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I STAND AT A CROSSROADS where four hallways meet, the square of space nestled at each entrance forming a bigger square. There’s none of the dank black stone from the outer reaches of the palace no matter how far I creep into the other three hallways.
Sighing, I rub a hand across the back of my neck. It comes back damp with sweat. I grimace, wiping it on my wrinkled dress.
Which way should I go? Yesterday’s twists and turns jumble in my head. Was there a crossroads on the way to my room? I might’ve already made a false turn.
I walk to the leftmost hall with a drawn-out exhale. But no, the impossibly alive flowers atop the entrance table are unfamiliar. They fill the air with a cloying scent from shell pink buds fringed with dainty petals. The petals are smooth but fragile, breaking off beneath my gentle touch. I slide one between the pad of my thumb and index finger, worrying at the softness until it crushes to dust.
I’m lost.
Part of me insists on staying put. Eventually someone will find me. Right? Already my stomach churns with impatience. I won’t sit still.
Right. Left, left, right. No rhyme or reason. If not for the occasional vase of fresh-cut flowers, all the halls look the same.
My eyes sting from the long stretches of stark stone lit by yellow torchlight. By the eighth hall, I’m close to praying for the black stone to reappear. Anything to break the monotony.
Footsteps behind me, down the hall I just left. Probably a servant. Sighing, I run a hand along my tangled hair.
Footsteps!
Pivoting, I sprint after the noise. I turn the corner and glimpse a flap of fabric twist around another corner ahead.
Chest heaving, I push myself faster. My sandaled feet slip and slide against the polished stone. The next turn, my elbow slams into the stone. Hissing at the sharp ache, I slow.
“Wait!” I yell.
They jog a few more steps, then stop.
But I’m running too fast. I press my heels into the stone. There’s nothing to grip, the marble too polished. Twisting at the last moment, I slide past the person. My wobbling legs lose the fight; I unbalance completely, falling to my hands and knees upon the cold floor. I grimace at the sting, then force myself upright.
It’s the same man who showed me to my room.
“Yes, yes, what is it you need?” His hands twitch at his sides. “Food? Clothing?” His gawks at my salt-matted hair. “A brush?”
I don’t know what a brush is so I open my mouth to ask. Then close it again. There are more important questions to ask.
He waves a hand. “Well? Go on.”
Clearing my throat, I quell a sharp retort. “Can you show me the way out?”
Fish-faced ass, I add internally.
“Out? Out of this hall?” He points over his shoulder. “Just that way.” Another point, this one to the turn at my back. “Or there, I guess.”
“No!” I shout. Wincing, I force my voice quieter. “No. Out of the palace.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
He lunges past me, leading the way, and I hurry to follow him. My teeth grind together.
I keep track of the turns this time: left, left, left, right, left, right, left, left. Instead of black halls, we end up in front of a door. The door. It has the same shape, size, and carvings as yesterday. I glance around. We’re surrounded by white walls.
He touches his fingertips to it and it swings open, silent despite ancient hinges of tarnished silver.
“How did we get here?” I ask.
He sighs. “We walked. You were there, weren’t you?”
“No. How did we arrive at the door without those black hallways?”
He strokes his stubbled chin. “King Hades called in a favor to a friend, Hecate, the goddess of crossroads. She enchanted his palace as something of a present for his marriage to Queen Persephone. The queen was ever so grateful! She got lost a lot beforehand.”
He clears his throat. “So long as someone knows where they want to go, they’ll arrive no matter the direction they head in.”
“So I wasn’t lost. Not really.”
“I suppose not. I could’ve left you on your own, but I’m not head servant for nothing.”
Nodding, I step through the door. A gentle breeze cools my sweat-slicked skin. The river Styx winds past the shore nearby. No boat floats on the placid surface.
Turning, I catch the door before it can swing closed. “One more question.”
He huffs, head peeked around the half-open door.
“How do I find Charon?”
He tilts his head, reaching into his tunic. He flips whatever he finds at me in a snap of two fingers.
My fingers fumble around the bit of metal. No, a circle of gold. A coin.
“Say his name along the edge with the coin in your hand.”
The door clicks shut a moment later.
Solid stone turns to gravel beneath my sandals. River water laps at the shore in calm waves. “Charon,” I say, coin in one hand.
I wait. The sound of rushing water calms my nerves, enough for my eyes to close. Will he be mad that I'm interrupting his work? I’ll be forced to seek answers elsewhere. The servants, maybe.
When I blink them open again, his boat waits in the river. The bridge hits the shore with a solid thunk.
Swallowing around a dry throat, I step aboard. I sit, setting my fisted hands in my lap. The coin presses deep into my palm.
Charon separates from the shadows forever lingering at the curved ends of his boat. His arms are scaled talons, fingernails wickedly long with forked points.
“Are you angry I summoned you?” I ask.
His eyes don’t soften exactly, but something about them changes. “No.” He pauses. “This is part of my job.”
The ensuing silence lengthens. The boat rocks but otherwise stays against the shore.
I could ask him now. I should ask him now. But after speaking to Zeus and Hermes, something in me seeks comfort. I want a simple conversation. No games or hidden meanings.
I bite my lip. “The palace is beautiful.”
He nods but says nothing.
Wracking my mind for more I blurt the first thought I come across. “I heard the goddess Hecate enchanted the palace halls.”
Before my words, I thought his expression tense. Pinched, even. But as his face sours in distaste, I realize before was simple neutrality.
Wonderful. There goes an easy conversation.
I clench my hands tighter. The coin digs deeper into my palm. “Did,” I croak, then pause to clear my throat. “Did you and Hecate have a disagreement?”
The corner of his mouth quirks. “You know nothing of godly politics.”
It’s not a question. I nod anyway.
Sighing, he ruffles a clawed hand over his hair. I watch the shifting muscles in his arm for a moment too long, then jerk my gaze to his face. The small quirk at the corner of his mouth transforms into a full-blown smile.
“Hecate is a goddess,” he says, shoulders tense. “And I’m only a deity.”
I squint. “So?”
He huffs. “I lack significant power. To the gods and goddesses, I’m beneath notice.”
His face blanks. The remainder of his body shows his next thought. The hunched posture, his stiff shoulders; I read his added and they’re right.
I bite my bottom lip. There’s no telling him that as a siren I’m beneath notice too. It might get back to Hades. But Charon’s oddly fragile despite his claws and burning gaze.
“The gods are fools,” I say.
He smiles, the bland sort screaming fake.
“What do you do with the coins?” I hold mine between us.
He waves it away.
Only now do I notice we’re moving. We’ve been moving. The palace is lost among the twists of the river.
He huffs, a hint of a laugh. “No one’s ever asked me.”
I lean forward with a grin. “I am.”
He leans close, trapping me with a piercing look. “Nothing. I’ve tried giving them away.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Now I just pile them in my room within the palace.”
My sudden, snorting laugh startles me. I nearly fling myself from my seat, rocking the boat. Charon steadies me with a gentle hand against my shoulder.
When my laugh trails off, I wipe my damp eyes. My breath evens out.
He ducks his head, sweetly embarrassed. His shoulders loosen. “What did you truly want to ask?”
The weight of Hermes’ words return. Nyx. An unknown goddess who wishes to meet me. I look around but there are only stones and the river.
“Who is Nyx?”
He leans back with a frown. “I don’t suppose you’d know,” he mumbles. “She’s the goddess of night.”
He glances upward. The night stretches ink-black above into the topmost reaches of Nekros. The stars don’t twinkle. They don’t shift. Instead, all of them sit stagnant. The false night sky—is it the work of Nyx?
“Can you bring me to Tartarus?” I ask, looking away from the sky with a shiver.
His boat shifts in its path, choosing a left fork rather than a right. For a moment, his jaw works on nothing. Then, “Why?”
He’s told me so much. I owe him the same. “Nyx requested a meeting.”
His disdain transforms his face, furrowing his brow and pursing his mouth. Yet he is kind, I’m realizing, and instead of complaining about being involved in politics, he nods.
“I’ll bring you,” he says. “For a small price.”
I think of the coin still tucked in my hand. “This?” I thrust it in the space between us and wince at the red indentations left on the meat of my palm.
“No.” An almost-smile. “I require a promise.”
I tuck the coin away. “Go on.”
A promise?
“The gods play tricks, Agathe.” He pauses, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth. “Promise you’ll be careful.”
The hard sheen of his eyes straightens my spine. I work my jaw, considering. I’ll be careful regardless if I promise or not.
Nyx is a goddess. A being of untold power. I’d be stupid to lower my guard. Besides, Charon might turn this boat around if I refuse. All because I refused to promise such a simple, tiny thing.
“I promise.”
* * *
TARTARUS LIES BARE except for red rocks and the matching muck at my feet. Each step sticks, sucking at the soles of my sandals. I look back once but find no comfort in the empty shoreline. Charon’s boat is already gone.
Those whose deeds were so grievous to be banished to this bare slab of rock...where are their twisted souls?
The moment I think it, a distant howl begins. Others join until the air fills with voices, all screaming. No matter how far I stare in each direction, there are no souls to match the screams.
A seething mass paces across the horizon, fathomless pitch in the dim light.
“Don’t bother.” A whisper into my ear, the breath cold. Familiar though I can’t place why. “Hades likes to tuck the wicked souls away where no one can see.”
Breath coming in pants, I turn. No one behind me. The shadow remains in the distance. The river laps at the gooey shore in gentle waves.
“Try again,” the voice says.
Another turn. Nothing but a red horizon. I’ve heard that voice before. Where?
“Mortals are so fun to play with. But you’re not quite mortal, are you?”
Black blurs at the edge of my sight. I pivot in a slow circle, stopping at pitch shadows writhing a hair’s breadth away. Moments before, the rock was empty of anything but mud.
“A siren,” it says. Eyes materialize, silver and evaluating.
It’s the shadow from atop the Kavalio Isle hill. The creature who warned me about the guards and Cerberus. Guards it was holding off.
“What are you?” My voice trembles.
“Not a what,” it says. “But a who.”
It circles me in a fluid sweep. The shape of legs draped in lush fabric appears if I squint.
“Fine, who?”
A tittering laugh. “Why, the goddess you’re here to meet.”
The shadow lurches, stopping a splinter of space away from my nose. Close enough to see silver eyes lit with a moon pupil and a scattering of constellations in the irises.
“Nyx.”
And I can’t be sure if she says it or I do.
One tense muscle at a time, I straighten, staring down my nose at the shadow—at Nyx. “You helped me on the hill.”
Another laugh. “Of course! I do love rooting for those exiled from the Olympian court so cruelly. Tell me, how did your ancestor adapt to the sea so well?”
She knows what I am. How much more? The night sky stretching above Nekros—she must watch over all who dwell here. And those visions of stars, of writhing shadows, all of them because of her.
“I don’t know,” I lie. Amphitrite aiding us before her disappearance is a tightly held secret in my family. If she wants an answer, she won’t find one so long as Aunt lives. “How long have you been watching me?”
She tsks in the following silence, ignoring my question. The mass on the horizon jolts into motion, speeding toward us. Toward Nyx.
Her hand becomes visible through the shadow. She lifts it, snapping her fingers once. Coils of her shadows spear forward, striking the seething mass. It crumbles to half its size. Then shifts to a pitch ball falling motionless to the dirt. Only it’s not a simple ball. It’s shadow, darker than even hers.
All the howling and screams silence as one.
I squint. “What was that?”
“I’ll trade: the knowledge of who helped your ancestor for who that was.” She grins, baring gleaming white teeth.
“No deal. Now, what do you really want?”
Her moon pupils shrivel into crescents. “I want to help you. You came to this dreadful realm so full of determination to save that mother of yours. Now if only your determination was pointed in the right direction.”
Heart thudding, I wonder how far her abilities reach. But I know the answer for the night sky touches every part of the realms, even Athansi and Zeus’ palace atop the behemoth city.
I want to bare my teeth in a snarl. Instead, I force my expression into pleasant politeness. Minutes ago I made a promise to be careful with this goddess. Snarling at her doesn’t fall in line.
Yet I can’t force a laugh. I can’t smile. She speaks of my mother like a trivial problem instead of a whole person.
She can reduce my mother’s death to a meaningless string of words all she likes. Words have power, yes, but memories have more. So long as I breathe, my mother won’t be forgotten.
She glides around me, more human-shaped than shadow now. Stars sparkle inside the train of her flowing dress. Her sandaled feet don’t stick in the clay. “You can do truly memorable things, Agathe.”
I twist my neck to follow each of her steps. “I’m aware. I’ve made it here, haven’t I?”
She laughs, stopping in front of me. “Yes, I suppose you have. But why settle so low in your ambitions? You can bargain with Hades for anything your heart desires. Anything.”
“I want my mother back.” I blink away the sting of tears, unwilling to show weakness. “There’s nothing else I desire.”
“Really? Nothing at all?”
I shake my head.
“Well!” She claps her hands. “I suppose I’ll give you some ideas. When the sirens were cast into the Akri Sea, what did they lose?”
I huff, sick of her games already. “Their wings.”
“Ah-ah!” She leans close. “There’s two more.”
“Their place guarding Persephone.”
A fresh sting of anger follows my words. Soon, I’ll have my audience with Hades and Persephone, those who caused the sirens to be drowned and forgotten in the Akri. All for what? Love and marriage? Their selfish wants were placed over the lives of Persephone’s faithful guardians.
She taps a finger on her dark lips. “One more.”
“Immortality.”
She hums. “Three things they took from you! Three prizes they keep from you still.”
“What’s your point, Nyx? Why are you here?”
Why are you bothering with a lowly siren, I think but don’t say.
“I told you,” she says. “I want to help.”
Anger bursts from me in a baring of teeth. “If you want to help so badly, please be my guest and tell me how. I won’t waste time playing games.”
She sighs, head tilted in a gesture oddly avian. Then circles me once more, chilled fingers trailing along my hips while she moves.
“I could kill you,” she says. “But I quite like your anger. It will do you good to hold onto it, I think.”
She claps her hands.
I’m too tightly wound to startle.
“There’s something else you could ask Hades for.”
I run a hand over my face. A headache builds in my temples.
Glancing back, I search for Charon’s boat. He won’t appear until I call with the coin. I take a few steps toward the shoreline.
Nyx follows. “You could ask for safe travel to Zeus’ palace.”
I whip my head around. “Excuse me?”
“Travel to his palace,” she repeats. “Think. If you found a way to bargain with Zeus, what could you win?”
My wings. Endless life through Zeus’ immortality-granting ambrosia. My status returned.
A life away from the depths of the Akri. No meaningless death befalling me like all those in my family. Freedom. The open sky beneath my wings.
I shake away the thoughts. “I’m saving my mother.”
She shrugs, somehow graceful. “Do what you must. I only wonder...if your mother is returned, how long before she falls pregnant again? How long before age claims her? You must let go eventually.”
I see red. Twin spots of heat burn my cheeks. “You dare speak of letting go.” I scoff. “Have you ever held someone you love as they die? Have you ever felt life slip from between your fingers?”
With the same tilt of her head, she purses her mouth and shakes her head.
“I thought not. You gods and goddesses? You know nothing of true loss.”
“Is that right?” she asks, glancing over her shoulder at the ball of shadow.
I lunge forward, stopping when our noses are almost touching. “All of you spoiled gods sit and watch us fail over and over again.”
She says nothing.
“If I bring my mother back, it’s true she will die again.”
I pant, my gaze frantically searching.
“And then?” Nyx asks.
I blink away a hot swell of tears. “And someday I will die too.”
Nyx hums, draping a cool arm across my shoulders. The shadow tendrils aren’t light nor heavy, instead the frothing texture of a thick mist. I should scream and hit but I sink into the folds of her dress, pressing my face to one smooth shoulder to hide my tears.
If I close my eyes and forget, she becomes my mother.
“Child,” she whispers into my hair. “Think of yourself. No one else will.”
And for a long time, I pretend her voice is my mother’s soft cadence. I pretend there’s comfort to be found if only I squeeze hard enough.