Page 42 of Curse the Flame

Me? I’m more than ready.

How long have I been awake? All day today plus all day yesterday before I had any idea that any of this was real… I’m freaking exhausted. I also really, really want to find somewhere safe to lay my head down, go to sleep, and hope like heck that, when I wake up again, it turns out this was all a dream.

True, I might be a little sorry to say goodbye to Sir—and, well, Aiden, too, for some reason—but I… I can’t be a goddess, can I?

I wait until the door closes behind Aiden before I stomp over in my fancy sandals and plop down on the bed that’s supposedly mine now. Then, because I can’t help myself, I mutter to the empty room, “So… I’m Persephone?”

It comes out as a question because I… I don’t know. I want to believe, but how can I?

This is so surreal, but it gets even more surreal when Persephone answers me again.

You are. Aren’t you lucky?

Um. No. I’m not so sure I am.

There are a lot of stories in Greek mythology. Zeus had approximately a billion children. Athena sprang out of somebody’s forehead. Dionysus was sewn into someone’s thigh. I don’t know if any of those stories have to be reenacted, but it looks like the one involving me and the most gorgeous, yet untouchable man I’ve ever seen has to be one of them.

Persephone clicks the tongue she doesn’t have. You make it sound so tragic. Hades and I… we’re not a tragedy. Not once I learned to love him.

Yeah. Because that makes me feel so much better…

“So this is real?” I ask. I don’t know how this works. Do I just think the thoughts and Persephone hears them, or should I speak out loud⁠—

Either. You forget, I’m part of you, Willow. You’re the mortal soul. I’m Persephone, the goddess of spring, and I share some of my immortal soul with you. When you die… if you die… I will move on. Or you can stay in the Other with Hades and live with him the way I should’ve if the old magic hadn’t faded to the point that none remembered us. None believed in us.

I guess that makes sense. If gods and goddesses only existed as long as someone remembered them, and the world moved on from believing in the Greek pantheon thousands of years ago, they could’ve faded away only to return as reincarnates or something like that. I’m figuring the “worship” element ranks a lot higher than people just doing Broadway retellings of old legends, plus books about half-bloods and demigods, and movies about the Odyssey. We know of the Greek gods and goddess, but no one believes in them anymore.

Exactly. And that’s why the Other exists. To breathe magic into life, and give the mythos another chance to survive. To restore the balance, too… it’s all about that.

Okay. So I am Persephone. Got it.

“I know who I’m supposed to be. But if Aiden is Hades...” I hesitate, not sure if I really want to put out into the universe the thought that’s been running through my head since I first saw the pomegranate… Ah. Screw it. “Is he my husband?”

I hesitated.

Persephone doesn’t.

He’s mine. She pauses. But he can be yours, too. I won’t share him with a nymph, Persephone continues, amusement coloring her voice. But I’ll share him with you.

I stare at the ceiling for a long moment, wondering how I got myself into this mess before I say, “Thanks.”

I guess.

CHAPTER 11

TEMPTATION

AIDEN

For eighty years, I waited for my soulmate because that’s what was expected of me. There was no way for me to break this tie to Hades that I have until the magic decided I’d done enough to be free of him, and for a god as powerful as Hades, it was inevitable that it would involve the most well-known and repeated myth.

If the purpose of us reincarnates is to be reborn and retell the stories again and again in order to keep the legends—and the magic—alive, it makes sense to me that it’ll be the one that even a dumb kid from Brooklyn had heard of.

Hades and Persephone. The god of the Underworld stealing the goddess away and tricking her into becoming his queen by feeding her food from his realm. I couldn’t risk becoming an Unmentionable, but if I do what the magic requires of me after I fell through that mirror, then I can return to the mortal realm.

Sure, it’s possible I’d shrivel and die, the years catching up to me. Zeus is powerful enough to spend most of his time mirrorside without the hours and days and years touching him. As Hades, odds are I might get a second chance to finish my life as Aiden Murphy, but though time works differently between worlds, I’m unlike any other reincarnate in the Other. I rule the dead, and I’m able to keep track of how many mortal years it’s been since I arrived in hell.

Eighty mortal years. If I went back, I’d be over a hundred. Everyone I know is dead, but in the mortal world, I wouldn’t have the ability to talk to their shades, their souls. They’d be gone.