Page 63 of Curse the Flame

Darn it. “But you won’t.”

“No. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Part of the reason I love you is because you’re so devoted. To me. To those in your realm… I’ll wait for you. You know I will.”

The flash of relief over his features tells me that he doubts that still.

His thumb strokes my cheek. “Don’t stray too far.”

I lift my eyebrows. He has the same warning for me every time, as though I’m going to travel toward Tartarus again—one time, that was one time!—as soon as his eyes are off of me. These days, I stay to the palace, the gardens, or the gate where I keep Sir company—or maybe he keeps me company—whenever Minth or Leuce are busy doing household chores.

Sir is only allowed to be Sir at night. It’s an agreement the hound of Hades and his master came to. During the day, he’s the three-headed beast, stuck out front to guard the palace gate. At night? He’s back to being my adorable puppy.

I almost tease Aiden, telling him that I was planning on going for a swim through the River Styx, but his shoulders are so tight, the weight of the Underworld so heavy on his shoulders, I know it’ll just make his leaving me harder on him.

So, instead, I turn my head and kiss his inner wrist. “You got it, babe.”

Aiden sighs, touches his forehead to mine, and stands there for one more moment as if he’s trying to decide whether the administration of the dead truly requires his presence.

Then Hades wins.

His eyes turn entirely white. “I will return.”

The god’s deeper voice rolls beneath Aiden’s, but the hand that brushes through my hair still belongs to my husband.

“I’ll be here.”

He steals one last kiss—when he pulls back, I look for the black eyes so that I know it’s my husband and not Persephone’s—before leaving our bedroom, heading toward the megaron. Once I’m sure he’s gone, I tiptoe out myself. I have every intention of heading to the kitchen to see if Minthe can sneak me some cookies for a snack—but that’s before I get waylaid by Sir on the stairs.

He’s back in his puppy form. He likes to shrink down while he’s inside the palace, despite the fact that it’s so cavernous, he could fit all three of his heads easily here. I stopped asking questions. Whatever makes him happy, makes me happy.

And, it seems, going through the same old routine—barking at me, then jumping ahead before turning around to make sure I’m following him—is what’s making Sir happy today.

I give him a stern look. “Your dad says that I have to stay near the palace,” I tell him. “You’re not taking me anywhere that’s going to get either of us in trouble, are you?”

Proving that he’s way smarter than I thought when I first met him, he shakes his head, then leads the way.

Sir leads me away from the residential part of the palace and down the broad obsidian steps toward the palace gate where he usually has his post unless the Furies are taking watch.

Once you go through the gate, it takes you to the stone pathway that leads to the dock where Charon ferries all of the shades to the Underworld. Each one is brought to the three dead kings who act as judges for their afterlife; they have their own space inside the palace of Hades, off the megaron, where they perform their task. Once they’re done, the shades either get sent to Asphodel Meadows, the Fields of Punishment, Elysium, and, in severe cases, Tartarus.

Because the Other is just different enough from Ancient Greece, there are also the Unmentionables. Souls who came to this realm, woke up the ancient spirit inside of them, but who died—through misdeed, by suicide, or sheer bad luck—before their story was told, they become Unmentionables: black-eyed shades that float in the fiery Phlegethon, the fifth river of the Underworld, unable to be reborn (or reincarnated) ever again.

Today, the shore of the Styx is crowded.

Lines of shades wait just outside of the gate, some silent, some weeping, others staring around with the bewildered expressions of people who still haven’t accepted that their lives are over. A few clutch objects they shouldn’t still possess: rings, letters, small tokens held together by memory rather than flesh… they’ll keep them until the kings decide their fate.

Each one turns their head my way as I pass with Sir.

I’ve learned not to stare back. The newly dead are fragile, and if it’s the only thing I do as queen of the Underworld, I try to keep them comfortable.

Sir slows as we near the ferry landing, his small body weaving between shades without touching them. They part for him anyway. Most recognize him instinctively. Those who don’t sense enough of what he truly is to step aside.

Charon’s boat emerges from the mist.

The ferryman stands at the stern, hood pulled low over a face I have never seen clearly. His pole sinks into the dark water of the Styx without a sound, propelling the vessel toward the shore.

Two shades stand inside his boat.