I looked back and forth between Henry and James to make sure they were both paying attention, but Henry was concentrating on my ankle, his head bent and his eyes closed. A thick warmth spread out from my knee to my toes, and Henry wrapped his hands around the joint, gently moving it in a circle.
“Does this hurt?” he said, and I shook my head. He set my leg down, and I gingerly pulled it toward me, wiggling my toes. It didn’t ache anymore.
“How did you—” I started, my anger momentarily forgotten, and Henry shrugged.
“You’re not supposed to heal her,” said James from across the room. Henry righted himself, and even from the side, I could see the deadened look in his eyes.
“It seems we are breaking all sorts of rules tonight.” He stood. “If you will excuse me.”
Before I could protest, he was gone, leaving me and James alone in the room together. I stood as well, testing my ankle. It was solid.
“It wasn’t my choice, you know,” said James quietly. “Taking over for him if you fail. I’m the only member of the council who knows the Underworld as well as he does.”
“But you still wanted it,” I said.
He looked away, out a dark bay window and on to the grounds. The moon was nearly full, and I could see the tops of the bare trees rustling in the November wind. “We last as long as what we represent does. Minor gods fade all the time when they’re forgotten, but the council isn’t minor. As long as humanity exists, there will always be love and war. There will always be music and art, literature and peace, and marriage and children and travelers. But humanity won’t last forever, and after it fades, so will we. Only death will remain.”
“And if you control the Underworld, you get to survive even after everything else is gone?” I said it as a question, but I already knew the answer, and a knot formed in my throat. “That’s what this is about?”
“No. This right here, this is about making sure you survive. I don’t want you to die, Kate—please. None of us do, and Henry gave up a long time ago. Maybe he’s trying for you, but not because he wants to continue—he just doesn’t want you to be killed, that’s all.”
I paused. “Is there a good chance of that?”
James looked at me, and I could see the naked fear in his eyes. “No one’s survived past Christmas. Please. Henry doesn’t want this. He’s always going to be in love with Persephone, not you. Look around you—look at where you are. This was her bedroom.”
There was nothing unusual about the room, only the picture that Henry had thrown at James. But the more I studied my surroundings, the more I really saw it. It was like a child’s room that a parent didn’t dare touch after tragedy struck. There were old-fashioned hairpins on the vanity in the corner, and the curtains were drawn to let the sunlight in. There was even a dress lying out in the corner, waiting to be worn. It was like it was frozen in time, lying untouched for centuries until Persephone returned.
“That reflection—” James gestured to the image of Persephone and Henry together, looking so happy. “It isn’t real. It’s a wish, a dream, a hope, not a memory. He loved her so much that he’d have torn the world apart if she asked him to, but she could barely stand to look at him. Ever since she died, he’s been begging the council to release him and let him fade. Do you really think you can compete with that?”
“It isn’t a competition,” I said roughly, echoing his words from before. But even as I said it, I knew it was. If I couldn’t make Henry care about me, he would have no reason to continue, and in his mind, I would always be pitted against Perseph one. But that was no reason to stop fighting for him. He deserved a chance at happiness just like I did, and I wasn’t ready to tell yet another person in my life goodbye.
James’s expression softened. “He’ll never love you, Kate, not the way you deserve to be loved. He gave up a long time ago, and all you’re doing is prolonging the pain for him. It would be kinder to leave him be.”
I stepped closer to James, torn between anger and a pressing need to touch him, to make sure my James was still there underneath the cunning god he’d suddenly become, saying all the words he thought I needed to hear to convince me to leave. To steal eternity from Henry and hand it to him. “And you think I should?” I said. I was barely a foot away from him now. “You think I should give up and leave him, just like Persephone left?”
“Persephone had her reasons,” said James. “He took her away from everything she ever loved, and he forced her to stay with him when she didn’t want to. You’d have done the same.”
I was silent. The difference between me and Persephone was that she’d had something left to lose. James reached forward timidly, and I let him wrap his arms around me, burying his face in my hair. I heard him inhale deeply, and I wondered if he could smell the lavender of my shampoo, or if it was my fear and guilt and determination he sensed instead. After a tense moment, I returned the embrace.
“Please don’t do this to yourself, Kate,” he mumbled into my ear. I closed my eyes, and for a moment I pretended that he was just James again. Not Henry’s rival, not the god poised to gain everything from my failure, but my James.
“Will you do something for me?” I said against his chest.
“Of course,” he said. “Anything.”
I let go of him. “Get the hell away from me, and don’t come back until spring.”