Hades looked at Ilias. He had not thought beyond this moment, save that he did not see any reason for Persephone to ever find out about Leuce. He could just imagine how she might react to not only discovering that his lover from the ancient world had returned but how he had handled her treachery—and it wasn’t good.
Leuce was a complication.
“I do not know,” Hades said. “Just…be on standby.”
Ilias nodded and Hades left.
He could teleport into the room, and he often did when he confronted those who had committed wrongs against him, but he wanted time to think, to prepare to face the lover he had forgotten, so he moved from floor to floor, invisible to the crowd, growing more and more frustrated.
Of course Leuce would return only a day after he had managed to reunite with Persephone, he thought bitterly and then halted. That thought gave him pause. Perhaps it wasn’t just a coincidence. Perhaps it had been more purposeful.
Perhaps it had been Demeter.
Suddenly, he was more than eager to confront her, and he did not hesitate. A cloud of thick, heated air hit him as he opened the door. Leuce pinned him with a chill gaze, her blue eyes narrowed in contempt.
“You.”
It was all she said, but she spoke with venom in her voice and then launched herself at him.
She was lithe and willowy, and she moved as if she had wings, cresting the table between them like it wasn’t there at all. While her anger was justified, he was not interested in allowing her near, so he flung out his hand, and his magic became shadows that restrained her midair.
“You have every right to be angry,” he said. “But if you have come here to ask for my aid, as I suspect you have, then you will do well to keep your hands to yourself.”
She spit in his face, and he released her quickly. She collapsed to the ground, a pile of bony, white limbs. She glared up at him.
“Haven’t you hurt me enough?”
He hadn’t heard her voice in so long; he had forgotten the sound. Despite her anger, she spoke softly, yet each word was deliberate, another stone stacked, a greater guilt to bear. He wanted to flinch at her words but kept his cold composure. He did not want Leuce to think she was welcome to return to his side. In fact, he’d prefer she kept her distance.
Then he noticed the tears.
“What is this place?” she whispered, once again resuming the position she had taken in the chair and drawing her knees to her chest.
Hades was confused and taken aback, both by her tears and her question, but he recognized suddenly that he had given little consideration to how much of a shock this had all been. He had merely assumed ill intent, and he still did, but that did not take away the trauma of returning to a world that looked nothing like the one you remembered.
He crouched low before her.
“What do you wish to know?” he asked.
She froze a little, probably caught off guard by the change in his demeanor. After a moment, she spoke. “How long has it been?”
Dread crept up the back of his throat. He did not want to answer. Somehow, he felt that if he said it aloud, it would make him crueler.
“Over two thousand years.”
She blinked, and for a moment, there was nothing behind her eyes. “Two thousand,” she repeated, as if saying it would help her comprehend just how much might have changed over all those years. Then her eyes focused on him, and he thought she was recalling what he had looked like the moment he had turned her into a tree.
Perhaps he’d been wrong to think he could question her. She was clearly in shock.
“Why?”
Hades was not prepared for the way her voice broke. Guilt twisted his stomach, and because he had no explanation, he remained quiet.
“Why?” she said again, more demanding. Her watery eyes, rimmed with red, made her anger all the more apparent.
He gritted his teeth. “At first, because of your infidelity.”
She shook her head a little, as if she didn’t understand. “It took you two thousand years to get over my treachery?”
Hades’s jaw tightened. He wanted to deny her statement, did not want her to think he had pined after her all these years, but he also did not want to admit the truth—he had forgotten.
“And Apollo? What was his punishment?”
Once again, Hades did not reply because the truth was shameful. He had not punished Apollo as he had Leuce. Indeed, he had done nothing to the God of Music, and at the time, that had seemed more than fitting, given that Apollo had seduced Leuce in retaliation for Hades’s refusal to allow him to reunite with his lover Hyacinth. So he’d left the god alone with his misery.
She scoffed and looked away, more tears sliding down her cheeks. “You’re all the same,” she whispered.
Hades frowned, brows knitting together. He wanted to say something about how he had changed like the new world she found herself in, but what good did that serve? She was a victim of his wrath, and no matter how he had moved forward, nothing changed that.
He rose to his feet. He had been wrong to think he could question her now, but that only meant he would have to keep a close eye on her longer.
“You have much to learn if you are going to return to this world,” Hades said.
“That’s all you have to say?”
He stared back at her, uncertain of what she wanted from him and feeling like there really were no words great enough for this moment.
When he said nothing more, she spoke, her words bitter. “I see you haven’t changed.”
“If that were true, I’d have told you I owe you nothing beyond the life I have granted you and turned you away.” He recognized the irony of his words. As much as he had granted her life, he’d also taken the majority of it away.
“I don’t need your charity.”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “Or is the one who returned you to your human form offering a hand?”
Her brow creased at his comment. “Was it not you?”
He was concerned by the genuine confusion in her expression and asked, “Exactly how did you come to be here tonight?”
“I woke up,” she said. “I screamed your name until someone brought me here.”
He stared at her for a long moment. He did not sense a lie, and though she may have omitted parts of the truth, he supposed it wasn’t impossible that she had not seen the person who had restored her to her natural form.
Still, Hades did not trust her. Ilias would have to keep an eye on her activity once she was settled.
He turned to the door.