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Two months. Between the Idol campaign’s morning newscasts and the late-night band rehearsals and the start of the weekends on tour, it’s two months of barely controlled chaos for the Grace who said, two months back and panicked at the idea of sitting around doing nothing after the last gutting week of her life, “I’m the Muse, aren’t I? Pssh. ‘Course I can do all that.”
Sure, Grace, she wishes someone had said to her, but who’s left to snark some sense into her when she’s making a big, dumb mistake? Going from college dropout to rockstar-plus-voice-of-the-Gods all in the span of two months was maybe a little ambitious. Even Muses need some R&R, and it doesn’t help that she sleeps better on the loud, smelly tour bus than in her own apartment with four walls of Freddie memories crowding in. When she catches sight of herself in the occasional newsclip or press photo on her Twitter feed, the bruises under her eyes look like twin holes to Tartarus. It has to be pity when Persephone calls. Says, “You look tired, Grace.”
“Oh hey,” she says, like this could ever be this nonchalant. “Been a while. What can I say? Lots goin’ on.” A swallow. “How— How are you?”
“Busy, same as everyone else.” Static shifts on the line. “But the work you’re doing for us is important, Grace. If you need a place with a little more peace and quiet, you know where to find me.”
More of an invitation than she ever expected to get, after how they left things down in Hades.
Grace takes her up on it.
Of course she does.
In the ensuing late afternoons when Persephone leaves her to monopolize the Underworld office in peace, Grace contemplates whether her contentment here is a sign she could have held down a day job. She’s overly friendly with all of the potted plants (and if she nicknames the long viney one Fred and the pink one Cal, well. That’s in the privacy of her own thoughts where no one else needs to hear about it). She knows how long the shelf-globe notched in between all of Persephone’s too-many books will spin on its axis if she whistles her way over and gives it an open-fingered whirl. She doesn’t even freeze and stare every time she walks in the door and an unfaded rectangle of magenta paint confronts her where a certain portrait has gone missing from the wall. Just… some of the times.
And after a few weeks of using the space to handle the press calls and the paperwork demanded of both a showstopping world-changing grand Idol reveal campaign and a sold-out run of concerts, she’s comfortable enough in Persephone’s inner sanctum to kick back in the desk chair. Hum along to the club music she catches strains of through the wall. Harmonize a little. Trick herself into letting her power bring out a few honest lines under the guise that maybe someday she’ll be ready to lend the band some new lyrics instead of just her voice.
As long as Persephone isn’t in here with her.
It’s about as chilly as the inside of her fridge-labeled-fridge when Persephone’s in here. Ever since the hard break of their trip to the land of the dead, it’s been a scramble between the total silence of a cold shoulder and Grace's response of... total pandemonium. In other words, something like a fresh start, but worse. With throwback highlights such as Cringe-Comic Grace and Supremely Unimpressed Persephone. For Grace, it pretty much boils down to stumbling over her words because she has no idea how to back away from how quickly they tangled themselves together before they ripped apart. All while Persephone treats her like they’ve never been anything but reluctant allies. Focused. Professional. Poised.
So every time Persephone sweeps into her office for a quick phone call or an early drink, Grace aches too much to hum her little melodies anymore. Which is probably for the best. A melody from a Muse can cause all kinds of trouble. She’s trying to learn how not to do that. To stop enchanting her own crowds. Stop bringing out uncomfortable confessions from the two new members of the band. Stop jettisoning herself from some poorly-worded mooring and out across the darker seas of the recent past she’s trying so damn hard to move on from, even if she knows she'll never forget.
On days like today, when Persephone didn’t even acknowledge her curl-fingered wave as she slouched her way across the dance floor to get back here, it’s not the club music she’s humming. It’s the first few bars of that far more personal melody: Like a boat…
“That doesn’t sound like work to me, Grace.”
The humming stops. Grace leaps out of the chair and spins towards the door she didn’t hear opening. “Er, hey," she coughs. Rubs one elbow awkwardly with the other hand, arm across her ribs. Pastes on a smile. “And what, pray tell my noble lady, does work sound like? The uh. Dutiful click-clack of typewriter keys? No, that’s way too modern. Sheep bells jangling as the herd stumbles into their pens? Wind through the husks in the cornfields? I mean, what did people do for day jobs back in ancient Greece. Oh hey, I got it. I need to embrace my inner ‘old philosopher dude standing around in the agora asking everyone a bunch of obnoxious questions all day.’”
(Yes. This is what Grace has been like for, oh, the last three weeks.)
As ever, Persephone is unamused. “Try ‘silence.’ You’re supposed to be reviewing next week’s press releases, aren’t you?”
Grace sighs and leans back against the desk, the worst of the nervous energy from being jumpscared going out of her. “Yeah, yeah. I still don’t know why that’s my job though. I do zero promo for the band. That’s all Freddie.” Was. Was all Freddie. Now it’s Kaz. But Grace pushes ahead before the slip can stop her. “And most of you all have held down, you know. Office jobs? Maybe not the most traditional ones, but still. I’m the college dropout. Yeah, comes with the benefit of some flashy new powers to bring out a crowd wherever I want one, but still. Grace. Qualifications? College dropout.”
“A dropout who has lived the fullest and most recent modern life of any Idol alive. You’re our audience, Grace. Or you would have been three months ago. And if you no longer want to participate in the campaign efforts, then—”
“Hey, hey, hang on.” Grace holds up both hands. “Kidding! Mostly. I mean, I’m doing this, aren’t I?” She waves vaguely around the room, then gets a little quieter. “This… isn’t my world.”
“Of course it’s your—” Persephone steps closer, but Grace shakes her head.
“No, it’s not. Not really. Not yet, anyway. I’m not talking about this stuff: the press releases, the campaign. I'm talking about how I— I still have none of her memories. No idea how to be a God, let alone how to figure out how the ones who’ve been Gods for actual thousands of years are supposed to start going out there and living a totally different kind of life. But I’m trying.” She shoves her hands in her pockets and leans back against the desk. “And… I was actually thinking… maybe you’d want to try my world sometime.”
Persephone arches a brow. “And by your world you mean…”
Even that faint interest perks her instantly. “You know. Um. My whole… concert series? You don’t have to come on the bus. I mean it. Honestly I would rather you stay far, far away from the bus. The bus is gross. And loud. And smells like ass. But it’s kind of a big deal that I have a tour bus for going on tour and—” She bites her lip to stop the stream of words. Looks up earnestly through her lashes. “I just thought… one show, you know? You and me and the band… sharing the spotlight for once. Instead of fighting over it.”
“You want me to sing with your band.”
The dry delivery makes Grace’s ears go a little pink. “I mean… yeah?” She lets out a thin, self-deprecating laugh. “Tell me it doesn't sound at least a little fun. Honestly the big downside is that there's no way I can have you be anything other than the closer or an encore. Nobody will want to listen to me after they hear you for the first time.”
Persephone’s eyes flash, then visibly darken. “I don’t know about that,” she murmurs, her gaze flicking idly over Grace’s lips. She doesn’t say it, but a slow curl of remembered melody shivers low in Grace’s ear. Think... I... like... that... mouth on you...
Grace swallows hard and shakes her head to stop those notes from pulling themselves out of the air and into the room. This is a conversation, an invitation; not an intervention, not a fight. She doesn't get that many shots at these.
Her voice cracks a little, but she admits, “You have the kind of voice literally no one gets tired of hearing. A thousand times? Psh. Play it again, P.” She gives her her best neutral, friendly smile, but she knows the words sound way too earnest for the casual banter and forced nicknames she's tried and failed to cultivate since the raw-edged return from the land of the dead. They’ve never said the rules, but Grace knows them: A little flirting? Fine. Civil conversation? Persephone’s preference by far. Genuine emotion?
Off the fucking table.
But Grace wants this. Even if she turned down (and stomped all over) her chance at any of the rest… It’s not too much to ask, is it? One song?
She wants to make music with her again. To see the way Persephone's smile changes when she commands a stage. The flash in her eyes when she has everyone eating out of the palm of her hand, then turns a stare as charged as lightning right on you, only on you, challenging you to rise to the occasion—
Or fold to your knees.
Her mouth gone dry, Grace adds a new tact. “Did I ever tell you we were looking for something new for the band the day I met Calliope?”
It’s a risk, that name in this room. It’s not the first time she’s taken it, so she knows there’s a fifty-fifty chance it goes down like any other gambit she could have made, or shuts Persephone down cold.
Today, it earns nothing but an idly curious tilt of her head.
“Fresh talent, you know? Spice things up a bit. And to think I tried to recruit a literal Muse.” She lets out some more nervous energy in her laugh. “Now we’ve added Hana and Tevin, and I know I can’t steal you away to come sing with me in every show, but Kaz and Brian would love to meet you and I… I really think you’d fit.”
You'd fit is the tip of the iceberg: I think you’d fit anywhere. Here. Hades. Heading up a cult or a gang or the Chorus. Thing is, what I’m trying so, so hard to do, is to get you to fit with me again. Even though I’m the one who ruined it all in the first place. Even though I’m the one who said you didn’t care no matter how many times you'd already shown that you do. Even though I’m the one that pushed you away. “And let’s be real here. I’m selfish. My crowd’s gonna love you. And I— hell." Another voice crack she can't quite hide. "I’d take just about any excuse to sing with you again.”
It should be embarrassing, how the day she stood on the Underworld stage and all but groveled into Persephone’s mic was one of the most thrilling moments of her twenty-odd-year life thus far, but she’s not embarrassed. That’s Persephone’s power, right? Everyone can tell it’s an honor just to be in the presence of a queen.
For a moment, Persephone’s eyes sparkle in the light, the corner of her wine-dark lips curling into the ghost of a smile. For a moment, Grace can practically hear the burgeoning Yes, alright, one show rasping in her ear.
But what emerges seconds later is a sigh. World-weary. Closed. “It starts at once, then next week you’ll be back here begging for the encore performance. I have a club to mind, Grace. Trips to a Hades in disarray. I don’t have the time or the inclination to perform on command. You’re the Muse, aren’t you? That’s your element. Embrace it. Leave me to mine.”
Persephone’s denial wounds more than Grace thought it would. It sets off a real ache in a place she didn’t think she’d left open for anyone to bruise. This whole thing had been a spur-of-the-moment invitation to an idea she’d dreamed up weeks ago, when Persephone first invited her back into her inner sanctum. An idea she thought could be fun for the both of them; after all, she’s seen it. The dark, knowing thrill in Persephone’s eyes when she draws the mic close and drops her voice low and knows every note she sings is going to strike true. (How that thrill changes when there is no mic, no crowd, just the two of them in a room turned suddenly too small for the power in that voice, that voice pressing too close for Grace’s racing heart to take it, her heart pounding out of her skin right where Persephone’s hand grips her by the throat and threatens equal parts the softest edge of a violent urge and far darker, sweeter things—)
She knows Persephone would enjoy it. (The band. Singing with the band. And if Grace has to shake the other thoughts out of her brain like a snowglobe, well. Nobody needs to know that.) And as much as Persephone’s determination to deny herself every small joy in the wake of what should have been their shared victory pains her, the fact that Persephone would do it out of nothing but spite, for no reason other than to deny Grace’s extended hand…
That pisses her off.
“So that’s it, I guess. After everything we went through, all that’s left is,” she shuffles angrily through the pages beside her on the desk, “fucking paperwork. God-tier bureaucratic bullshit. I guess at least when we send these off to the editors and file away the copies and go our separate ways for good, you can burn it so it keeps you warm at night.”
It’s more than one step too far and Grace knows it. It’s also juvenile. It’s like the wordsmithed-but-empty parries she tried and quickly abandoned up on the Underworld stage. The opposite of what she wants: more proof she’s the child Persephone will always see in her. The one who threw away everything she wanted because something didn’t go perfectly her way.
But Persephone’s expression doesn’t change. She’s wearing her mask, the perfect poise of a woman who has lorded over far crueler barbs than these. “You have work to do, Grace.”
"Work. Ha. Right. Yup. If I've got one thing going for me it's that I've got no shortage of work in my life right now."
"What did you think you were here for?"
"You know what? No idea. No clue! You didn't have to call. You didn't have to ever bring me back here. Why not... rent me out a quiet apartment somewhere you'd never have to see me again? Why this? I don't know what you want, Persephone." And Grace, in the ultimate demonstration of her maturity and equal footing, flings the half-dozen pages of prepped Idol press releases off the side of the desk with a swipe of her hand. “But I’m done doing busy work for the Gods.”
Persephone’s arms cross over her chest. “Then you won’t need me to escort you to the door.”
“Who said I was going anywhere?”
“Oh? You’ll camp out in my office? Curl up under my desk like a starved stray unless I agree to sing for your little band? Follow your— What did you call it? Your tour bus that smells like ass —while you drive across five state lines and set up camp in some cheap motel? Let me guess. Boys in one room and you and— Hana, was it? —in the next? Why, I'll just wait in the wings like a groupie with a backstage pass until you’re ready to trot me out for the final number. Is that what you want? ‘There she is at last,’ they’ll cry out under your sway. ‘Persephone, the grand afterthought of the great encore Muse.’”
Grace’s pulse thunders in her ears. There was a world where encore Muse wouldn’t have to be an insult, but from Persephone, like this, of course it is. Grace: the great shouldn’t-still-be-here, the act dragged out onstage not through any talent of her own, but because the crowd was cheering for Calliope, and Calliope left Grace to the wolves.
“It’s not like that! Why are you always like this? You could, gee, I don't know. Be in the wings because you actually want to support me? Because a part of you genuinely wants to see my show?”
She’s up off the desk, shifting into Persephone’s space, but the anger is ruined by the crack in her voice, the hitch in her step the second she’s close enough to feel how Persephone puts her in shadow while doing nothing more than standing tall, the instant illusion of closing in.
Grace swallows. “Our next gig is literally only fifteen minutes up the freeway but hell. Fly there in a private jet for all I care. Stay at the Ritz. I’m inviting you to do this with me. To— To try and make up for— To figure out if we—” Her hands tense and fumble aimlessly in the air between them. Persephone’s eyes are so hard. Grace loses momentum. "We—" She falters. Fades. Her eyes cringe lower until all she can see is the clench of Persephone’s fist curled at her side. How close it is to her own outstretched, pleading hand.
Anger falls out of her like a rib bone collapsing down into her hollow guts. “You let yourself get too close to me once. One time. Then you pushed me away. And after that maybe I did too, but I’ve said I’m sorry. I’ve reached out to you but you— You’re just— a wall.”
A slow, impassive blink. “It’s for the best, Grace.”
“Oh yeah? Whose best is that. Yours? Mine?” She gathers her cracked voice back up again and steps up right into Persephone’s personal space. “Or the rest of the Chorus that are still looking at you like you’ve got all the answers even though you gave up that throne.”
Something flashes in Persephone’s eyes. She refuses to give ground to Grace’s jabbing finger. “Yours,” she says in a voice gone all winter. “It’s best for you if you drop this now. Walk. Away.”
Well that earns a flinch. So much for it’s not you; it’s me.
Grace lets out a bark of a laugh. A single stray refrain from a song they’d once sung together at opposite ends of a chasm of light trickles into the room, then dies before it can become anything more than the hollow crooning of a summoned shade. Of course Persephone won’t make it easy on her. What have they ever had between them but something that started in blame?
“I think I know what’s best for me.”
A wry smile curls Persephone’s lips. “I’m sure you do.” She turns her back dismissively, the gold of her earrings flashing in the light. “Come back in fifty years when you’ve learned better.”
For so long she might as well have left the room, Grace stands silent. She stares at the back of Persephone’s neck above that shock of a turquoise collar. The close-shaven stubble she’s never once caught growing a centimeter too long. The gleaming watch wrapped around a wrist whose hand still holds itself too tightly when she's near.
“I will," she says, voice thin. "If that’s what it takes, I will.”
Persephone’s spine tightens. “Excuse me?”
She crosses her arms. “Fifty years, a century— What’s that to an Idol, right? If it takes fifty years of you treating me like a child to get you to finally stop running—”
“I don’t run, Grace.”
The darkness in Persephone’s voice sends a chill racing up her spine.
“I stalk, and I plan, and I break, and I ruin, and I win.” Her knuckles strain where they take a sudden grip on the edge of the desk. “But I learned better than running in times even your eidolon may never remember. And for all that I’ve done, all that I’ve earned, what is it I keep?” A low rasp of a laugh slips up her throat. “This.”
Persephone’s hand waves idly in the air beside her, the gesture capturing the everything and nothing of the room: the club beyond, the bass shivering the walls; the whiskey decanter and glasses on the wet bar gleaming in the low light, the books on her shelves, their spines uncracked.
Not Grace.
“I only get to live, Grace. That’s how it is. I win myself. Over and over again. I save the next life I get to live. Everything else? Everything else gets lost.”
You’re lost, little girl. It itches Grace’s throat. She’s only just wrestled some semblance of control over her powers in the last few weeks of cramming in lessons (with Hecate, of all people, who is remarkably willing to teach but remarkably difficult to learn from, in a place remarkably brim-full with memories of Freddie considering how brief a living time she spent there) between tour time and news time and time in this closing-in room. Grace has learned enough that she doesn’t manifest a mic. Doesn’t let out the words that have been trying, time and time again now, to become a refrain. But they circle in her head. The light flickers. Dims. Persephone, still facing away, becomes a dark silhouette. That thin, haunting melody stirs just at the edge of hearing, raising every hair on the back of her neck, prickling the collar of a leather jacket which has never been enough to protect her from the cold of this woman’s disdain.
Grace knows the next words.
You shouldn't have come here.
If Persephone hears it, she gives no sign. “Maybe with you, it wouldn’t be by my hand. And yet part of me thinks— It would be the most fitting, wouldn’t it. After all. You had it be my hand to crush my throne, Grace. Ah, Grace. Grace, Grace, Grace. The last Muse. Ha. She who survived the ire of the oldest Idol left alive. She who handed me the chance I’d always needed to finally change this wretched fate we’d all bound ourselves up in and look at us now. You, barely one misstep away from plunging us off a ledge of my own echoed melody and me?” Another iced, empty laugh. “Well. Tell me, Grace. What’s changed. Here I am: basking in a bright new dawn for Idols and what do I have to show for it? Not a throne. Not my day heading the Chorus. And certainly not the Muse who first inspired me to take one thing more than I knew I could hold.”
The words end harshly. She turns with purpose, a sneer curled below half-lidded eyes. Lips just parted around teeth so white you have to think of them as bone. “You’re just another lost thing, Grace. You see it. You already chose our end. Now live with the consequences like the rest of us." Her nostrils flare. "Go home.”
Persephone’s voice commands obedience. Her words do not invite debate. Yet Grace didn’t come here just to run. Not this time. Not like this. Not again.
Not again.
“No.”
A step closer. “No?”
Grace knows she’s lost this fight, lost this shot at the fantasy where the queen of the dead would follow her warily out into the sunshine for just once in her dark and cyclical life and make music for the absolute joy of it and no other reason at all. But that's just one fantasy. This is just one battle; she’ll have another turn on another day, to mount up her charge at the throne. And until then…
“No.” Grace turns to gather the papers up off the floor, the leather of her jacket creaking in soft protest to the crouch-and-lean it takes to coax the last one out from under the desk. She stands, brandishing their creased edges like blades. Like memories. Like an origami shield, unmade. Her voice is as light as she can make it when she says, “We have work to do, don’t we?”
Persephone’s eyes rest dark and hard on Grace’s lips when she breathes out, “Yes, we do.”
“And I won’t be the first one to tell you this, so I'm just going to say it,” she presses on into the pause between them. “So what if it’s what’s always happened? You fight, you win, someone comes crashing down and takes the spoils away.” She swallows hard. “I’m not a prize, Persephone. You don’t know how this ends.”
The sound Persephone makes sits low in her chest, near enough to the snarl of a lion to raise every tiny hair on Grace’s leather-cased arms. “Careful, Grace,” she warns, stepping closer. And closer.
Closer.
Leaning in.
Leaning in so close the papers crumple against her chest. So close the whiskey on her breath kisses her even if those heartblood lips keep away. A single fingertip traces a line low on Grace’s stomach: horizontal. “Or I might arrange an ending you know far too well.”
Since they met, Persephone has threatened Grace way too many times for her to pretend this is anything but a threat. She has no way to avoid the flashes of memory: Calliope in her arms, her hands dark and wet with blood. Freddie sprawled out on the stone, light leaving her eyes. Twin arcing lines: Right. There.
Persephone's words haven't been kind since she walked in here. But this one touch is cruel.
She swallows hard, trying to push away memory and accept this for what it is. Grace has seen Persephone at her cruelest only in the face of a threat that suddenly feels real.
And Grace needs her to believe this is real.
But Grace has no desire to push any harder than real. Grace hurt her once already. She won’t make that mistake again.
She softens her stance, looking away from those burning eyes. A tip of the chin is the only bow she can offer to a queen standing close enough for an execution. “Then maybe you could arrange… something new.”
It’s a quick-arcing melody when she finishes: “If not for me, then for you.”
There’s a swell: The golden glow of Grace’s eyes flash in the twin blades of Persephone’s earrings. A hitch in Persephone’s breathing tightens black lace and leaves all five fingers pressed to Grace’s stomach like a brand. Persephone’s lips part to join her music no matter what her line of the unasked-for song might be.
What comes out is only, “Grace.”
Her name is a note, low and clear, but then Persephone’s mouth pulls closer, killing the song more easily than had she drawn down the ire of the furies themselves upon the room. Breath warms Grace's lips. Her power dims. Her eyes flutter closed. She presses up into that bracing, burning hand no matter the threat and the memory—
And everything pulls away.
Grace stumbles against the desk, reeling, eyes wide with shock and wanting. Before she can gather any part of herself back together, Persephone turns her back and paces to the far wall without a word. Pours herself another measure of whiskey. Downs it unhesitantly. “Work, Grace,” she says coldly, the glass clicking home on the bar. “Or you won’t find yourself welcome here again.”
The door swings wide, and Persephone is gone.
The Grace she leaves behind is barely breathing. She stands on trembling knees, alone in the so-called peace and ringing quiet of Persephone’s office. Uncomfortably empty in so many ways.
But she heard it. She heard it.
The crack in that ice-thinning voice as it said her name.