Something was wrong.
Even dressed in pajamas and sporting a top knot, the blonde was a beauty. She stood under the pallid porch light, looking exhausted and like she'd been crying, mascara streaked down her face.
“Can I come in?” It sounded like she had something stuck in her throat.
“Yeah, of course.”
"Is it the pizza?" Lexa called, walking into view. “Sybil!”
That was when the girl burst into tears.
Lexa and Persephone exchanged a look and quickly wrapped their arms around her as she sobbed.
“It’s okay,” Persephone whispered, attempting to soothe her.
She thought she could sense Sybil’s pain and confusion, something she had never perceived in another person before. The emotions were like shadows grazing her skin, flutters of sadness, strikes of jealousy, and an endless cold.
Strange, Persephone thought. She pushed the feelings down, quashing them to focus on Sybil.
The three stood like that for a while, embracing one another in a tight circle until Sybil began to collect herself. Lexa was the first to break form and poured Sybil a glass of wine while Persephone directed her to the living room and gave her a box of tissues.
“I'm so sorry,” she finally managed to say, accepting the wine with shaking hands. “I had no other place to go.”
“You’re always welcome,” Persephone said.
“What happened?” Lexa asked.
Her mouth quivered, and it took her a few moments to speak. “I’m...I’m not an oracle anymore.”
“What?” Lexa asked. “How can you not be an oracle anymore?”
Sybil had been born with certain prophetic gifts, including divination and prophecy. Persephone also knew that Sybil could see the Threads of Fate, which she had referred to as ‘colors’ when she’d told Persephone she and Hades were meant to be together.
Sybil cleared her throat and took a deep breath, but even as she spoke, her voice broke. “I told myself I wouldn’t cry over this anymore.”
“Sybil,” Persephone reached for her hand.
“Apollo fired me and took my gift of prophecy away,” she explained. She laughed humorlessly, wiping her eyes as more tears slide down her cheeks. “Turns out you can’t continue to reject a god without consequences.”
Persephone couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She recalled Sybil’s comments about her relationship with Apollo. Everyone, even her close friends Xeres and Aro, had assumed they were lovers, but Sybil had told her and Lexa that she wasn’t interested in a relationship with the God of the Music.
“He wanted more from me than friendship and I refused. I’d heard about his previous relationships, all of them ended in disaster. Daphne, Cassandra, Hyakinthos…”
“Let me get this straight,” Persephone said. “This….god-child got a little pissy because you wouldn’t date him and took your power away?”
“Shh!” Sybil looked around, clearly afraid Apollo would appear and smite them. “You can’t say things like that, Persephone!”
She shrugged. “Let him try to take revenge.”
“You are fearless because you have Hades,” she said. “But you forget, gods have a habit of punishing those you care for most.”
Sybil’s words made her frown and she suddenly felt less confident.
“So you don’t have a job anymore?” Lexa asked.
Because of her gifts, Sybil had been enrolled the College of the Divine. There, she’d learned to hone her power and had been chosen by Apollo specifically to become his public relations manager. Without her gift, the job Sybil had spent the last four years training for was not attainable. Even if she had retained her powers, Persephone wasn’t sure anyone would hire a disgraced oracle, especially one Apollo had fired. Apollo was the golden god. He’d been named Delphi Divine’s God of the Year seven years in a row, only losing the title once after Zeus struck the magazine’s building with lightning in protest.
“He can’t do that!” Persephone exploded. She didn’t care how beloved the God of Music was, he didn’t deserve that respect if he punished people just because they didn’t want to date him.
“He can do anything,” Sybil said. “He’s a god.”
“That doesn’t make it right,” she argued.
“Right, wrong, fair, unfair—it’s not really the world we live in, Persephone. The gods punish.”
Those words made Persephone shudder, and the worst part was, she knew it was true. The gods used mortals as their playthings and cast them aside when they got angry or bored. Life was nothing to them because they had eternity.
“I wouldn’t even mind being fired, but who will hire me now?” Sybil said, her voice desolate. “I just don’t know what to do. I can’t go home. My mother and father disowned me when I applied for the College of the Divine.”
“You can work with me,” Lexa offered, looking at Persephone as if to say, can’t she?
“I’ll ask Hades,” Persephone promised. “I’m sure they can use more help at the foundation.”
“And you can stay with us,” Lexa added. “Until you are on your feet again.”
Sybil looked skeptical. “I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
Lexa scoffed. “You would not be an inconvenience. You can keep me company while Persephone’s in the Underworld. Hell, you can probably have her room. It’s not like she’s here most nights anyway.”
Persephone gave Lexa a playful push and Sybil laughed. “I don’t want your room.”
“You might as well crash there. Lexa’s not wrong.”
“Of course, I’m not wrong. If I was sleeping with Hades, I wouldn’t be in my room, either.”
Persephone reached for a pillow and smacked Lexa.
It was the wrong thing to do.
Lexa shrieked like a banshee and reached for a cushion swinging wildly. Persephone dodged the blow, which left Sybil to take the brunt of it.
Lexa dropped the pillow.
“Oh, my gods, Sybil, I am so sorry—”
But Sybil took up a pillow, too, and smashed it into the side of Lexa’s face.
It wasn’t long before the three were locked in battle, chasing one another around the living room, delivering and taking hits until they collapsed in a heap on the couch, breathless and giggling.
Even Sybil seemed to be enjoying herself, the last few hours of her life momentarily forgotten. She sighed and said, “I wish all days were this happy.”
“They will be,” said Lexa. “You live with us now.”
By the time the pillows were returned to their place, the pizza had arrived. The delivery guy apologized profusely and explained that traffic had been backed up due to protests.
“Protests?” Persephone asked.
“It’s the Impious,” he said. “Protesting the upcoming Panhellenic Games.”
“Oh.”
The Impious were a group of mortals who rejected the gods, choosing fairness, freewill, and freedom over worship and sacrifice. Persephone wasn’t all that surprised that they’d showed up to protest the Games, but it was kind of unexpected, given that the Impious had kept a low profile for the last few years. She really hoped they stuck to peaceful protesting and didn’t escalate—a lot of people would be out and about for the festivities—Persephone, Lexa, and Sybil included.