Chapter Six

It’s only been a few days. Mum and Dad still don’t know,” Zoe said. They were sitting on the floor against her bed, a plate of sandwiches between them. She sent a furtive glance toward her closed bedroom door.

“Wow,” Adrian said. “Thus the sunnies.”

“Yeah. It’s easy enough to fake being blind. I’ve got enough practice. But I’m starting to get sloppy. This morning I picked up a book and almost started reading it in front of them.”

Adrian smiled, but the disgruntlement hadn’t left him, even in his delight at her transformation. “So you can switch realms and all that?”

“Yep. Niko trained us. We even got to pick out a spirit horse, one for each. I keep mine tied up in the other realm here, near the back garden. You probably didn’t see her. The sunlight makes them almost transparent.”

“I guess.” He fed a sandwich crust to Kiri. “You wouldn’t eat the orange for me. Nor even the pomegranate. But you would for him.”

“Ade. It wasn’t really for him—though, yeah, he is quite persuasive.”

For months now, Niko had been coming occasionally to New Zealand to check on Zoe and sniff round for Thanatos. It was safer than having Adrian do those jobs, since Thanatos or the neighbors would recognize Adrian, but didn’t know Niko. Niko had gladly taken on the task. He liked Zoe instantly upon meeting her—not to mention he’d held affection for her in past lives. Zoe reported liking him too, or at least finding him amusing. But Adrian hadn’t guessed Niko could persuade her into such a huge step. Especially without either of them consulting him.

He picked apart another crust. “Who was it for, then?”

“You. I mean, I was finally ready, is all, and the opportunity presented itself.”

“But you didn’t tell me. When it happened.”

“I wanted to surprise you.” She shoved at his knee. “I wanted this moment. Admit it. It was awesome.”

Adrian glanced at her, then watched Kiri lick crumbs off the carpet. “Did it for Tabitha, didn’t you.”

She was silent too many seconds before answering. “No. I mean, I hardly know her. I didn’t know her, that night.”

“You had a few hours to chat before you got to the Underworld. The three of you cozily sharing Niko’s horse.”

The hint of ribaldry in her laughter stirred his irritation further. “That was interesting. And, okay, they did bring me a bottle of rum, and you know that’s my favorite.”

Adrian dropped a crust on the plate and pulled his hands away. “Right. He got the both of you completely soused, at which point you agreed, ‘Yeah! I’ll go halfway round the world at three thousand kilometers an hour on a bloody ghost horse, and eat some fruit in the land of the dead, which I wouldn’t do for my best mate Ade even though he’d have got me there a lot safer—’”

“Oh, stop it. I feel bad, all right? I’m sorry. Really, Ade.”

He lifted his gaze to the spring sunshine on the leaves outside the window. “I’m glad you’re strong and healed and around forever, Z. You know that. It’s only…I’d wanted to give that orange to Sophie.”

Zoe pulled in her breath in a hiss of contrition.

“Niko didn’t check with me,” Adrian added. “I mean, he kind of did, but not really. I would have said no, or at least asked you to save a slice.” He glanced at her in a flash of hope. “You didn’t happen to save any?”

She winced and shook her head. “We were rather hungry by then. It was a tasty orange. I mean, that and a few pomegranate seeds isn’t a proper dinner…”

He sighed, and looked down at his hands dangling over his knees. “Of course. So. Only been a few days. In that case, you’ve not got to the Hekate memories yet, I assume.”

Zoe shook her head. “Nowhere close. Nor has Tabitha.” In answer to his questioning glance, she confessed, “We text each other now and then. Kind of a lot actually. It’s a big experience to go through together, that type of thing.”

“Yes, I’m glad you all bonded,” he said dryly.

“But with me it’s different, the memories,” she said, apparently opting to ignore his condescension. “You’ve told me all about them, so I know the facts already, even if I haven’t seen them in my own head yet.”

“Getting to them yourself is very different from hearing about them.” Concern took the place of his selfish hurt, and he examined her. “What are you going to do now? Fake your normal life a while, till you get caught out?”

“I suppose. It’s safest, right?”

“I really, really don’t want Thanatos targeting you. Please don’t do anything stupid.”

“I shall do my best. I might even do something smart. Something magical to help our side.”

He considered it. “You were certainly good at that as Hekate. And in other lives, to a degree.”

“In the ones I can remember so far, I did always try my hand at witchcraft. It seemed actually to work a few times.” She scrunched up her nose. “And you weren’t always my parent. Sometimes only my friend, like this life.”

“Sometimes siblings.”

“Never lovers.”

He cringed. “Thank Goddess. How gross would that be?”

“Disgusting.” She laughed. “So I assume Sophie doesn’t know about me? Tab said she was going to keep it secret a bit. A surprise, and all.”

“Well, she knows about Tab now, so she’s probably finding out about you.” His phone rang at that moment. He looked at the screen. “And that’s her. Bugger, hope she doesn’t yell at me.” He answered with a wince. “Heya.”

“So I think I know what Niko meant by having another surprise for us.” But Sophie didn’t sound angry. She sounded more like she barely contain her excitement.

He smiled at Zoe. “Yeah, I think I know too.”

“You’re with her now?”

“I am.”

Sophie laughed in wonder. “You did not tell me we had a daughter.”

“We’ve got a bit to talk about, eh?”

Sophie’s conversation with Adrian was brief. She still had Tabitha there, and much to discuss with her. But after Tab returned to Seattle for the night on her ghost horse, Sophie phoned Adrian again.

He said he was camping out in the spirit realm in New Zealand, having just visited his father.

“How is he?” she asked.

“Doing well. Wants to meet you. He’s a bit over the moon about my finally having a girlfriend.”

Sophie lay back on her bed and smiled at her old posters. “That’s sweet. I want to meet him too.”

“You will sometime. And I suppose I’ll meet your parents tomorrow. Officially.”

“When you come pick me up? Only if you’re ready.”

“I ought to. I shouldn’t have been a wuss about it today. Though, to protect them, I’ll still have to lie about my name and other minor facts.” He sighed. “So how’s Tab?”

“Fine. I mean, she feels terrible about ‘stealing’ the orange from me, but it’s obvious she loves being immortal. She’s already got some plan for world domination. As far as I can tell it involves dropping out of school, becoming best buds with famous people, having parties every night, and sending hordes of fangirls to do her bidding.”

“Oh my. We’d best stay on her good side. But you did warn her?” He sounded anxious. “She mustn’t let it show, her being immortal, or they will work it out and target her.”

“Yeah, I warned her, and she swears she’ll be careful. But I can’t make her understand. She thinks it’s all fun. Or at least, ninety-nine percent fun.”

“That’s because she hasn’t spent enough time with the memories yet. Nor has Zoe. They haven’t even reached the ancient Greek stuff. Zoe knows the story, because I’ve told her, but I think it’s the same with her. She doesn’t quite grasp how much it all meant.”

Sophie wedged her lower lip between her teeth as she remembered that moment just after Persephone’s life: walking with Hades in the fields, both of them dead. As long as she’s all right, they said to each other. She. Hekate.

A cold rope of dread slithered around Sophie’s body. “Does…” she began, and swallowed. “I know we had to die. Obviously, if we were reborn. But how bad is it?” She cringed while awaiting his answer, afraid to search for it in her own memories. Perhaps he might say it wasn’t too bad as deaths go…

He took a breath in and out. “For immortals, it always has to end violently. I haven’t talked about it because I don’t like to remember it. It…won’t be fun for you. But it could’ve been worse. And like I said before, there’s still so much good stuff before it. Please don’t be scared of it. We’re here now, together, alive. All of us.”

Sophie let out her breath slowly. She spread her hand across the soft, worn comforter. “True.”

“And going chronologically, you have years and years before…that. They’re years full of important events. You’ll want to explore them.”

“Events like Hekate and Dionysos.”

“Right. To name a couple.”

She frowned and tried again to place Dionysos. “He wasn’t our son or anything, was he?”

Adrian chuckled. “No. He was—um, do you want spoilers?”

Sophie deliberated, sliding her fingers back and forth on a loose stitch of the comforter. “I guess not. I’ll let it be another fun surprise.” She added irony to the words. “In the meantime, I have a hell of a lot to do.”

“Finding new lodgings. Fun.”

She groaned rather than select words to express how not fun it would be. “Tell you one thing,” she said. “This time, no letting my roommates anywhere near my phone.”