82

82

His Star

When I open my eyes next, my head isn’t muzzy anymore, and while I’m stiff and achy from lying here so long, I feel no other pain. Also, they’ve removed most of the tubes that were stuck in me, so that’s better, too. Charon sits at my bedside instead of Hades, reading a romance novel. I smile. I didn’t peg him as the type.

“Good book?” I croak.

He lowers it and grins at me, and I blink. Gods really are extraordinarily beautiful.

“I’ve been debating if we should call you Sleeping Beauty or Snow White.”

I guess the River Styx did its work, and Hades’ blood kept me alive. Barely, it felt like.

It took several more days, or…however long. I’m not exactly keeping track of time. I only remember patchy pieces, but at least most of them didn’t involve pain or fever or even delirium. Just exhaustion as my body mended.

“Weren’t both of those fairy tales a sleeping death?”

“Hence the debate.” He puts his book on the table beside his chair. “Given how pale you are and the raven-black hair, I’m leaning toward Snow White.”

“Hephaestus could be the huntsman.”

Charon laughs at that. “And Aphrodite the evil queen?”

I shake my head. “She didn’t mean for things to turn out so bad.” I saw how she’d cried herself puffy over Dae’s grandmother. Those emotions were real.

“Hmmm… And prince charming?” His gaze turns sharp, curious—not in an idle way. “Seems like you have a few options.”

No use denying it. “One is a ghost who doesn’t love me more than a friend. And one is a god. Doesn’t seem like either prospect has much of a future.”

“Not to mention the ally,” Charon says.

“Also just a friend.” While these games are played, at least.

What I don’t tell him is that Hades was the rock I held on to through all of it. Boone’s visit helped ease my guilt, helped give me a goal to work toward and something to live for. But Hades?

He was my peace. He was my strength. He was my haven.

Definitely didn’t see that coming. Though I probably should’ve.

“I’ve never seen Hades…distraught before,” Charon admits. Not like this.”

For a minute, I worry that I spoke my thoughts out loud or that he could read them. But then his actual words sink in, and heat flushes through my face. I try and fail miserably to be casual. “Was he?”

He searches my expression. “Enough that it scared me.”

I stop tracing a pattern on the blanket to look at him more closely. “Scared?”

Charon shrugs. “He’s king down here, but I couldn’t make him leave you. For days. This is the first time he’s been out of this room since he brought you here, and I still had to force his hand. If he loses it…” Another shrug.

But I get the idea.

The heart monitor beats a little faster, the sound of it pinging and obvious. I really hate those machines. With a flick, I remove the gadget from my finger.

It flatlines, and Charon turns it off with a not-so-secret smile. “You don’t think you have a future with him? Why? Because he’s a god and you’re mortal?”

I really don’t want to have this conversation, so I say nothing.

He doesn’t let it go, though. “You don’t seem the type to let details get in your way.”

“What are you saying?”

“What has he told you about Persephone?”

I press back into my pillow. Where did that come from? “He told me she was like a sister to him. How losing her devastated him.”

He glances away. “There’s that, at least.”

“What does that mean?”

He shakes his head. “It means he’s being up-front with you.” He pins me with a pointed look. “Hades only shares information for two reasons—either you’re in his very small circle, or he’s using it to get something from you.”

“Which am I?”

He runs a hand around the back of his neck. “I’m hoping the former.”

“‘Hoping’ doesn’t sound promising.”

Charon huffs an unamused laugh, and yet he seems to want me to give Hades some kind of chance.

Mine.

Hades’ claim, his word, bounces around inside me.

But the way he takes care of me feels like more than possessiveness over his champion.

I try to push up in the bed, and Charon grabs a pillow and stuffs it behind my back gently. Just getting situated takes all the fight out of me, and I close my eyes for a second. I don’t want to go back under. I’ve had enough of that.

When I make my eyes open again, he’s still here. Charon asks, “Did he tell you—”

At the click of the door, I look directly into mercury-gray eyes.

The second Hades sees me sitting up, it’s like all the tension drains from him. And a memory strikes. A real one, I think. I stare at him as I recollect.

A moment in the middle of the night when I swam to the top of consciousness, after the Styx fix, and Hades’ face blurred into view.

“You can leave me, you know,” I remember slurring. “I’m not going to die now.”

“That’s debatable.” Then he frowned. “Or do you want Boone again instead?”

Both irritation and a genuine offer laced his words.

I tried to shake my head, but my body just wasn’t cooperating. “No. You.”

“You want me?” His face did that supremely satisfied thing. When it’s not annoying, his arrogance is slightly endearing. “Good. Get well and I’m sure we can figure something out. I have plans.”

I don’t remember what happened after that. I probably drifted back off.

But what’s sticking with me now is the way he said he had plans.

Mine. My star. Plans.

For me? For us? Does it have something to do with the Crucible? Or was he just teasing?

He steps farther into the room and into the light of the lantern, and I gasp.

“Fuck.” Charon’s on his feet. “That bad?”

And I don’t blame him. Hades looks awful, visibly somber, which I think might be Hades’ version of shaken. His lips are pinched, eyes sunken into the pallor of his face. He looks like…well, like death warmed over.

Hades lifts a single eyebrow at Charon. “What do you think?” he asks in a voice devoid of all emotion.

The ferryman winces.

“Did I interrupt something?” Hades asks, flat tone turning silky.

Charon doesn’t look at me. “Not really. I was just about to fill her in on what she missed.”

What I missed? My mind is moving at the speed of a sloth, so I’m not entirely keeping up with this conversation.

“I’ll do that,” Hades says.

A distinct doggy whimper comes from the hallway, and behind Hades, one of Cerberus’ heads leans down to look into the room with one eye.

“Hey, buddy.”

“Are you okay?” This is Rus, and it makes me smile.

“Doing much better. Give me another day or two, and I’ll be back in the Labors again.”

“We don’t like that.” I can’t see the other heads, but Cer is the one talking.

Me neither. But I have more riding on winning now than just me. A lot more. My gaze slides to Hades, and suddenly all I can see is a man who would do anything for the few people he loves most.

Hades doesn’t change his expression by so much as a flicker, but a flare of dark suspicion sizzles through me—a flare of clarity and knowing that isn’t mine. It’s coming from somewhere else.

Oh wow.

It takes everything I have not to gasp, not to let the shock show on my face.

That was real? The emotions I got from him earlier. Those weren’t hallucinations or wishful projections. Those were all real.

Because of his blood? It has to be. Maybe it will wear off. Does he know?

Why is he suspicious, though? The Crucible? Or maybe about what Charon was telling me? Not that he got a chance to tell me much.

I shift my gaze to Charon, who won’t look me in the eyes. “Better get back to the boat,” he mutters. He gives my leg a squeeze over the covers. “Good to see you lucid finally, Lyra.”

He and Hades exchange an inscrutable glance as he leaves. “Come on, Cerberus. Let’s give them some privacy.”

Cerberus grumbles as they walk away.

But I’m too busy studying Hades to care. “Where were you?” I ask.