Chapter 59

Evie

The Gates of the Underworld

E vie wished her first response upon seeing the gates of the Underworld had been something other than a whispered, “mother of fucking witches,” but alas, it was not. To be fair, her response was more poetic than Cole’s yelped, “Holy fuck, Gondor wants its statues back,” which was something but not much.

The Underworld’s entrance was blocked by a four-story high filigree city gate that spanned the entire width and height of the rocky chamber in which they stood. Directly to the left and right of the comparatively small wicket doors nestled inside the Underworld gates were two statues that closely resembled a modern-day Grim Reaper, cowl drawn over his features and scythe facing outward. The overall effect was unnerving to say the least.

The doors were thrown wide open. No surprise, given both the Underworld’s closed-for-business status for the last several millennia and the mass exodus of all the souls in the Underworld save those in Tartarus. From where they were standing, she could see glimmers of light glinting from between the doors.

Seizing Cole’s hand, she walked him towards the open doors. Her brain told her that, if they kept standing there, they might both run screaming down the tunnel out of sheer intimidation at the task before them. As they strolled through the gates, an air of false casualness about them, a wave of rightness swept through her just before magic crashed through her, piercing her, settling deep inside her. Her breath caught in her throat, and her skin felt like it was two sizes too tight, a piercing ache settling between her legs. Cole’s muffled groan and tented jeans confirmed that he felt the same.

“Gods,” she whispered. More than anything, she wanted to tackle Cole to the ground and ride him until they were both relieved of this ache, but they were on a time crunch. The battle to execute them and jumpstart the apocalypse, courtesy of an absurd, unrecorded ancient prophecy, still raged miles above their heads. As long as their throne remained unclaimed, the more plausible it was that somebody could summon them away. As long as they remained mortal, any assassination attempt would most likely be extremely permanent. But she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Cole.

“Angel.” Her name was a low growl. “We gotta get moving.” She didn’t move, and Cole stepped towards her. “As much as I love it when you look at me like that, we have some things to take care of before I can take advantage of that eye fucking you’re giving me.”

Nodding, she bit down on her lip. Tore her gaze away from his and turned, finally taking in the sight before them.

The Underworld was mostly barren, a dark wasteland lit only by floating blue orbs. A slight breeze blew, teasing the black grass underfoot and lightly shifting her hair, but, in the gaping emptiness before them, the wind sounded more intense than it really was, its powerful song loud around them. She couldn’t see any residences or souls or plant life. And yet, deep in her soul, she could sense a powerful tree, its roots sunk deep in the volcanic soil.

Without a word, Evie peeled off in the direction of the plant she had sensed. Its magical signature pounded in her head, blurring out all other thoughts and sounds. She knew Cole was behind her, could feel his hand still tight around hers, but she couldn’t hear anything he was doing or saying. The one plant in a city of death owned her focus for the moment.

It wasn’t long until they saw the building, a towering edifice built similarly to some of the Gothic cathedrals, that took them far longer to reach than to see it. When they finally arrived at its doors, Evie looked up. And up and up and up. What set the building apart wasn’t its size or its existence as the only structure they had seen so far. What made it unique was the massive tree extending up through and far above where the roof should be, its thick limbs extending through the windows. The tree looked dead, but… that didn’t make sense. She could feel it, living and breathing, as real as Cole beside her.

“Should we go in?” Cole asked hesitantly.

She understood his hesitation. Everything about the building was intimidating, especially now that they were standing just feet away from it. Was this how Kore and Aidoneus had ruled all those years ago? With intimidation and might? Furious gargoyles glowered down at them from their perches along the roofline, and she could see fragments of white that looked like bone baked into the black bricks that composed the building. She shivered, this time with alarm, and Cole drew her back into his chest, arm sliding around her waist. This building wasn’t made for comfort or welcome. It was made for punishment.

“I don’t kn—” She stopped as magic slithered across her skin. A compulsion. They needed to go in. This was a necessary step of their journey. “Yes. Yes, we need to go in.”

Cole stepped out from behind her. “Let me go in first.” At her incredulous expression and irritated grunt, he clucked his tongue. “We don’t know what’s in there. If there’s something dangerous, I want to be its target, not you.” Her eyebrows rose further at his response. “We’re equals. I learned my lesson on that one after I tried to hide you in our bedroom when Cate came calling at the witchin’ hour. Just play along with me, okay, Angel? I’ve already almost lost you once today, and it fucking broke me. I need to protect you. Please.”

Her heart beat faster at the stark expression on his face. “You aren’t the only one who thought they lost everything today. I actually did lose my adoptive mother and one of the other coven elders, in addition to thinking, for however brief a time, that I may have lost you. I had no idea whether you were still alive when I woke up after the drakes dropped me.” She rested her hand on his forearm, stroking it gently. “Let's compromise. How about we go in together?”

His body tightened, but he nodded sharply. “Okay, let’s… okay, we go in together. Same time.” Before she could move, he grabbed the back of her shirt. “Same fucking time, Angel. We walk in that building at the same time or not at all.”

“You’re hot when you’re bossy.” Her response was intentionally bratty in an effort to relax him.

He chuffed out a laugh, the tension in his shoulders easing slightly. “Fucking hell, brat. Fine, let’s go into this terrifying, probably deeply haunted building.”

As one, they lifted their palms and pressed them to the doors. They opened evenly, unexpectedly silent as they swung inwards. They stepped over the threshold at the same time. Stepped slowly past where the doors ended.

As soon as they were in the building, a gust of wind blew through the large room, slamming the doors behind them. The sound of them crashing into place rattled the structure, the tree directly in front of them shaking with the force.

Evie could feel Cole vibrating with anxiety beside her, but the tree held her attention captive. In a blink, it had gone from decayed bleakness to sparkling with magic, the intense golds of her lunar magic and the neon blues of their shared death magic intertwining, skimming along the length of the trunk and up over the branches. Life followed the power, foliage and fruit blooming in its wake until the tree sat before them, alive and thriving.

A burst of color in the dark space, the tree now took up most of the center of the room. It was covered in lush, dark green leaves and, nestled within the new growth, were plump fruits with a scarlet skin.

“Pomegranates?” she asked just as Cole said wryly, “Seems a little on the nose.”

Evie let out a short laugh. “I guess we eat the pomegranate seeds?”

Cole shrugged, snorting as he did so. “Makes as much sense as anything else we’ve done or seen today. Probably more so if we’re supposed to tie our lives to the Underworld.”

“And that’s how Persephone did it in the lore, right?”

“Yeah. I mean… yeah?” Shoving a hand through his hair, he sighed. “But the family documents are annoyingly silent on what we have to do now. So it’s all a guess. What if it’s more Adam and Eve eat the apple than Persephone eats the pomegranate?”

“Well, then I guess we’ll realize we’re naked, cover ourselves in shame, and go back up to the earth where some of my sister witches will kill us so they can start an apocalypse without the old gods around to muck it up?” Evie snickered, ignoring his grumpy expression. “But we can’t know if we don’t try, right? We have to do something .”

“Well, if eating this magically created fruit doesn’t work, maybe we go find the thrones in this pile, instead, and I eat you out like you deserve.” His voice dropped sensually.

“Oh, my love, that’s still very much on the table.” She blew a kiss at him, smiling at his back as he retrieved one of the pomegranates from the tree and brought it back to her. With a quick punch of magic, he halved the fruit and split it open, brows wrinkling in confusion at its interior.

Instead of the garnet-colored arils that usually filled a pomegranate, they were a rich gold, glinting richly in the ghostly light filling the building. Evie thumbed out a dozen of the seeds, passing six to Cole and keeping six for herself. He set the split pomegranate gently to the floor before taking them and glancing at her in a silent question.

She shrugged at his look over the amount. “It felt appropriate. Myth says that six pomegranate seeds kept Persephone here. Might as well keep up the tradition?”

A fond smile spread across Cole’s face. “I fucking love you, Angel,” he said, swooping in to give her a kiss that curled her toes and made her heart beat fast. He pulled away and glanced down at the seeds he held. “Bottoms up?”

“To eternity together, my love.” She tilted her fist over her face, the golden arils sliding into her mouth at the same time that Cole ate his own. Sweet then tart flavors exploded in her mouth, richer than any pomegranate she had ever tasted before. A rush of wind blasted through the room but died down quickly. They chewed for a few seconds in silence before Evie spoke. “Is something supposed to happen then?” She glanced over, nearly choking at the crown, burnished silver in the shape of flames dotted with rich blue sapphires, that had appeared on Cole's head.

“I think it just did.” He gestured to her own head.

Reaching up tentatively, her hands skimmed along a crown of her own, perched precariously atop her curly hair. She lifted it off her head, staring in amazement at the silver crown, more delicate than Cole’s and inset with amber and blue jewels. When she lifted her eyes back to Cole, he was holding his own crown, wearing a dubious expression.

“Feels a little pretentious, right? You think we have to wear these all the time?”

“I think we can rule however we want to, my love,” Evie reassured him. “We can build an Underworld that makes sense to us. One of the many perks of having to start from the ground up.” She glanced down at the crown in her hands in distaste. “And the trappings of royalty and the manipulations of power don’t suit either of us so… we wear these things when we have to.” A dark smile lit her face. “But we do need to check in on how Cate and the others are doing. Should we go above and show the traditionalists just how badly they’ve failed?”

“Just this once, I think I can wear a crown to make them feel inferior.” Cole’s smirk was as sinister as her own.

“I wonder if there’s an easier way to get in and out?” Evie considered the glittering tree before them. “This tree has magical roots that run the entire length of the area we traveled. It's how I sensed it was here. I wonder if it has other abilities too?” She walked towards it, running her fingers along the bark of the trunk. “Do you have any other secrets to share, my darling?” she whispered. For a moment, her memory flashed to another time when she cooed to the Chanterelle mushrooms she had raised to feed her sisters. Then, she felt a whooshing of air next to her head. With a broad grin, she turned to what she knew instinctively was a portal out of the Underworld that had formed in the trunk of the tree. A quick glance through it revealed a field covered in blood.

Cole sauntered over, his crown perched back on his head, eyes sparkling with mischief and mayhem. Too devastating for his own good. Plucking her own crown out of her hands, he lowered it gently onto her curls, tilting it back so that it didn’t hang over her forehead. “Hey, belle petite déesse ,” he said softly, running his hand down her arm to entwine his fingers with hers. “Are you ready to go make sure your good coven sisters dropped a metaphorical house on the bad ones?”

She squeezed his hand. “I think I just might be.” And with that, the newly-crowned royals of the Underworld stepped through the portal.