar. Comforting. “It’s all right, dear. You can tell the truth.”

Kore resisted the urge to shake her fingers free. “I—this is all a misunderstanding. I wasn’t kidnapped. I asked Hades to take me down.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Kore. You’d never do something so foolish.”

What had Hades said, just that morning? I could do without the condescension, however. Kore knew exactly how he felt. “I had to do something. You would have killed him if he stayed on that hillside any longer.”

A startled sound crawled out of Mother’s throat.

Zeus raised a brow. “What gave you that impression?”

“That’s how I understood the conversation,” Kore mumbled, worried that any more would get Mother into more trouble than she wanted.

Zeus, as if sensing that might not have been the whole answer, nodded slowly. “Hades?”

“Hmm?”

“Any input?”

His eyes landed on Kore when he shook his head. “It’s like she says. She asked to go back, and I didn’t stop to think about what that might mean.”

Zeus waited, but Hades did not offer anything more. “Perhaps, then, we can agree mistakes were made on both sides, but no one intended any serious injury. If that is the case, I for one would be happy to go back to my own life and pretend none of this ever happened.”

Mother tensed, because of course it couldn’t end so easily.

“So the treaty means nothing, then?” she asked, practically hurling the words. “Hades is allowed to drag anyone he sees fit to his kingdom, against the laws we all signed?”

Zeus rubbed at a spot on his forehead. “It sounds like that isn’t what happened, Demeter.”

“Did he or did he not say he took her back? I would like to know how she got there in the first place.”

That same fear flashed across Zeus’s face, but it fled again before Kore could even be sure she’d seen it. He turned to her and raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t remember how I got down,” she said honestly. “I remember leaving the farm, then waking up on a beach in the Underworld. There were dead everywhere, and if Hades hadn’t been there, I might have been swallowed whole by the souls on the shore.”

“See?” Zeus said. He smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “The man’s a hero. I’d offer a celebration, but I know you and the nymphs don’t enjoy such events. Instead, perhaps we can all go home and put this unfortunate episode behind us.”

“One condition.” The room turned, suddenly, to Hades. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Kore gets to come and go from the farm as she chooses.”

“Hades, you know better—”

“I will not have her going back to that infernal place—”

Hades raised his hands to stop the protests. “Not to me. I know what the laws say, and I don’t expect them to be broken on my account. But she can’t be trapped on that farm for the rest of her life. She gets to come and go as she pleases, or I walk away from this meeting. It’s more than time she took on her own mandate, anyway.”

Kore could have kissed him. She scolded herself for thinking it, but she found herself smiling nonetheless.

Mother, however, hissed through her teeth. “You presume to know what’s best for her, do you?”

“No. Only that I’ve learned some fairly appalling things about her life with you.”

Mother turned on her. Deep in the worry lines around her eyes, Kore saw the war that must be raging inside her, and she thought maybe, maybe she had a chance.

“Look at me, Mother.” Kore kept her tone soft, almost pleading. “I did fine out there. I braved the Underworld and lived to tell about it.”

“I hardly think that’s a good reason for you to return!”

“I’ll always come home, you know that. But I’ve seen what’s out there now, and I can’t simply give it up to make you happy.”

Mother held out another beat, then she softened. She pulled Kore to her and kissed her hair. “I know. I wish that wasn’t the case, but there’s little I can do about it now.”

“I’ll be okay, Mother, I know it.”

“You always were more stubborn than I knew what to do with.” A long breath went up and down Mother’s chest. “As long as you promise never to see Hades again, you can go wherever you like.”

Kore’s bud of hope shattered. She opened her mouth to protest, but Hades spoke before she could.

“I think that’s for the best.”

Kore whirled. He avoided meeting her gaze, a hand drifting to his neck. She remembered the long lines of bruising there, the pain she’d caused him. Her heart sank as she realized she couldn’t blame him for wanting nothing more to do with her.

The slam of Zeus settling his hands on the desk made her jump. “I think that settles that. Are we all happy with this new development?”

No. But Kore couldn’t say it, because what did it matter? If Hades didn’t want to see her again, she wouldn’t force herself upon him.

Zeus stood, followed by Mother. Hades remained seated, and it seemed he wouldn’t even wish her good-bye.

Kore would fix that. She walked over to him, stopping close enough that the smell of earth filled her nose. “Thank you for everything. I know it couldn’t have been easy for you.”

He didn’t move his head. “Take care of yourself.”

“You, too. Tell Minthe I wish you both the best.”

Shock stopped him short, his eyebrows lifting and his lips pressing together. Good. She didn’t want to hear anything more, anyway.

Hades rose. He pushed past her, towards the massive doors leading out of the office. Her body rocked with the force of him going by.