30

30

When Hades Gets Angry

The bubbling sensation that comes with fading away and fading back in at a new place takes me from where I’m sitting by Isabel’s body in the cave to a black marble floor, still wet and miserable. Two booted feet appear in my line of sight. If feet can be angry, these are.

“What were you thinking, Lyra?” Hades growls at me. No, not growls…pops like firecrackers in the street at the New Year.

The last thing I need is to be yelled at after what I just went through. What’s he mad about, anyway? I didn’t win, but I didn’t fucking die, either.

“Dragon teeth?” he thunders next.

Oh.

The mention of dragon teeth reminds me about hearing his voice in my head.

But I don’t ask.

I don’t say anything.

“Where did you get—” Hades cuts himself off. Then, if anything, his voice goes quieter. “The thief who brought you your things. He gave them to you.”

I am not getting Boone in trouble for helping me.

“Did he give you the axe, too?”

I jerk my gaze up at that. “I—”

From out of nowhere, Hades manifests another axe—one that looks exactly like mine.

“It’s a matched pair,” he says. “Odin gifted them to the oldest son of Cronos after we imprisoned the Titans in Tartarus.”

So that’s the symbol on the handle—I thought it was Zeus, but it’s Odin. I bet Zeus loved being passed over for Hades, given that he was the King of the Gods at that point.

“About ten mortal years ago, I thought I lost one.” He gives the axe I’m still gripping a pointed look. “I guess not.”

My eyes go painfully wide. “It just showed up, and it wouldn’t let me get rid of it,” I say.

He slips his axe into one of the rings on the leather straps he’s back to wearing. “I don’t care why you have it. You used it in front of the gods.”

“They’ll think it’s just a switchblade.”

“I can assure you, they know exactly what it is,” he snaps. “That makes two relics, and neither is the one from me. Damn it, Lyra. We were already pushing it with the pearls.”

That was the last concern going through my head at the time. “There are no rules in the Crucible about bringing my own relics,” I say quietly. “Just tell the Daemones where I got them.”

The wrong thing to say, based on the way his silence now flays me.

“You think this is funny?” he murmurs eventually.

Anything but. “I didn’t smile,” I point out.

“Only two other champions used their gifts today. One did it to survive, and the other to win the Labor.”

I frown. “Diego used his gift to win?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Hades snarls under his breath. “What do you think the glow was?”

Glow? What glow? “I missed that part. Too busy trying to not die.”

“His gift is the Halo of Heroism. It gives him an edge in all four virtues—Mind, Heart, Courage, and Strength. It appeared over his head while he was working on the problem.”

Well…shit. “That gift is going to make him undefeatable.”

“What you should be asking”—he’s back to thundering—“is why not a single other champion used their gifts when they could have.”

He’s right. He’s right, but I can’t deal with it.

I drop back to lay on the cool floor and fling an arm over my eyes. Vaguely, it’s sunk in that we’re in Hades’ house in Olympus again. I just don’t have the energy to care.

“Are you taking a fucking nap?” I feel him loom overhead.

I don’t open my eyes. “Can you just…give me a minute?”

The ominous silence that settles in the room grows teeth and claws the longer I lay here. It finally penetrates the exhaustion, shock, and sorrow currently holding me in a state of numbness.

I blow out a soft breath. “How long has it been since anyone made you wait?”

“I. Don’t. Wait.” Each word is clipped at the end like he’s biting off the sounds.

And I don’t know what it is about him being a dick in this moment—maybe the arrogant selfishness of it, the “I’m an all-powerful god” of it—but a laugh bursts from me. An abrupt bark of sound that is as much of a surprise to me as it probably is to him and gets swallowed by the silence of his rising ire.

But now that I’ve broken the seal, I can’t stop. Laughter pours out of me, violent and fraught. I manage to sit up, but I mean it. I can’t stop.

It goes on long enough that Hades kneels down in front of me, frowning. “Lyra?”

Tears leaking down my cheeks, I shake my head, face and belly starting to ache from the traumatized hilarity that still has me in its clutches.

Frustration passes over his features, clamping his perfect lips tight until they’re in a thin line. “Lyra, stop it.”

Then Hades grabs me by the shoulders. The instant he touches me, the laughter stops, cutting off abruptly, and I stare at him.

And it all hits me.

I promised myself no crying. No crying, damn it. It takes everything I have to hold back the emotions. Almost like I have to force myself to be numb not to feel it. I know I’m staring at Hades, but I’m not really seeing him, focused inward. If I’d done anything like this in front of Felix, he would’ve told me to get my shit together or maybe even slapped me to shock me out of it.

I should get to my feet. Go change clothes and figure out my next steps. Not show this kind of weakness. Not to anyone.

Especially not Hades.

So when he silently sits down on the floor beside me, legs facing the other direction and right up against me, close enough to feel his warmth through my wet clothes, I don’t know how to handle it. Not a shoulder to cry on, exactly, but silent support.

I could endure him yelling, leaving, blaming, even throwing things.

But it’s like even an ounce of mortal fucking understanding, just the tiniest smidgeon, blows a hole through the emotional fortress I’ve built around myself over the years, and the tears just sort of escape. I bite my lip hard, trying to stop them.

And Hades does the worst possible thing—he softens.

He cups my face with one hand, his thumb skating gently over my lip where I drew blood. His eyes change from cutting steel to a swirl of mercury, and what I see in them is…understanding. “Don’t do that.”

I can’t talk around the lump clogging my throat, so I just shake my head.

“You’re going to be okay. I promise.”

I can’t remember the last time someone said anything remotely like that to me, and it hits me right in the feels. Then I shake my head because that’s not it. It’s not about me. Not at all. It shouldn’t have happened. Isabel didn’t deserve this. “I…” I have to swallow hard. “I held her hand while she…” I hardly knew her, but I just can’t seem to let this go. “She was in so much pain.”

So much pain.

“I know,” he murmurs and wipes away the tears that escaped with the pad of his thumb. “I know.”

I can’t get the image of Isabel’s face out of my head—the panic, the haunting certainty that she was going to die in her terrified eyes as she screamed and screamed. “I didn’t let go. Not even…when—”

I can’t say it. Not out loud. That will make it more real, make it worse, cement it in my mind.

“I saw,” he says. The low rumble of his voice surrounds me, and something soothing about that sound finally seems to penetrate, and the tightness in my chest eases just a little.

I curl my hand around his wrist and give in, leaning into his touch, closing my eyes, listening to the steady in and out of his breathing, trying to time my own to the sound, to him. It helps.

Being with…him.

His comfort. His steadiness. His touch.

The god of death’s touch.

What in the Overworld am I thinking?

My eyes blink open to find him watching me.

Hades puts a finger under my chin, making me look at him. “If I promise to take care of her in the Underworld—give her a lovely spot in Elysium—will that help?”