A wave of horror washed over me, and I stared at James, disgusted. “Is that why you tried to stop me from coming here? You knew I was his last chance, and you thought if you stopped me, you’d have a clear shot at the winner’s circle?”
“There is no winner’s circle,” said James. “It isn’t some competition, all right? This is hard on all of us. We’ve been trying for a century to find someone to take Persephone’s place, and if we don’t—”
“If you don’t, then you get to take Henry’s place,” I snapped. “Yet here you are, trying to ruin it for him.”
“Because I thought you wanted out,” he said, his jaw clenched so tightly that I could see a muscle twitch. “You said—”
“Henry was right. I didn’t understand, and I’m not about to walk away and kill him if I can help it.”
James shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I never thought you would. But the terms of the agreement are final, and if you want to leave, there isn’t anything we can do to stop you. If Henry holds you here against your will, then we have every right to step in.”
“Wait,” I said as what he was saying slowly dawned on me. “What do you mean, we?”
Next to me, Henry frowned, his brow furrowing so deeply that for a moment he didn’t look like himself. “James,” he said, a warning.
James straightened, his arms falling to his side. “I don’t care if she knows.”
“The others will,” he said, but he made no move to stop him.
James took a hesitant step toward me, as if he wanted to reach out to me, but I gave him a cold look, and he fell short. “I’m a member of the council.”
My heart nearly stopped. “You’re on the council?” I sputtered. “You can’t be. You’re—you.”
“Astute observation,” he said, more to himself than to me. “Listen, Kate—I don’t care if you believe me or not. Well, no, I’d like it if you did, but I don’t expect you to. You can hate me all you want for trying to take you away from Henry, but I’m only trying to do what’s best for you.”
“And you think what’s best for me is to live the rest of my life knowing I’m the reason Henry dies?” Hot tears threatened to spill out of my eyes, but I blinked them back, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Not to mention what’s going to happen to my mother.”
“You wouldn’t remember any of this if you decide to leave,” said James. “That’s also part of the deal.”
“Enough about this stupid deal.” My voice broke, and my cheeks turned hot. “This is my decision, not yours. You can’t go behind my back and end this just because you think you know what’s best for me. I get to say when this is over, not you.”
I looked back and forth between Henry and James to make sure they were both paying attention, but Henry was concentrating on my ankle, his head bent and his eyes closed. A thick warmth spread out from my knee to my toes, and Henry wrapped his hands around the joint, gently moving it in a circle.
“Does this hurt?” he said, and I shook my head. He set my leg down, and I gingerly pulled it toward me, wiggling my toes. It didn’t ache anymore.
“How did you—” I started, my anger momentarily forgotten, and Henry shrugged.
“You’re not supposed to heal her,” said James from across the room. Henry righted himself, and even from the side, I could see the deadened look in his eyes.
“It seems we are breaking all sorts of rules tonight.” He stood. “If you will excuse me.”
Before I could protest, he was gone, leaving me and James alone in the room together. I stood as well, testing my ankle. It was solid.
“It wasn’t my choice, you know,” said James quietly. “Taking over for him if you fail. I’m the only member of the council who knows the Underworld as well as he does.”
“But you still wanted it,” I said.
He looked away, out a dark bay window and on to the grounds. The moon was nearly full, and I could see the tops of the bare trees rustling in the November wind. “We last as long as what we represent does. Minor gods fade all the time when they’re forgotten, but the council isn’t minor. As long as humanity exists, there will always be love and war. There will always be music and art, literature and peace, and marriage and children and travelers. But humanity won’t last forever, and after it fades, so will we. Only death will remain.”
“And if you control the Underworld, you get to survive even after everything else is gone?” I said it as a question, but I already knew the answer, and a knot formed in my throat. “That’s what this is about?”
“No. This right here, this is about making sure you survive. I don’t want you to die, Kate—please. None of us do, and Henry gave up a long time ago. Maybe he’s trying for you, but not because he wants to continue—he just doesn’t want you to be killed, that’s all.”
I paused. “Is there a good chance of that?”
James looked at me, and I could see the naked fear in his eyes. “No one’s survived past Christmas. Please. Henry doesn’t want this. He’s always going to be in love with Persephone, not you. Look around you—look at where you are. This was her bedroom.”
There was nothing unusual about the room, only the picture that Henry had thrown at James. But the more I studied my surroundings, the more I really saw it. It was like a child’s room that a parent didn’t dare touch after tragedy struck. There were old-fashioned hairpins on the vanity in the corner, and the curtains were drawn to let the sunlight in. There was even a dress lying out in the corner, waiting to be worn. It was like it was frozen in time, lying untouched for centuries until Persephone returned.
“That reflection—” James gestured to the image of Persephone and Henry together, looking so happy. “It isn’t real. It’s a wish, a dream, a hope, not a memory. He loved her so much that he’d have torn the world apart if she asked him to, but she could barely stand to look at him. Ever since she died, he’s been begging the council to release him and let him fade. Do you really think you can compete with that?”
“It isn’t a competition,” I said roughly, echoing his words from before. But even as I said it, I knew it was. If I couldn’t make Henry care about me, he would have no reason to continue, and in his mind, I would always be pitted against Perseph one. But that was no reason to stop fighting for him. He deserved a chance at happiness just like I did, and I wasn’t ready to tell yet another person in my life goodbye.
James’s expression softened. “He’ll never love you, Kate, not the way you deserve to be loved. He gave up a long time ago, and all you’re doing is prolonging the pain for him. It would be kinder to leave him be.”
I stepped closer to James, torn between anger and a pressing need to touch him, to make sure my James was still there underneath the cunning god he’d suddenly become, saying all the words he thought I needed to hear to convince me to leave. To steal eternity from Henry and hand it to him. “And you think I should?” I said. I was barely a foot away from him now. “You think I should give up and leave him, just like Persephone left?”
“Persephone had her reasons,” said James. “He took her away from everything she ever loved, and he forced her to stay with him when she didn’t want to. You’d have done the same.”
I was silent. The difference between me and Persephone was that she’d had something left to lose. James reached forward timidly, and I let him wrap his arms around me, burying his face in my hair. I heard him inhale deeply, and I wondered if he could smell the lavender of my shampoo, or if it was my fear and guilt and determination he sensed instead. After a tense moment, I returned the embrace.
“Please don’t do this to yourself, Kate,” he mumbled into my ear. I closed my eyes, and for a moment I pretended that he was just James again. Not Henry’s rival, not the god poised to gain everything from my failure, but my James.
“Will you do something for me?” I said against his chest.
“Of course,” he said. “Anything.”
I let go of him. “Get the hell away from me, and
don’t come back until spring.”
His eyes widened. “Kate—”
“I mean it.” My voice shook, but I stood firm. “Get out.”
Stunned, he stepped back and shoved his hands in his pockets. For a moment he looked like he was going to say something, but then he turned away and walked out, leaving me alone in Persephone’s bedroom.
I’d spent four years refusing to let my mother give up, and I wasn’t about to let Henry do the same. If he wouldn’t keep going for himself, then I’d come up with a way to make him keep going for me instead.
Hours later, long after the moon had risen so high in the sky that I could no longer see it from my window, I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. I wanted to sleep and tell my mother everything I’d learned, to ask her what I could possibly do to convince Henry to try, but I knew there was nothing she could tell me that I didn’t already know. It wasn’t up to her to fix this; I was the one who’d made the deal, and I wasn’t going to give up so easily.
In the small hours of the morning, I heard a soft knock on my door, and I buried my face in my pillow. Ava was gone when I’d crept out of Persephone’s room, and I wasn’t in the mood to tell her what had happened. I needed a day or two to figure things out for myself before the entire manor knew, too, if they didn’t already.
Even though I stayed silent, I heard the door open and shut, and soft footsteps fell against the carpet. I remained as still as possible, hoping whoever it was would go away.
“Kate?”
I didn’t have to turn around to recognize Henry’s voice. Something thrummed inside of me, a familiar note that sent a wave of comfort through my tense body, but I still didn’t face him.
He moved so quietly that I didn’t know he was close until I felt the mattress give way. It was a long moment before he said anything. “I’m sorry.” His voice was hollow. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”
“I’m glad I did.”
“And why is that?”
I refused to answer. How was I supposed to tell him that I didn’t want him to give up? I was risking everything for him—and I would gladly do it, but I wouldn’t let it be for nothing. I couldn’t make him fight, but I would find a reason for him not to fade.
I heard Henry sigh. Forcing silence was only hurting things, so finally I said into my pillow, “Why didn’t you tell me about James earlier?”
“Because I thought you might react this way, and I wanted to keep you from this pain for as long as possible.”
“Knowing it’s him doesn’t hurt,” I said. “What hurts is that no one trusts me with anything around here.”
I felt his hand on my arm, but it only lasted for a moment. “Then I will make the effort to trust you with more. I apologize.”
His apology was hollow to my ears whether he really meant it or not. “If I pass, things are going to change, right? Life won’t be one big game of keep away from Kate anymore? Because if the answer to that is anything but a resounding yes, I don’t think I can do this.”
He brushed the back of his hand against my cheek, but it, too, only lasted a second. “Yes,” he said. “A resounding yes. It is not that I don’t trust you now. It is only that there are some things you simply cannot know yet. As frustrating as it may seem, I promise you that it is for your own good.”
For my own good. Apparently that was their go-to excuse when they did something I didn’t like. “And Persephone,” I added, glad I was turned away and couldn’t see the pain I knew was in his eyes when I said her name. “I’m not her, Henry. I can’t be her, and I can’t spend eternity trying to live up to your memory of her. I’m nobody to you right now, I get that—”
“You are not nobody,” he said with surprising strength. “Do not think that.”
“Let me finish.” I hugged my pillow tighter. “I get that I’m not her and won’t ever be. I don’t want to be her anyway, not with how badly she’s hurt you. But if this works—if I pass, I need to know that when you look at me, you’re going to see me, not just her replacement. That there’s more in this future for me than standing in the shadows while you wallow the rest of your existence away. Because if James is right and I can walk away if I want to, and if you’re doing this knowing full well that spending half of the rest of eternity with me is going to make you miserable no matter what I do, then tell me now and I’ll spare us both.”
The seconds ticked by, and Henry was silent. It was unfair that he was so willing to throw away forever when there were others out there—my mother included—who wanted to live, but couldn’t. As I stared out the window resolutely, my anger built, but short of yelling at him before he had the chance to respond, I had no release.
“I brought you a present.”
My head turned toward him a fraction of an inch before I could stop myself. “That isn’t an answer.”
“Yes, it is,” he said, and I could hear his small smile in his voice. “I would not have brought you something like this if I did not want you to stay.”
I frowned. “What kind of present is it?”
“If you roll over, you will see.”
Before I had the chance, something nudged my shoulder. Something cold, wet and very much alive.
Flipping around, I sat up and stared at the black-and-white ball of fur sitting next to me on the bed. It looked up at me with liquid eyes, its tiny tail wagging. My heart melted, all of my anger and frustration temporarily forgotten.
“If I did not truly feel that you could change things, I would not have risked your life to begin with,” said Henry. “I am sorry you feel you are nobody to me, Kate, because the very opposite is true. And I could never expect you to be Persephone,” he added, that same hint of pain in his voice. “You are you, and as soon as I am able, I will tell you everything. I promise.”
I stared at the puppy, too afraid to say anything and make him change his mind. Was he just like James, saying what he thought I wanted to hear? Or did he really mean it?
“You lost a friend today because of me, and I did not want you to be lonely,” he said as he stroked the puppy, and its tail thumped against the mattress. “It is my understanding that one does not get a pet with someone if one does not expect—” He hesitated. “If one does not hope to spend quite a bit of time with that person in the future.”
Expect. Hope. Which one had he really meant?
I wanted to tell him exactly where James could shove our so-called friendship, but it took me a moment to remember how to speak. I’d spent my entire childhood bothering my mother for a puppy, but she’d always put her foot down. After she’d gotten sick, I’d given up, unable to take care of both her and a dog at the same time.
How had Henry known that? Or had he simply guessed?
“Is it—a girl or a boy?”
“A boy.” The corners of his lips twitched upward into a faint smile. “I do not wish for Cerberus to get any ideas.”
I hesitated. “He’s mine?”
“All yours. You can even take him with you in the spring, if you would like.”
I scooped the little dog up, cradling him to my chest. Standing on my arm, he licked my chin, barely able to reach.
“Thank you,” I said softly. “This is really nice of you.”
“It is my pleasure,” said Henry, standing. “I will leave you be and allow you the chance to get to know one another. He is quite friendly, I assure you, and very much alive. He is still learning etiquette, but he is an eager pupil.”
The puppy jumped higher, managing to reach my cheek. I grinned, and as Henry placed his hand on the door, I said, “Henry?”
“Yes?”
I pressed my lips together, trying to come up with the right combination of words to make him want to stay. To make him want to try for more than just my sake. Nothing came, so instead, after a moment that seemed to stretch out far past the point of politeness, I said in a small voice, “Please don’t give up.”
When he finally responded, his voice was so low that I could barely he
ar him. “I will try.”
“Please,” I said again, this time urgently. “After everything that’s happened—you can’t. I know you miss her, but—”
Silence lingered between us. “But what?”
“Please just—give me a chance.”
He looked away, and through the dim light I saw his shoulders hunch, as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible. “Of course,” he said, opening the door. “Sleep well.”
I nuzzled the top of my puppy’s head. I didn’t want him to leave. I wanted to play cards or talk or read—anything that didn’t remind him of Persephone. After the night he’d had, he deserved that much. We both did.
“Stay,” I blurted. “Please.”
But when I looked up, he was gone.
CHAPTER 13
CHRISTMAS
For the next several weeks, my time with Henry was almost unbearable. While we still spent our evenings together, it was no longer easy, and every conversation and accidental touch felt strained. He never looked me in the eye, and the closer we got to Christmas, the more he seemed to pull away. The more he pulled away, the more I wanted to tear my hair out and tell him in no uncertain terms that either he shaped up or I would walk. Problem was, it was an empty threat and he would know it. Worse, I was afraid he would take me up on it.
“I don’t understand,” I said, pacing up and down the sidewalk. “He acts like he wants nothing to do with me anymore.”
My mother and I were near a playground in Central Park, and despite the deep snow that surrounded Eden Manor as the winter solstice arrived and the first half of my stay was over, it was midsummer here. In the distance I could hear children shouting, but I was too focused on Henry’s behavior to enjoy myself.
“Why do you think that might be?” said my mother. She sat on a bench and watched me, looking wholly unconcerned.
“I don’t know,” I said, frustrated. “What if he really has given up? What am I supposed to do then?”