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Green light flashed across the lounge, accompanied by a bone-rattling chime. Megaera rolled her eyes over the rim of her goblet as Thanatos stalked forward. She liked Thanatos well enough, but if he was here for the reason she thought…
“Have you heard about Zagreus?” Thanatos asked, looming over Megaera’s table.
She leaned her chair back on two legs and met his eyes coolly, suppressing the urge to grab a fistful of hair and shove him down like a misbehaving wretch. “Everyone’s heard about Zagreus.” Meg pushed her bottle of wine across the table toward him.
Thanatos, of course, was already shaking his head. “I don’t have time for a drink.” With a small frown he added, “Neither do you, with Tartarus full to bursting.”
Her eyes narrowed. He was lucky she liked him. “You’re angry at Zagreus, so I’ll let that one go.” Thanatos’s jaw set, and his eyes flickered away from her face. Her fingernails dug into the wood of the table. Dark red blood still crusted the lines of her knuckles, the edge of her nail beds. “I’ve been reassigned.”
“Why? To where?”
Megaera kept her voice low and free of bitterness as she could manage. “Lord Hades has decreed that I am to send him home should he ever make it to the edge of Tartarus.” Thanatos went very still. “I just killed him. He won’t be back in the pool for a few more hours.”
It was the first time Zagreus had gotten so far. The first time she’d seen him wielding that sword like an extension of his arm and glowing gold with Olympian power. Killing him had felt easy, like part of the job. Until the very end when she got him on his knees. Then it had been too much like something else, something she never meant to care about.
She’d managed to rip out his throat with her nails anyway, so clearly she couldn’t care about it—him—that much.
Voice too measured, Thanatos asked, “He’s leaving?”
Ah. So perhaps that part of the news hadn’t reached him yet. “He wants to find his mother.” Thanatos swayed on his feet, staring past her at the back wall, and Megaera shoved the wine bottle a few inches closer to him. “Sit down, Than.”
He did. One of the shades dropped off a goblet and Thanatos poured himself some wine. She could see the anger in the white grip of his knuckles and the lines at the corners of his mouth, but he asked her no more questions. Just the sort of company she liked.
And then Hypnos’s head poked around the corner of the lounge doorway. “Hey, hey, Thanatos! I thought I saw your teleport, came as fast as I could—oh, hi Meg! What are you guys talking about?”
Megaera let out a long breath through her nose. Thanatos looked up at Hypnos, his eyes unfocused as if he’d been clubbed over the head, and said nothing.
Hypnos jogged over to their table and hunched over one seat, propping his chin on the back. “Any new news from the surface? The line over there is so long, mine is always a little out of date.”
“Did you know about Zagreus?” Thanatos asked.
“That his mother isn’t Nyx or that he’s going to fight his way out to the surface?” He took in Thanatos’s expression and his eyes widened. “No one told you? The Olympians are helping him out and everything. Too bad you don’t come home more often, or you wouldn’t be the last to hear!”
He punctuated the last sentence with an aw-shucks grin that Megaera desperately wanted to smack away. Thanatos looked away from his brother to stare down into the depths of his glass. “He didn’t even tell me. He’s leaving the Underworld forever and he couldn’t even say goodbye.”
Megaera carefully picked the blood out from under one of her fingernails. “What would be the point? He’s never getting out of here.”
Even if he got past her—which he wouldn’t, Olympians or no—there was still Asphodel and its lava-flooded fields to contend with. Hades had hinted at what would meet Zagreus in Asphodel should she fail in her new duties. And of course past that was Elysium and its scores of bloodthirsty heroes.
Hypnos shrugged. “Hey, even if he leaves it won’t be forever! Eventually Zagreus will have to die again.” He put a hand on Thanatos’s shoulder. Thanatos frowned, glancing from the hand to his brother’s face, and Hypnos hastily retracted it to scratch the back of his neck. “You’re on the surface so much anyway, Than. Maybe if he does make it you’ll still see each other.”
Than was one of Zagreus’s inventions, Megaera remembered. No one had called Thanatos Than or her Meg before he arrived. She downed the rest of her drink, wondered if anyone would still call her Meg once he was gone, and slammed the goblet down on the table. “Do you want Zagreus to leave?” she snapped.
“Want is a strong word.” Hypnos giggled nervously. “He’s never been happy here, has he? At least the rest of us have our jobs.”
Megaera met Thanatos’s eyes across the table and knew they were both thinking the same thing. Zagreus could have responsibilities, if he wanted. Lord Hades had been trying to train him up as his heir for decades. None of them ever took.
And it wasn’t as if responsibilities guaranteed happiness, either. Megaera looked down at her nails. But their duties were necessary, and they were good at what they did.
Some things were more important than personal happiness, but Zagreus had never much cared about that.
“It’ll be much quieter without him around, though! No one else is much of a talker,” Hypnos continued, and smiled. When that got no response he leaned down, closer to Thanatos’s eyeline. “Come on, Than, I’m sure he was going to tell you. He’s our brother.”
Thanatos’s blank expression deepened into a scowl. “No, he’s not.” He clenched his fingers around the stem of his goblet like it was his scythe. “He never was.”
Nudging at his shoulder again, Hypnos offered an awkward smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “At least you’ve still got me!”
Megaera had never loved her sisters. They had emerged from the darkness together fully formed for one purpose; once she had been perhaps fond of them, but there were no treasured childhood memories, nothing to tie them together but an accident of creation. More often than not they avoided one another these days.
Sometimes—not often, but sometimes—she was glad she didn’t like her sisters very much.
Too slowly, Thanatos nodded, and the smile slid like oil from Hypnos’s face.