But I didn’t think of him as a fool, and neither did Hermes. I’d kept this a secret not to hurt him, but to make sure I didn’t. And Mother had to go and ruin it all.
I swallowed, the words stuck in my throat. “Yes,” I finally said. “I’m happy. And—that’s just the summer, all right? Down here, you and I are…whatever we are. These seasons are yours.”
He nodded, not quite meeting my eye. “Very well. So long as you are happy, that was all I wanted.”
The pain behind his words coiled around my insides until it nearly suffocated me. Why had Mother done this? She must’ve known how much it would hurt him. “I’m sorry Mother told you,” I said quietly. “I never meant for you to find out. I knew it would hurt you, and we weren’t going to continue it down here, and—”
He shook his head. “Your mother did not tell me.”
I blinked. “Then who?” Who else knew?
Hades was silent, and he took my arm as the doors into the throne room opened. Rows of the dead turned to watch us, and at the end of the aisle, standing beside Hades’s throne, was Hermes.
Of course. He was the only other person who knew. Why had he told? Absolution? To ease his guilt?
Whatever it was, I glared at him as Hades and I reached our thrones. Did you really have to tell?
Yes. His voice whispered through me, for my mind only. I don’t want us to be a secret, not from Hades.
You hurt him. Badly.
We both did.
I sat down in my throne, tearing my eyes away from him and focusing instead on the faces of the dead awaiting judgment. The first one moved before us, her head bowed as Hades addressed her, but I was deaf to his words. I wish you hadn’t.
I’m sorry. I respect him too much to go behind his back like that.
Yet you don’t respect him enough to keep your hands off his wife in the first place?
You were free to do whatever you wanted then. But I won’t keep it a secret from him, either. He deserves better than that.
He did, and I hated myself for agreeing. He knows we aren’t together while I’m down here?
Yes.
And he’s all right with that?
As all right as anyone could be. He loves you. He wants to see you happy as much as I do.
You have a strange way of showing it.
Hermes didn’t reply. Between us, Hades sat stiffly, his eyes blank as the woman talked about her life. Slowly, as if it were the most casual thing in the world, I set my hand over his. I hadn’t meant to hurt him, but I’d been a fool to think I never would. There were consequences for everything. Even happiness.
As much pain as it caused him though, that was a price I was willing to pay.
* * *
Despite that first day, Hades and I settled back into our old routine, this time with genuine friendship between us. I managed to carry the contentment of my summer into our time together, and as the years passed and I went back and forth between him and Hermes, I continued to do the same.
It wasn’t simple, but the uneasy truce between the three of us became all but permanent. Years turned into decades and decades into centuries; before long, I’d lost all track of time, my only benchmarks the beginning of spring and the end of summer.
But we were happy. Even Hades eventually adjusted, and I no longer saw pain in his eyes when he met me in the meadow every autumn. Instead he seemed pleased to see me once more, and slowly I grew to be happy to see him, as well. I hated the Underworld, and that wall between us was as strong as ever, but his understanding made me more accepting of his world.
Nothing changed for a long time. But one day, as I lingered in the observatory after we’d finished our judgments, I closed my eyes and did something I’d done thousands of times before: I found Hermes. Summer was only a short time away, and I was anxious to be with him again.
He was in his chambers in Olympus, standing on his balcony as the sun reflected off his light hair. And he wasn’t alone. That wasn’t anything unusual—he was social by nature, the complete opposite of Hades, and he usually spent a great deal of time with our brothers and sisters. But this time it was Aphrodite who stood beside him.
And she was naked.
Not that that was anything unusual, either, but the way she hugged his arm to her chest, the way he touched her—
I was going to be sick.
Hermes and I had never talked about what he did during the winters. He knew I wasn’t with Hades, not like that, and I’d always let myself believe that he waited for me. Maybe most of the time he did. But we didn’t have any rules about our time apart, and I had no right to feel as furious as I did.
It was Aphrodite though—the goddess who had everything. Love, satisfaction, a perfect life, a happy marriage. And now she was taking the one thing I had that was mine, the one damn thing in the world that gave me any amount of real joy.
But Hermes certainly didn’t seem to be complaining.
How dare you. I pushed the thought upward with every ounce of strength I had. It still took ages to reach Hermes, but when it did, his eyes widened, and he immediately moved away from Aphrodite. His cheeks turned red, and when she tried to rejoin him, he sidestepped her. So he knew he was doing something wrong, after all.
“Persephone, please—I’ll explain everything later.”
Like hell he would. Like hell I would let him. What would he say, that Aphrodite had accidentally slipped into his arms? That it was only a onetime thing? That he’d missed me and he was lonely, and he couldn’t wait any longer?