Page 49 of Curse the Flame

I don’t know much about this man. Everything I know about Hades comes from my old middle school mythology phase, plus all the lives that Persephone shared with him and the memories she shared with me. But Aiden… he’s careful. As though he’s afraid I’ll run if he opens himself up to me, he’s more determined to keep his attention on learning about me than sharing anything about himself.

But that? When his eyes flicker that way? The black belongs to my Aiden; and, yes, he’s my Aiden. But the white? That’s when Hades peeks out of Aiden’s face.

It’s never for long. Aiden is strong enough to battle back even such a powerful god. Me? I’m lucky. Persephone is the goddess of spring, and she’s content just being in the Underworld for now. Hades wants more, I’m sure he does, and Aiden… he just wants me to be happy.

And I just told him I was.

He strokes my skin again, and I exhale softly. “I know you’re worried about your cousin, and I hate that it bothers ya. I can’t fight the magic. If I could, I would, but until then… I’ll find a way to get a message to her. Somehow. Some way.”

“You can do that?”

He thinks for a moment. “I’m not sure, but there’s gotta be a way. I could find someone who knows how time’s movin’ mirrorside. Hermes, if he’s around. Even Zeus if he shows up again. Maybe one of the dead… I don’t know, maybe like this shade of a physicist who spent his whole life thinkin’ about this kinda thing before he ended up here because he was Hercules reborn.”

In spite of myself, I smile. “You have dead physicists in the Underworld?”

“I get everybody eventually, and not all of ‘em were born here. The dead don’t discriminate. It’s just a matter of where I keep ‘em when they’re gone.”

The smile slips from my face the moment the words leave him. Now, I don’t think he meant for them to sound like a threat, or a reminder that death isn’t just a bureaucracy here and he’s the boss. No, he’s the Lord of the Underworld, and if I stay here, the only people I’ll ever see again will be the dead.

He lets go of me, taking a step back, an apology already to his lips. “Willow, I’m sorry. If that upset you⁠—”

It did, and I’m not really sure why. “Don’t worry about it, Aiden. I’m fine.”

I don’t think I am, and he can tell.

“No.” He scrubs a hand over his mouth. “It ain’t. I keep wantin’ you to think of me as Aiden, and what do I do? Throw it in your face that I’m Hades and there’s no one who chooses Hades.”

Uh-oh. There are those white eyes again. Gone just as quickly, I’m relieved when the black returns because… he’s right. I don’t want Hades.

I want Aiden.

CHAPTER 13

CONFESSIONS

WILLOW

There are moments when the difference between Aiden and Hades is impossible to miss. Aiden wears the body, speaks with the Brooklyn accent he finally stopped trying to hide, and moves through the palace like a man who spent most of his human life expecting trouble to be waiting around the next corner. Hades is something else. Older. Colder. Vast enough that when he presses too close to the surface, the shadows gather around Aiden’s feet, and the fire in the sconces rage like a curse I don’t understand.

I used to believe they were two separate men trapped together, just like Persephone and me. But I only just woke her up. As I know all too well, Hades and Aiden have been together for eighty years. In that time, I’m beginning to understand that they’ve become something more complicated than that.

Aiden is Hades.

Hades is Aiden.

Not completely. Not cleanly, either, and that’s why I hear him mumbling to himself sometimes when he thinks I’m not listening. But after eighty years of sharing the same mind, I don’t think either of them knows where one ends and the other begins.

Maybe that’s why he hasn’t told me everything. Maybe that’s why he always changes the subject. Maybe⁠—

I turn away from the railing, taking one of his chilly hands in mine. “Forget about Hades, baby,” I say, and if it’s the first time I use any sort of pet name for him, that just slipped out, too… and I don’t regret it one bit. “You’re right. I do think of you as Aiden. But… who is Aiden?”

Who are you?

His head lifts.

“Before Hades,” I clarify, just so he knows what I mean. “Who is Aiden?” I pause, realizing something important. “What’s your last name?”

For a long moment, he says nothing. And then, with an Irish lilt to his accent, he says, “My name was Aodhán Murphy. The schools made me Aiden. When I enlisted, I used that name because it was mind since I was a boy. But I was born Aodhán.”