Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Eurydice huddles in on herself, bracing against the wind as it curls around her threadbare hammock. Despite the chill, it’s warmer here than it should be, given the season and the altitude of the mountains. She must be close to her destination. For months, rumors have bounced across villages and camps and travelers about a refuge, a place unencumbered by the war of the gods.

Although she doesn’t hold much hope that such a place exists, Eurydice is running out of places to go. No matter where she travels, people decide she’s cursed to spread misfortune to those around her. She’d like to believe she is the frequent victim of immensely bad timing, but she’s beginning to think there is some truth in the idea of a curse.

There’s no sense in continuing to shiver while she thinks about it, so Eurydice climbs out onto a sturdy tree branch and begins rolling her hammock. She steels herself against the wind and begins her trek eastward. After just an hour of hiking and humming, she pauses. A hush falls over the woods, and the trees hold their breath as the sun is drowned out by an army of dark, rumbling clouds.

Eurydice won’t have more than a few minutes before sheets of rain cut into her skin like blades. She scans her surroundings and identifies a small formation of boulders able to shield her well enough. Just as she wedges her body between the rocks, the wind begins howling. The tall pine trees sway as their needles whip backward against what looks like a solid wall of air. The rain comes next, drops of water like arrows shooting nearly sideways against the mountainside. Saplings scream at the pain of being snapped in two against the assault. The mature trees groan in mourning even as their own roots struggle to keep hold. A small bird tumbles from the sky, and Eurydice knows how it feels- to start flying just in time to be struck down.

Razors of wind and rain slice against Eurydice’s arm and bare cheek that are still partially exposed to the storm. There is no way to know how long she’ll be stuck here; storms in these parts are known to last for minutes or days. Despite the stinging on one side of her body and her stomach beginning to ache with hunger, Eurydice is relieved to get some semblance of rest after hiking for hours. She hums a lullaby, Isaac’s favorite, to muffle the sounds of the mountain’s cry for help.

Eurydice dreams of the day she met them.

~

She stepped through the broken glass of the door into the large, open space. The building had clearly been raided and abandoned many years ago. Aisle after aisle of empty shelves go on forever, and Eurydice simply refused to believe that every shelf had once been completely filled with food. Surely, it was an exaggeration fueled by the glorification of the time before the war and warped by generations of storytelling.

Eurydice took two laps around the edge of the building, careful to step quietly, ensuring that no one else was seeking shelter there. She laid down flat on her back and relished the feeling of the cool concrete beneath her; it was a welcome reprieve from the blistering heat outside. Just when she closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief, she heard a footstep.

A peek from behind the nearest shelf revealed a woman, tall and thin and gray with age. She strode into the building like she had done it a hundred times and no longer feared the squatters or rodents that may lurk among the aisles- much like Eurydice was doing. The woman walked methodically through each row of shelves and disappeared for a few moments behind a set of double doors. She returned empty-handed and made to leave just as quickly as she had come.

The woman froze in her tracks, her head quirked slightly to the side, and Eurydice instantly knew that she’d been seen; a glass door on the wall next to her revealed the faint image of her reflection.

“Come out, girl. I won’t bite.”

Eurydice was not entirely convinced of that. She had heard stories of what happened in camps that suffered long droughts and blizzards. She stepped forward.

“How old are you?” the woman asked tightly, as if she might not want to know the answer.

“I don’t know,” said Eurydice, “Maybe fourteen.”

Her parents had told her that she was born in the spring, and that was the extent of her knowledge on the subject. She has stayed in some villages where people somehow knew the exact day they had been born and took their ages very seriously, though she can’t fathom that level of importance.

The woman sighed, “Come with me. I have food, and you clearly need some. Isaac will be glad to have someone else for company.”

The woman turned gracefully to leave, and Eurydice followed.

~

A boot squelches in the soaked earth next to her, and Eurydice snaps awake to find a man examining her with a tilted head. He smiles warmly.

“Can I help you up?” he offers with a pragmatic but kind voice. Eurydice observes him carefully, noticing his well-groomed dark hair and the good condition of his boots. They’d fetch a good price.

“That storm must have really roughed you up,” he adds, gesturing to her stinging cheek.

Eurydice notices that he is not dressed for the cold weather of the November mountains. He wears shorts and a thin shirt with no layers, and though the air is warmer than she’d expect today, it is far too cold to be dressed as he is.

“You’re from the refuge?” Eurydice asks, though it comes out as more of an accusation. She doesn’t move. The mountain holds its breath in anticipation with her.

The man responds, “I’m from Elysium, yes. My name is Marcus.” He looks her up and down and gives a reassuring smile. “I can help you walk if you need me to. It’s only about thirty minutes north of here.”

“You’re so sure I want to go with you?” Eurydice isn’t sure why she’s questioning his offer; she’d traveled weeks for this exact purpose, but it feels too easy, too good to be true.

“I suppose you could stay here and try your luck with vengeful gods.”

A pang of hunger hits her, and she decides she has no real choice but to trust him. He is an easy man to trust. She struggles to unfold herself from the rocks, trying not to think of what the refuge will be like. Elysium, he had called it— a paradise.

He turns to lead the way, stepping carefully to avoid slipping in the slick mud. Marcus, she quickly discovers, is not the type to walk in silence.

“So,” he inquires, drawing out the “o”, “what’s your name?”

“I’m Eurydice,” she replies. Although it’s not her real name, it’s what everyone has called her since Dottie and Isaac. She knows there are many versions of every urban legend, but in the version of the story of “Orpheus and Eurydice” that Dottie had learned from her grandmother, Eurydice was something of a bad luck charm. The name is certainly fitting in that regard, and she has used it ever since.

“Old-fashioned. I like it. You know, the leader of Elysium is named Orpheus. Maybe you two are star-crossed lovers,” he says cheekily.

“If that’s the case, I’ll look forward to leading him to his death.”

Marcus snorts, and while she hadn’t been joking, she can see why a stranger might think that. She doubts it will be long before he and everyone in Elysium realize having her there is like holding onto a ticking time bomb.

“Is it true, what they say about this place?” Eurydice asks cautiously, “It’s protected somehow?”

“Well, I’m not sure what all people say about Elysium, but yes, the climate is stable, predictable. The ecosystems don’t work exactly how they did before the war, but I imagine it’s not far off. It only gets bad when a new person gets close to the city. I don’t think the gods like Elysium very much, and it seems like the storms are meant to keep people away.”

Eurydice supposes it makes sense in a cosmic balance sort of way- nothing as good as Elysium sounds could be easy. However, she is wary of seeking shelter in a place that the gods don’t want to exist.

“How does it exist, then, if the gods don’t approve?”

Marcus hesitates for a moment but replies, “It sounds crazy, but Orpheus can kind of control nature by singing. Or playing an instrument. Like the storybook Orpheus from way back when. I guess the gods don’t have a lot of original ideas, right?”

Eurydice stares back at him. His tone is matter-of-fact, as if he hasn’t just revealed the first person to be truly blessed by the gods in millennia. Of course, some people lead more fortunate lives than others, but the gods haven’t gifted anyone real power since ancient times. It’s also hard to take Marcus’s claim seriously as he stumbles over his own feet every few minutes and curses when he got close to slipping again. It is a wonder he makes it anywhere without breaking an ankle.

Marcus produces an apple from one of his pockets. He takes a large bite and continues, still chewing, “It’s not limitless power or anything. So like, he couldn’t make a dog start walking on two feet or tell the rain stop midair, but he could make a dog fall asleep, and he could tell the wind to push the rain where we want it to go.” Crunch. “Does that make sense?”

“More or less,” Eurydice responds wearily, “I’m not concerned how this guy’s superhero powers work if they put food on the table. Although, you are inhaling that apple like you haven’t eaten in days.”

He chokes a laugh and procures a second apple, which he offers to Eurydice with a dramatic bow. She snatches it and begins crunching away with equal enthusiasm as they walk together.

“Look who’s talking. It’s not a race, you know.”

“I haven’t eaten in days.” It’s true. The last meal she’s had, if it could be called a meal, was a few scavenged handfuls of berries and greens. The sweet juice of the apple on her lips is euphoric, and Eurydice takes care not to let a single drop go to waste.

“You should have said something sooner. Here,” he says, reaching over his bony shoulder to access his backpack then pressing a small bread roll into her hand.

“If you keep feeding me, I’m going to fall in love with you.” She now holds the bread in one hand and the apple in another, taking alternate bites and savoring each one.

“Your standards are too low. Look, we’re almost there.”

Marcus points ahead and downward. Eurydice realizes they are at the peak of a small mountain gently sloping toward the city. And it is a city, not as sprawling as some she had seen, but big enough. As they get closer, she realizes that although Elysium is the shell of a former city- like all the others- the rubble that must have fallen from the broken buildings is nowhere to be seen. The vines that creep up the sides of nearly every surface are well-maintained and sometimes cut into patterns. Small farms are scattered in the green spaces between buildings, and Eurydice thinks she could make out the reflection of a lake on the other side of the city. The view takes her breath away.

Marcus leads her closer the city, and faces begin shifting into focus; what Eurydice sees feels like a blow to her already breathless chest, a stabbing, cleaving pain of relief and shock. These people are happy.

They’re busy and focused on their activities and not paying her any attention, but Eurydice can feel the contentedness and security that blankets Elysium. Friends laugh together as they walk the streets, people hum in pleasure when they walk past the bakery’s display of freshly baked bread, and lovers kiss goodbye as they go their separate ways. Eurydice feels a weight lift off her chest for the first time in months.

She made it. She has arrived in a place she had barely believed could exist. A tear escapes from her eyelid, and she cannot decide if it is out of relief at what she sees or sorrow at what so many others will never see.

Marcus notices her reaction and says gently, “ I know it’s a lot to take in, but you’re safe now.”

She hadn’t realized he was watching her, and she’s reminded to be wary. This place is inviting and comfortable and entirely too good to be true.

Of course, Eurydice has stayed in cities before, some with nearly as many people as she sees here, but nowhere else can ever escape the anxiety of the next storm, the next fire, the next disaster. Life is just a series of small apocalypses; maybe it’s different here. She wonders if she will last even a week, or if Marcus or this Orpheus fellow will sniff out her supposed curse and throw her out on her ass.

She directs her focus to Marcus, who moves more swiftly now that they walk on the familiar paved road. He gives her shoulder a quick squeeze and leads them all through the city streets until he stops in front of an apartment building.

“This is my place,” he says, pointing toward the door at the end of the building, “You can stay here for now, and tomorrow I’ll take you to meet Orpheus.”

He is once again quick to notice her concern at the notion of staying with him. “Some of us take turns hosting newcomers. I have an extra room right now, so I volunteered to go find you. If you’d be more comfortable somewhere else, I can arrange that too.”

That answers one of her questions. She has maybe a hundred more, but she keeps them to herself for now. The girl follows her host inside, her eyes quickly focusing on the kitchen at the front of the apartment. Eurydice fights back the overwhelming desire to push right through Marcus and down the whole pitcher of water in one gulp. She knows it isn’t safe to become too comfortable with this place or to reveal how desperate she is to stay, so she waits patiently while Marcus pours her a glass of water then spreads a delicious-looking jam onto a fresh slice of bread. It is torturous.

Mercifully, he doesn’t interrupt her while she eats, only addressing her after she wipes her mouth with a napkin and takes a long, slow drink of water.

“I’ll show you to your room,” Marcus says, leading her down a short hallway with two doors at the end, “Bedroom and bathroom. I should be stocked up on everything, but let me know if there’s anything you need. My room’s just upstairs, right above yours.”

“Thank you,” she murmurs, and he turns back toward the kitchen, giving her a kind smile over his shoulder.

Eurydice is surprised to find running water in the bathroom, and she draws a bath. The hot water feels incredible, but she doesn’t let herself enjoy it for long. She scrubs every inch of herself with a rag until her skin is slightly pink and there’s not a spec of dirt left on her. There is an odd assortment of clothing in the dresser, but she finds a simple dress to wrap around her thin frame. By the time she reaches the top of the stairs, Eurydice feels and looks like a completely new person.

She falls asleep before she’s even fully laid down in her bed that night. If she had possessed even the smallest amount of motivation to stay awake and process the day, she may have wondered how long it had been since she had fallen asleep in a soft bed with freshly bathed skin and a full stomach. She may have spared a thought for what the next day might hold and what Orpheus would be like. Instead, she sleeps for hours and hours, her dreams blissfully empty.

Chapter Text

Eurydice stands with Marcus at the threshold of a small house in the center of the city— Orpheus’ house.

“Are you going to tell me how this goes?” She asks.

“You want a pep talk?” He leans against the door. “I don’t know what to tell you- Orpheus is my friend. He’s a little intense, but he has a good heart.”

That doesn’t exactly answer her question. Eurydice wants to know what he will do, what he will ask, what he will demand. This man is in charge of Elysium, and she dislikes meeting powerful men unprepared.

“I don’t need a pep talk. That was terrible, anyway. I’m not afraid of him, but I don’t want to go in blind.”

Marcus rolls his eyes and opens his mouth to say more, but the front door swings open, causing him to stumble inside.

“Are you two making camp on my porch, or are you going to come in?” a young man- Orpheus- asks, quite amused with himself.

Marcus strides through into the house with a huff, and Eurydice follows. When she faces Orpheus fully, he shoots up from where he had sat down on a couch just moments ago. Her eyes instantly meet his, and she is overtaken by an emotion so intense, and yet so indeterminate, that she can do nothing but stare.

Her chest feels like it’s being sat on, but also like every weight it has ever felt is lifted away. He is the piece missing from the puzzle she hadn’t known she was putting together. Eurydice hasn’t even spoken to this man, but she has an overwhelming knowledge that this moment will spark a new era of her life. The intensity in Orpheus’ gaze indicates that he feels something similar, which terrifies and mesmerizes her. She can’t look away. If they have been staring for seconds or hours, Eurydice doesn’t know; they are frozen together in time and space as if some tether has snapped in place between them. It is a caress on the jaw and a slap on the cheek.

“Marry me,” Orpheus blurts out. It is more a confession than a question or command.

Yes, she thinks, then says to herself and to him, “What the fuck?”

The trance breaks between them, but Orpheus doesn’t lower his gaze. His eyes grow clearer as he looks her up and down then reaches for her hand. He raises it to his lips and places a lingering kiss to her fingers.

“I’m Orpheus. And you are?” he asks, not letting go of her hand.

“Eurydice.”

There is a beat of silence before Orpheus bursts out laughing. He finally drops her hand and falls back into the couch, gesturing for her and Marcus to sit down across from him. Eurydice had completely forgotten about Marcus’ presence, and he looks like he wishes he hadn’t been there for that strange display.

“I suppose I should give you the usual spiel, Eurydice,” he begins, smiling as he says her name. It’s a genuine smile, and she finds she enjoys the sound of her name on his lilting voice.

“Welcome to Elysium. I understand there are places that don’t take kindly to strangers, so I want to make it clear that you are safe and welcome here for as long as you want to be. We have resources and protections, and we’re not in the business of turning people away. Marcus and I will help you find somewhere to work or apprentice eventually, but there’s no rush. Any questions?”

Is he kidding? ‘Any questions?’ Eurydice thinks this man might be legitimately crazy. “It’s some kind of magic that protects this place? Your music keeps it safe from the climate disasters?”

“Yes, ma’am. When I create music, the natural world bends accordingly. I could give you a demonstration if you’d like. Over dinner, perhaps?”

“I would like that,” Eurydice says, surprising herself. She would have accepted regardless—it’s important to make a good impression when one wants something— but she finds she genuinely wants to see him again. It’s absurd. She has come across many men who flirt so shamelessly, but she has learned not to give their antics the time of day, much less encourage them. Their pretty words now sound hollow and fake to her ears, a performance that ends after she plays her part. In that moment, however, Eurydice feels completely and inexplicably at ease.

“Alright, then. I can give you a tour of the city afterwards. I find it’s the most beautiful at sunset. Now I have to go meet with the water planner,” he says, glancing at a wall clock, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Eurydice”

Eurydice smiles and stands as well, following Orpheus and the silent Marcus back outside. As Marcus leads her back to his apartment, Eurydice contemplates the bizarre exchange that just occurred. The connection they had shared, that tether between her and Orpheus, had felt more like a fist clenched around her heart than a rope or a string. She doesn’t know what to make of it. The only thing she does know is that she had agreed to have dinner with him like a blushing fool. If Dottie could see her now, she would have given her the most obnoxious eye roll and muttered something about teenagers. But Eurydice isn’t a child anymore, and Dottie is dead.

Marcus treks back to his apartment in a daze, and when the door closes behind them, he finally turns to her.

“What in the name of the undying gods was that?” His words are clipped, accusatory. “What are you?”

“The hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You were glowing, Eurydice. Glowing! Orpheus too, and you both just stood there for five minutes straight. Neither of you even blinked once- I was watching!”

Could that be true? Eurydice didn’t notice any glowing, but the power that lay between her and Orpheus had been striking and undeniable.

“Are you a witch?” Marcus continues, “Or was that a thing sirens can do? I can’t believe you would enchant him like that.”

“I didn’t do anything to him,” Eurydice defends, scoffing at the idea of it, “and none of that shit is even real. I’m sure he flirts like that with every woman in Elysium, anyway.”

“He doesn’t. I’ve known that man for fifteen years, and I’ve never seen him act like that around anyone. You don’t understand. I told you before that he could be intense, but I didn’t mean like that. Orpheus would walk to the ends of the earth to keep this place safe. He feels personally responsible for the well-being of every person here, but he’s not asking people out left and right.”

Marcus flops into a chair and sighs, his head turned to the ceiling. His frantic accusations having passed, Eurydice sits across him. It is strange. Though his tirade was directed at her, she’s not afraid of him. Although his frustration and confusion are evident, he never raises his voice in true anger, and his movements, though jerky and expressive, are not the least bit threatening. She feels safer in this small apartment with a man she hardly knows than she has for most of her life. Perhaps that’s why his role in this ecosystem is to board the people like her, who have seen too much and done even more. For the first time, she studies him. He’s not weak, but his strength manifests as confident and secure rather than imposing. His olive-toned skin is darkened by the sun, and his eyes hold an exasperated kindness in them. He must hold some sway in Elysium if he’s such good friends with Orpheus, but the fact that he is not Orpheus, head of the whole city, makes him all the safer.

Orpheus, on the other hand, shines bright as the sun, his earnestness exciting and terrifying all at once. He is beautiful; truly, there’s no other way to describe it. His golden brown hair falls to his shoulders like a curtain woven by Athena herself, and he smiles as if nothing has ever given him reason to frown. Eurydice can’t explain nor deny the spell that came over them when their eyes first met, but she can admit she would have been drawn to him regardless. His beauty is a beacon to her, fatigued and underfed as she is. Where his brilliant green eyes shine, hers cling to shadows. His fingertips are calloused by the instrument strings, while hers are scarred from years of desperate survival. She’s barely spent ten minutes with him, and she already wonders what it will be like to spend the evening with him, wonders if she will feel the tether again.

“So, what now?” she asks Marcus, whose eyes are now closed as he faces the ceiling, “You put me to work?”

“I would normally be giving you a tour of the city right now,” he laments, “I have a whole routine with dramatic pauses and everything, but Orpheus is stealing my thunder.” She chuckles, and he adds, “You can start work if you’re up for it. What do you want to do?”

Her chuckle becomes a stronger, but more unhinged laugh. “What do I want?” She has the strong urge to shout into a pillow, “All I have ever wanted was shelter, clean water, enough food to not starve. Can’t you just tell me what to do? That’s what everyone else does.”

“You have what you need now, and it isn’t going anywhere. I can give you a starting point, but how you fit into the city is up to you.”

He must see the feral look in her eyes, like a cornered animal who wants to fight, because he moves to leave the apartment, pausing for a moment in the open doorway to inform her, “I’ll be home before dinner.”

Now lying on her bed, Eurydice sobs, though she cannot decide if it’s from relief or dread. Without the specter of death lurking in ever corner, who is she? The only constant in her life has been danger, and now she struggles to envision her future without it.

~

Eurydice sat on a pillow above the cold cement floor of their bunker, with Isaac lounging on his small cot across from her. They each held five cards, and the remainder of the deck was laid out face down on the floor between them. She wasn’t paying much attention to the game, preferring to listen to him talk about why Spider-Man was his favorite superhero in the comic books he’d collected. His young face was so animated when he rambled on about the things the thought himself an expert in; those things included comic books, venomous snakes, and his Grandma Dottie.

“Spider-Man didn’t go out looking for powers, you know?” Isaac rattled, “He was just a really smart guy that happened to be bit by a spider that happened to give him powers. It could have happened to anyone, and they could have ended up with a spider villain instead. Do you have any sevens?”

“Go fish.”

~

She awakens to the click of the front door, and listens as Marcus’ footsteps trail up the stairs and to his bedroom. She must have dozed off while she sat thinking in bed. Rubbing the salt from her eyes and taking a deep breath, Eurydice follows him upstairs. The door is ajar, and he perches on the edge of his bed unlacing his boots.

“Where did you live before Elysium?” She asks without warning.

His head jerks to look at her in surprise, but he does not hesitate to reply, “A small town just east of the mountains. I grew up there with my father until a hurricane wiped it out when I was ten.”

Silence stretches between them; that’s all he’ll say, because he knows she is not asking out of simple curiosity. She wants him to give up something first.

“I have been spat at and beaten and sold like cattle,” she states plainly, “I have never had a home or a family, and I don’t know if I’ll ever fit in with your perfect city.”

She came to terms with her life long ago, and she knows she’s likely caused more pain than she’s felt. Marcus, to his credit, shows no signs of discomfort. Only pity. He nods once.

“I’ll help you. Tomorrow you can meet some of the others that arrived here as adults.”

Before she can thank him, a knock at the door echoes up the stairs, and Marcus grins.

“Are you ready to be swept off your feet?”

Eurydice mumbles an incoherent response that includes, “Shut your goddamn mouth,” and, “Why did I agree to this?”

Orpheus bears a small bouquet of honeysuckle blooms and a graceful smile. Eurydice feels no pull in her chest at seeing him again, which she is thankful for, but she cannot deny that it is difficult to look away from him. His equally unflinching gaze stirs something in her that she doesn’t recognize. There are no butterflies in her stomach, like she’d experienced in another lifetime, but it makes her want to draw closer, to touch.

“Eurydice,” he says her name like a prayer, “Can I come in?”

When she steps away to let him pass, he strides right into the kitchen and pulls a thin vase from the cabinet beneath the sink, making quick work of filling it with water and artfully arranging the yellow flowers. He clearly knows this apartment well.

“No one has ever given me flowers before,” she says truthfully, “you must really want to take me to bed.”

Blood stains his cheeks, but he recovers quickly. “I’d rather take you out first. The world may be falling apart at the seams, but that doesn’t mean romance is dead.”

His smooth words prickle her curiosity. Marcus had said that such behavior is unlike Orpheus, so why now, and why with her? Perhaps it’s their names— sharing the identities of ancient and famous lovers is hardly an everyday occurrence. Marcus could be mistaken. it’s not like Orpheus would speak that way to him, his friend of fifteen years, unless they’re much better friends than she realizes. Whatever the case, she has him right where she wants him.

Eurydice tuts, “Such pretty words. Let’s get out of here.”

“As you wish,” he says with a small bow, “Follow me.”

Chapter Text

“I like what you’ve done with the place.”

It is all she can when she enters his home because the kitchen she now enters glows like a thousand lightning bugs, and the scent of honey and apples is intoxicating. Candles of all sizes line nearly every surface of the room, one standing tall and thin in a candlestick at the center of the table. A sliced loaf of crusty bread and a bottle of wine accompany the candle as a centerpiece.

“Are you trying to impress me?” she teases.

“Yes,” he says earnestly, pulling out her chair, “I am. Now please, have a seat.”

As she settles in, Orpheus retrieves their meal from the kitchen and places pieces of spiced chicken and vegetables on each plate. The food has barely touched her plate before she begins eating.

“Is it working, then? Impressing you?”

She thinks for a moment, chewing and swallowing,“I haven’t decided yet. My dates don’t usually cook for me, so you’re off to a good start.”

“I suppose I’ll take what I can get,” he feigns melancholy, “So, Eurydice, where are you from? What’s your story?”

What is your story? It’s an innocent enough question, but the phrasing catches her off guard. Orpheus does seem the type to write ballads and spin tales; it must be as natural as breathing for him to view his life as a grand narrative which yearns to be shared. Of course, Eurydice’s life is less of a story and more of a recurring nightmare, but she can’t tell him that. In this moment, staring across a full plate of mouthwatering food at a luxuriously handsome man, in what seems to be the safest city on earth, it is easy— too easy— to forget about the troubles of her life and the world beyond.

“I prefer to live in the present. My story is not a pleasant one, and I’d hate to ruin the mood after you went to so much trouble.” It’s a practiced, flattering answer to avoid talking about herself without upsetting him. “I’d like to know your story, though, if you want to share,”

It’s as she expected. He has distilled the details of his life into an engaging tale that he’s happy to share. Some might think him too eager to talk about himself, but Eurydice knows that his words are a performance, a work of art that he’s proud to share, and she admires his openness.

He begins his account with his great-great-grandmother, who had been old enough to remember the time before the war of the gods and passed down stories of what life had been like to her children. She had lived in now-underwater Florida, when hellish heat waves and monstrous hurricanes began fighting for dominance. When a sinkhole swallowed her apartment building, she and her remaining family and neighbors fled north.

They lived in a small town in Georgia for some time before hail the size of basketballs rained down on the town like bombs for nearly two weeks straight, leaving few survivors and even fewer inhabitable homes. His great-grandfather traveled along with the rest of the town and joined another caravan fleeing the coast. They settled just southeast of the mountains and managed to avoid further disaster for many years before a combination of flooding and infighting pushed them farther north and fully into the mountains. They had been here, working to establish a community, for nearly fifteen years before Orpheus was born. As Eurydice has found in the more mature settlements, people have taken advantage of the remaining libraries and bookstores to rediscover the engineering and agricultural practices needed to operate before the age of automation and mechanization.

“Before I even began speaking,” Orpheus regales, “I was able to bloom flowers and toy with mice. My power grew up along with me, and since the age of ten, I’ve been able to ensure the crops always prosper and the extreme weather doesn’t destroy Elysium’s progress. When I was a teenager, I found I could persuade the summers and winters to be more mild as well. As long as I make music, we stay safe here.”

It is an incredible gift, but it seems like too much pressure— not to mention reliance— to put on one person, and she’s startled by the nobility of it all. In her adult life, she has never done anything that wasn’t at least eighty percent self-serving, while Orpheus devotes every day of his life to protecting his city. She wonders if he even likes music.

“Speaking of,” Eurydice says, “I believe I was promised a demonstration.”

His lips quirk, eyes lighting up. He gestures to a small potted tree in the corner that Eurydice hadn’t noticed before. As she watches, Orpheus hums a low tune, and a flower emerges from the leaves. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the flower shrivels and dries up, and a round growth replaces it, quickly expanding until a fully formed lemon is dangling from the branch. He rises to retrieve it and offers it to her.

It drops solidly into her open hand, a little miracle on this tragedy of a planet. She can barely believe it’s real, even after watching it grow and feeling the bumpy peel beneath her calloused fingers.

“Incredible,” she breathes, not knowing what else to say.

He’s kneeling next to her chair, much closer than she had realized, and he is watching her study the lemon. When she turns to face him, their noses are only a few inches apart, his slightly lower. The fruit in her hand is forgotten as she studies him instead. Hundreds of tiny freckles that she hadn’t noticed earlier dot his forehead and cheeks. The flickering candlelight surrounding them sets his emerald eyes on fire, and shadows dance around his face like splashes of ink that she itches to dip her fingers into.

She jerks away suddenly, resisting the urge to slap some sense back into herself, and clears her throat.

“How about a tour then?”

Orpheus’s shoulders slump for only a moment before he recovers and springs to his feet. She pretends not to see the hand he offers her and makes a beeline for the exit. The cool night air calms her a bit, and she regains her composure after a few deep breaths. As they walk, he points out a few people; that man manages the east gardens, this woman crafts leather goods, and so on. The mountains encasing Elysium set the perfect backdrop for the lively city, a separation from the rest of the world that feels too good to be true.

“You make everything you need here, then? Does anyone ever go outside the city besides to find people like me?”

“Very rarely, we do send teams out for specific supplies or information we don’t have here. Other than that, we make do with what we have.”

“In that case, I know one job that I don’t want. Marcus will be thrilled I’ve narrowed down the list,” she says, thinking back to their earlier discussion.

“Is it really so bad out there? I’ve only heard stories, and I get the sense people downplay it to me.”

His face is open, his expression so genuinely curious and concerned that it doesn’t even bother Eurydice that his question is absolutely absurd. But how would he know what the outside world is like? Why would anyone leave this bubble of protection? And for Orpheus, the bubble can simply follow wherever he goes; he will never know the full extent of the gods’ wrath or man’s cruelty.

“You really want to know?” He nods. “It is that bad, Orpheus. It’s impossible to survive for long on your own, so it’s worth it to stick together. People are adaptable, and most are able to find ways to protect against the more regular disasters. The issue is that every group operates differently. Some of them treat dogs better than they treat women. Others form more peaceful societies, but are not keen on welcoming strangers. Gangs steal anything they can get their hands on. For people not born into an established community, or whose towns were destroyed, it’s a total shitshow— every man for himself.”

“And what about you?” he asks quietly. They now stand on a small ledge overlooking a farm, now sprouting with clover after the harvest. Eurydice looks out at the field and the mountains beyond, still trying to believe that she’s in a city protected by magic and wondering how long this fantasy will last. Orpheus looks only at her.

She wants to be honest with him, though she can’t be exactly sure why. Perhaps it’s because of the strange link between them or because she’s on her first real date since she was a teenager, but Eurydice trusts him more than she’d like to admit. More than she ought to. It doesn’t feel like they are strangers though; looking into his eyes is like seeing an old friend for the first time in years. Based on Marcus’ earlier words, she suspects Orpheus has the same feeling of familiarity. Still, she knows better than to tell the whole truth.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I also don’t regret. I might as well tell you now that I might be cursed,” she says, giving him a sidelong glance. “Trouble follows me everywhere I go; sometimes it probably is my fault, and sometimes I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I always get kicked out of town eventually. Or I leave before it gets to that point. I never believed in curses, but if you can sing a lemon to life, then it would only be the second craziest thing I’ve heard today.”

With every word that she gives him about herself, there are several missing that she doesn’t want him to know about yet, or ever. It is true that bandits raid food stores and supplies indiscriminately. It’s also true that she had been one such bandit for almost a year. There are people who kidnap young girls and boys and sell them off to brothels and fighting pits; it took six months for her to manage an escape route. She has lost count of the times she’s been removed from pubs before she could even order a drink, and she’s grown accustomed to working the worst jobs in the places that let her stay— shoveling shit and scrubbing kitchen floors and digging graves.

“I don’t think you’re cursed,” he responds in a matter-of-fact tone, “I think the world was slowly nudging you here, where you belong.”

She snorts at the idea of anything, the gods or the fates or her own parents, concerning itself with her life. “If I’m being nudged anywhere, it’s to an early grave.”

Orpheus smiles wryly and says, “I sure hope not. Let’s forget our namesakes, why don’t we? I plan to live a long, happy life, and so will you.”

At that, she breaks down laughing, unable to stop herself. The idea of living to be an old woman sitting next to a warm fire with gray hair and smile lines is truly the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard.

He gives her a look she can’t decipher and takes her hand to lead them back into the city. The night is so peaceful that she can almost pretend they’re just regular people going for a stroll in a city untouched by the gods. They take a different route back to Marcus’ apartment, and Orpheus continues to point out the different establishments they pass. She only retains about half of what he says, but she enjoys listening to him and seeing the comfort and pride as he shares his city with her.

When they reach the front porch, he turns to face her, standing closer than he had been at the overlook. Her heartbeat quickens involuntarily, but she doesn’t take her eyes off his. She stands still as a statue as he leans closer and brushes his lips against her cheek, then pulls away.

“I’m not going to kiss you tonight or ask to come in” he says softly, “but I hope you’ll agree to see me again soon. I want to do things right with you.”

Damn. He’s good, she thinks, her face heating up and her stomach tightening. A ripple of relief courses through her as well; a slight tension that she hadn’t noticed melting away. He has no expectations of her. It’s almost too sweet, and she can’t help but ruin it just a little.

She grins and replies, “If you insist, I’ll have to take care of myself tonight. Goodnight.”

With that, she goes inside and closes the door a bit too hard without looking back. Marcus lounges on the couch reading a book and looks up when she enters. He raises his eyebrows in question.

“It was a nice night,” she says defensively.

Marcus cranes his neck to see the porch from the window, “Then why is he still at the door with his face bright red?”

She only smirks, and he rolls his eyes and gets up to flicker the porch light a few times before they hear the squeaking steps of Orpheus’ retreat.

“Look,” he sighs, turning back toward her, “I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but I feel like I should say it might not be the best idea to start a relationship so soon after getting here. You’re obviously still in survival mode, and that doesn’t always lead to the best decision-making.”

“I see your point, but I have two counterpoints. First, survival is my only mode, and I make great decisions.” This is definitively not true, but she’s defensive. “Second, Orpheus asked me out, not the other way around. It’s not like I could have said no.”

At that, Marcus turns gravely serious. “You could have said no, Eurydice. You can always say no. Did you do anything tonight that you didn’t want to do?”

His eyes search hers for any glimmer of hesitation and find none. She has been in many versions of the same situation, and usually the only reason she agrees to anything is for the sake of self-preservation. But self-preservation is easy with Orpheus. She had wanted to see him tonight— wanted to kiss him— and saying yes was easy as breathing. Marcus’ concern touches her so deeply she can’t keep up the argument.

“No,” she says, “He was the perfect gentleman. Besides, you said yourself that he’s not the player type.”

“Good. And I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you’re on your own to find your place here.”

“I know.” A yawn escapes her throat, and she relents, “I’m going to get some sleep. See you in the morning.”

“Goodnight.”

Closing the door behind her, she flops onto the bed and takes several deep breaths into the blanket. It is all so much. Orpheus is too pure, Marcus is too kind, and Elysium is too perfect. In the back of her mind, she wonders how long it will take for her to bring the city crashing down around her, but she has learned to enjoy the good times while they last.

It was Dottie who taught her how to rise out of despair and nihilism and find joy in life when it presents itself. Eurydice will never be able to predict how long she’ll have food on the table, so she should take advantage when she does. Dottiehad snapped her out of a months-long fog during which she thought only of how little she was wanted by this world. When Dottie found her, it had been years since her parents disappeared, but the wound was still close to the surface.

She smiles as she recounts her night with Orpheus, his extravagant meal and his seemingly endless chatter about Elysium and its people. His display of otherworldly power is somehow not at the forefront of her mind. She knows, logically, that she should be more awed, more scared, more something than she is. Instead, it feels natural and correct that he should have this gift, no more surprising than a bee resting on a flower or a ring of mushrooms emerging after rain. Her attention is instead focused on the warmth of his presence and the way her pulse had sped up when his touches lingered.

I want to do things right with you. Sweet-talking men are nothing new to Eurydice. What’s new is that she suspects he said this because he means it. It’s a strange thing to come across someone so sure of himself and what he wants, and she wonders if anything has ever given him reason to doubt himself. For her, a constant calculation in her mind dictates how to cause the least amount of damage to others- and mostly to herself. She doesn’t dare to imagine what it might feel like to be at peace in the way Orpheus seems to be. Her thoughts drift back to his soft, cool lips on her cheekbone, his unwavering gaze as he stood both too close and not close enough. Tracing her fingers down her body, she decides to follow through on her earlier suggestion before slipping into sleep.

Three solid knocks at the bedroom door awaken her the next morning. She takes several minutes to shake herself out of her dream as she dresses for the day.

She follows Marcus to a small park near the bakery to wait for the other newcomers to join them. Merna joins them first, and she instantly warms to Eurydice. She grew up much farther north where month-long blizzards forced her and her family to scavenge for food and supplies in short bursts to avoid being trapped away from home. One day, they took a shortcut over a lake that should have been covered in a thick layer of ice, and her parents stumbled upon a weak point, disappearing into the frigid waters in the blink of an eye. Merna scraped by on her own until the winter ended, and she traveled south as quickly as she could, eventually discovering Elysium.

Elena and her husband Justin are the next to arrive. Justin does most of the talking, and Elena is content to sip a cup of tea while he speaks. The two had met when Elena’s town was razed by a massive landslide, burying many people alive. The survivors trekked north to nearby town where Javier lived with his family. When a man traveling through told them about a city across the county that the gods can’t seem to harm, they took the risk and rode for months on horseback to find it. The whole town thought it was a foolish and doomed mission; a year ago, Eurydice would have agreed.

The next addition is an older woman named Kaveri who had lived most of her life in the village just west of Elysium. It was Eurydice’s last stop before her final hike to the city. Kaveri had heard rumblings about Elysium for years before she finally decided she had to know. She comes from a skeptical and stubborn town that refuses to believe what is right under its nose.

They had all arrived in the last five years, and Eurydice takes comfort in how well-adjusted they all are. Maybe one day she’ll speak about her life to this point as if it was a nightmare she’s long since woken up from. At the moment, it feels like that is her real life and this is the dream. Merna leads the conversation with ease, only asking her simple questions that she knows will have uncomplicated answers. Soon, she finds herself laughing at Justin’s jokes and sharing glances with an exasperated Elena along with the rest of them.

“What the hell is she doing here?”

Eurydice’s smile disappears in an instant. She would know that voice anywhere; she could live a thousand years and never forget it. Clenching her teeth and bracing for what she knows will follow, she swivels to face the woman who had once been like a sister.

Before Eurydice could take another breath, a sharp pain shoots across her temple as a small fist makes contact. She ducks quickly to avoid a second swing and kicks the other woman’s dominant leg out from under her. Marcus appears, standing between Eurydice and her attacker. He glances incredulously at each of them before helping the grounded woman to her feet.

“Do either of you care to explain?”

“Sam is an old friend,” Eurydice states cautiously, aware of how inadequate an explanation it was but not daring to say more.

“This bitch,” Samantha says with hot venom, “killed my brother.”

Chapter Text

The whole earth holds its breath as Eurydice stands frozen in place, wishing she couldn’t feel six sets of eyes boring into her. She waits for them to send her on her way. They all wait for her to speak, to deny or explain or beg for forgiveness. When it becomes clear that neither will be happening right now, Marcus drags a hand over his face and wipes away his shocked expression.

“Is that true?” He asks her, his tone weary and grave.

Eurydice looks past him to Samantha, whose eyes glisten at their corners with tears. Sam has always hated that she cries when she’s angry; Eurydice hates to be the cause of it. Aside from the fury radiating from her so hot it rivals the sun, Sam looks well. Her shoulders rest lower than Eurydice has ever seen them, and she has put on some weight to soften her bony, wiry frame. Her inky black hair is pulled into an intricate braid that Eurydice would never be able to recreate.

Her gaze shifts back to Marcus, and without breaking eye contact, she simply says, “Yes.”

The others surrounding them begin mumbling and looking away, decidedly uncomfortable with this turn of events and none too pleased to be in the company of a killer.

Merna, the saint she is, clears her throat conspicuously and says, “We should give you three some privacy,” gesturing for the others to return to their daily activities.

It doesn’t take long for Kaveri, Elena, and Justin to make themselves scarce, and Eurydice wonders if she’ll ever see them again.

Marcus starts to speak, but Sam cuts him off, “Look, I don’t have time or desire to hash this out. Eurydice and I were in a gang together. She stayed back with my brother one day, and the rest of us came back just in time to watch her cut his throat open. And then run.” She pins Eurydice to her spot with a piercing gaze full of betrayal and bitterness. “Do what you want with that information, Marcus. But leave me out of it.”

That day is not one that she wishes to remember, and tears prickle behind her eyes thinking about it. Samantha is gone the next instant, disappearing in the same uncanny way she always has. Her feet are silent as a cat’s, and she has the innate ability to choose exactly the right moment to slip away, taking advantage of her target’s every glance and blink. She had tried for a few weeks to teach Eurydice some of her tactics, which were helpful for stake-outs and sneaking past watchmen into a city’s supply rooms, but quickly ascertained that she doesn’t possess the delicacy required.

“Can we go literally anywhere else?” she requests, shrinking into herself as she averts her eyes from the people milling about the park who may not have heard that exchange, or are too polite to let on that they were listening.

“Yes, I think that would be best,” he agrees, leading her swiftly through an alley and into a small courtyard. It’s a beautiful space, she thinks dully, with ivy climbing the remains of brick walls and dense hedges separating them from the bustling street.

Eurydice sits on a stone bench with her forearms to her thighs and her head lowered while Marcus paces before her. She should be afraid that Marcus will go straight to Orpheus or send her packing himself, but all she can manage to feel is a deep-seated dread. She decides to rip the bandage off.

“What do you want to know?”

He guffaws. “Everything? Nothing? Gods above, this is not in my job description.” His face contorted as he considered what to ask her. “Why?” he settled on.

“It was a mercy,” she recalls, “he had rabies and didn’t have much time left.”

“Do you regret it?”

Eurydice shakes her head slowly. The world around her dims slightly, as if the pain casts a shadow over the sun.

“How could you go through with it? He would have died anyway.”

She responds evenly, “Because he was suffering. Because he begged me to. Because I loved him.”

His eyes soften slightly at that. He stops bracing himself and his piqued curiosity slips out. “What was it like? To take a life, I mean.”

She considers for a moment, “It feels like the kind of power no one should ever have. The kind of power that corrupts everything it touches.”

“Have there been others?”

Her eyes shoot up to his, and she is surprised to find no fear in them, no disgust, only a striking hunger for knowledge.

She opens her mouth to say something— she doesn’t know what— but an urgent shout rings from outside the courtyard. They rush out to find several people looking upwards, and Eurydice realizes she wasn’t imagining the sky darkening. Gray clouds roll over the city, and quickly. They release a roar of thunder that rattles the bones of the city and the bedrock of the mountains. She scans the buildings around them for signs of basements and finds a small window at the foot of a mechanic’s shop. Rushing across the street, she prepares herself to punch through the glass, but Marcus’s hand grasps at her elbow to stop her.

“What are you doing? We need to get underground,” she hisses.

“What we need is to find Orpheus!”

He pulls her back to her feet and takes off running. She trails behind him as he weaves through streets and people. Everyone in Elysium seems to be outside, gawking at the sky as if they could see Zeus himself condemning them. Marcus doesn’t bother knocking as he bursts into Orpheus’ house, racing down a hallway and searching rooms.

Apprehension pours over Eurydice as she takes in the state of the house that had been so beautifully and carefully decorated the previous night. Dozens of papers covered in Orpheus’ indecipherable thoughts, words and musical notes scattered about. Several others are crumpled into balls or torn into strips of confetti. Looking into the kitchen, she finds every cabinet and drawer open and rifled through and broken glass littering the floor. Eurydice stands in the threshold for a heartbeat, unsure if she should join Marcus. She decides to search for a broom instead and begins clearing away the shards of glass. It’s unclear why exactly Marcus brought her here instead of leaving her in the alcove, but she opts to be useful in a way she is certain can’t possibly backfire.

Her cleaning takes her closer to the hallway, and she is able to hear Marcus’s faint voice at the end of it. Curiosity gets the better of her, and she inches forward until she can make out the conversation.

“— really more important than the storm outside right now?”

Orpheus’ voice is harder to discern, but she hears him whisper-shouting, “I am not leaving without pants on!”

Inside the room, Marcus grasps Orpheus’ arm and pulls him out of the closet. A bow and violin are then thrust into the musician’s chest, and he grabs them instinctively.

“Alright, alright. I’m going,” Orpheus mutters as he strides out of the room.

He moves so quickly he doesn’t seem to notice her spying in the hallway. His long hair is tied in a loose knot atop his head, and he stands barefoot and shirtless on his porch, his pants still unbuttoned and twisted. The violin comes to rest on his collarbone, and he raises the bow to meet it.

The music Orpheus produces is the most beautiful thing Eurydice had ever heard. The melody enchants her in a way she hadn’t known was possible, the sound so perfect that she has to brace against the door frame to keep from falling to her knees. The little tune he had hummed over dinner to grow the lemon pales in comparison to the song that commands the skies. At the first draw on the violin strings, the clouds overhead slow their pace. As the music continues, they slowly split down the middle and pushed outward from the place Orpheus stands. He steps away from his house and into the street as he plays, the music swelling and the clouds parting more rapidly with each long note.

A larger audience gathers with each second that passes. Every face is in awe of the man who protects them from the might of Zeus. This city is a battleground all on its own, yet Orpheus wins every time.

When the storm is cast out and the melody slows, Eurydice feels a hand on her shoulder. She turns to see Marcus at her back, smiling knowingly when he sees the tears dripping slowly down her face.

Wiping her cheeks with her sleeve she says, “I’ve never—, I can’t even—.”

“I know,” he agrees, “There are no words.”

It isn’t until Orpheus is climbing the stairs in front of her that she realizes the performance is finished and the storm clouds are already a distant memory on the horizon. He offers a sheepish smile and darts into his room to get dressed. Marcus and Eurydice follow him inside and wait in the living room.

The image of Orpheus bare-chested and lost in his own angelic music is burned into her eyelids, returning with every blink. She doesn’t think it will ever disappear, and she doesn’t want it to. He is only gone for a minute before joining them in the living room. Marcus wastes no time with formalities.

“That was the biggest storm we’ve seen in years. There must be someone else close to the city. Maybe more than one,” he states firmly.

Orpheus nods, “That’s what I was thinking too, but there’s never been a new arrival so soon after the last.” He gestures at Eurydice and continues, “It’s been, what? Two days? It was at least six months between Sam and Eurydice.”

Sam was the last one to get here before her? Eurydice wonders what she was doing before she arrived in Elysium. She wants to believe the rest of the gang kept each other safe after she fled, but given that Sam is the only one here, it isn’t likely.

“I know, but what else could it be?”

In the blink of an eye, she and Marcus are traipsing through the soaked forest, searching for poor souls caught in the storm. She’d had no intention of leaving the city ever again, but in her daze, Marcus had bid her to join him, and she didn’t argue. Eurydice is deep in thought for the beginning of their trek, and she hasn’t spoken a word since the first crack of thunder. Her mind wants to linger on Orpheus’ song but is pulled back time and time again to her confession to Marcus and the others. Six people in Elysium now think— know— her to be a murderer. What if they tell others? Does it matter if they do? Marcus doesn’t seem especially bothered by it, but Sam obviously is. And what about Orpheus? She can’t take it anymore and speaks up.

“You didn’t tell Orpheus about today. About Sam,” she starts cautiously.

“It wasn’t important at the time.”

“And when will it be important?”

He quirks his head to the side and turns to face her. “I don’t know.”

“Please don’t tell him.”

Her words are quiet and short; she hates the desperation in her voice. She doesn’t know why it matters so much to her. It isn’t like she killed [Jason?] in cold blood. It was a kindness, and everyone would see it that way, right? Would Sam, if she knew? Truth be told, she hadn’t thought about [Jason?] in weeks, and that fact fills her with almost as much guilt as the memory itself. Starving has a way of making you forget everything that isn’t food. Marcus may not be fazed by her past, but Orpheus is pure and bright and won’t have any space for her grayness, moral or otherwise.

Marcus’ eyebrows raise at her sudden vulnerability, and he acquiesces, “I won’t tell, but I won’t lie for you either. And I want an answer to my question before. Was he the only one?”

She had hoped he would forget about that in the chaos of the storm, but she figures it’s best to have all her cards out on the table. “No.”

“Do they all bring you as much pain as Sam’s brother?”

“No.”

He understands the tone of her voice, the hardness, but presses further. “Would you kill me if I stood in your way?”

“The chances increase the more you run your mouth.”

He snorts, and they continue on, and Eurydice notices that Marcus has chosen a direction to travel and hasn’t strayed from it, even though they have an entire perimeter to search.

“How do you know where to look?”

He pauses. “Just a feeling,” he finally answers.

It hardly satisfies her skepticism, but if he can bite his tongue about her body count, she can resist further questioning. It is a few minutes before Marcus turns abruptly to the left and jogs ahead. Her eyes follow his path, and she sees the outline of a person leaning against the opposite side of a distant tree. Marcus calls out, offering some reassurance, but Eurydice is too busy trying to catch up to hear. He pauses, giving Eurydice a concerned glance when she reaches him.

“Maybe they’re hard of hearing?” he guesses.

It is possible, but a heaviness hangs in the air. It’s the feeling of being caught in a spider’s web, like standing perfectly still while someone throws knives at you. The birds are silent here. She hasn’t kept herself alive all these years by ignoring such intuitions. When Marcus tries to close the small distance between them, she puts out an arm to stop him.

The figure behind the tree has not moved, not even an inch. She motions for Marcus to circle around the other side of the tree as they approach, scanning their surroundings for signs of an ambush. Detecting no suspicious movement, she turns her eyes to the person now coming in view. The dead girl.

Chapter Text

The girl is suspended above the ground, pinned to the oak by the sword protruding from her chest. Her eyes are open, staring down lifelessly at Eurydice and Marcus. There is so much blood. It blooms out from her chest and soaks through her shirt and jacket. It dribbles down the edge of the sword and onto the wet grass. Her lips are coated with it from coughing up the blood that no doubt filled her lungs the moment she was pierced by the blade.

She can’t be older than fifteen, and her sticky, bloody clothes reveal a gaunt frame. She was clearly on the path Eurydice had walked just two days ago— alone, hungry, and desperate. A patch sewn into the side of her jacket catches Eurydice’s attention, and she reaches to turn it outward. Neat letters are drawn into the patch’s white fabric.

“Her name is Collette.”

Marcus meets her eyes, and they silently agree to bring her body back with them into the city. She deserves better than to rot in the woods until the dogs find her. Marcus grasps the hilt of the sword, and Eurydice positions herself to catch the girl’s body when it falls. He pulls hard on the sword, dislodging it from the tree in one swift motion, and she crumples into Eurydice’s arms. Her body is still warm.

As Eurydice gathers the girl into her arms, Marcus offers his help, but she shakes her head softly. “She’s skin and bones.”

The hike back to Elysium is slow and silent, the whole forest honoring the procession and recovering from the storm’s earlier assault.

They both stop, approaching the edge of the city. “The medic is on the east side,” he says, “We should go around and cut through the gardens. No need to parade her through the whole city.”

It’s a good reason on its own, so she doesn’t add the other one she’s thinking of. Only a few hours ago, she publicly admitted to murder. It would unwise to enter the city with a child’s fresh corpse in tow.

After skirting through the treeline surrounding Elysium, they hurry in between greenhouses and raised garden beds to avoid wandering eyes. Marcus raps on the door of an old clinic, and a disheveled-looking young man appears almost instantly. His eyes widen at the sight of the three of them, wasting no time in ushering them inside.

“Is she alive? Lay her down here,” he says, guiding them to a cot.

“No,” Eurydice replies quickly, complying with his request, “She was pinned to a tree with that sword. She must have died right after the storm.”

Marcus shoots her a quizzical look, but the younger man nods in agreement.

“The rain would have washed away a lot of the blood, and she’d be soaking wet if she was exposed like that.”

“Which means that whoever killed her waited out the storm to do it,” she continues his thought, “and I’d bet they were nearby when we found her, Marcus. A death like this makes a statement; they would have stayed to be sure we found her.”

“Fuck. Okay,” Marcus says, looking down at his splayed fingers, “Can I use the sink, Rafael? I’m going to wash up and get Orpheus down here.”

He follows Rafael’s gesture and scrubs his bloodstained hands furiously until they’re red again from irritation. Eurydice remembers the first time she had done the same thing, just a few months after her parents left. A man had grabbed her by the hair for nicking a loaf of bread from his cart. She panicked, snatching a dull butter knife from the cart and stabbing it into his shoulder. After the governor told her in no uncertain terms what would happen if she didn’t leave immediately, she fled to a lake outside town and ran a rough washcloth over her hands, and then her whole body for good measure. She kept her hair cut short for a long time after that. Now, Eurydice doesn’t even remember that she’s coated in Collette’s blood until she watches Marcus’ reaction to it.

“Could you bring me some clean clothes when you get back? I don’t think I can go out like this,” she asks.

He agrees and shakes his hands dry before leaving to fetch Orpheus. She is left with Rafael, who is distracted by examining the girl’s body.

Not sure what do to while he works, she breaks the silence, “I’m Eurydice, by the way. I’m new here.”

He glances up and grins. “I know who you are. Less than a week here and you’re already on secret missions with the city bigwigs. I’m Rafael, but you can call me Rafe if you want.”

“Okay, Rafe. Since you know so much, you might recall that I’m currently living with Marcus.”

“And that’s why you go on romantic evening strolls with Orpheus?” His eyebrows wiggle wildly, then he frowns at Collette. “That’s weird.”

He squeezes her jaw, and her mouth falls open slightly. He fishes out a crumpled piece of paper and unfolds it, gesturing for Eurydice to come closer to see it. There are several patches of blood staining the thick parchment, but the short message inked in the center is still legible. It reads,

Orpheus,

Surrender yourself, or the next body will be one of your own. Come to the lake three miles north of your city before midnight tomorrow, and no one else needs to die.

“Well, fuck me sideways, and call me Zeus,” Rafe mutters, then turns to Eurydice. “This is bad.”

She shoots him a squinting glare, evaluating the extent of his stupidity. Before she can express how much of an understatement that is, Orpheus enters. He drops a small bag on a table before cautiously approaching them. All color drains from his face as he regards the girl’s body and Eurydice’s grimy state. Eurydice subtly snatches the note and tucks it into her back pocket before Orpheus can notice it. The look she gives Rafe, while only lasting a fraction of a second, conveys at least seven threats of violence should he reveal the message to Orpheus. He doesn’t acknowledge her, but doesn’t speak, waiting for someone else to break the silence. Orpheus appears to be struggling not to vomit, so Eurydice speaks first.

“Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

He shakes his head, “No. Gods, this is so much worse than I imagined. Marcus tried to tell me, but…”

“We don’t have to stay here.”

Peeling his eyes away from the girl and focusing instead on Eurydice, he replies, “Okay. Yes. Let’s go. You can clean up at my place. It’s closer than Marcus’, and he sent you some clothes.”

At first, he extends his hand toward hers, but it quickly drops away when he takes in the red stains. He grabs the bag of clothes instead and turns to the door. It’s a short walk to Orpheus’ house, and he hurries to close the door behind them. Once alone in the bathroom, she sags against the counter and closes her eyes, avoiding her reflection in the large mirror and focusing on peeling the blood-crusted clothes from her skin.

Sinking into the warm water is a therapeutic experience. There is something particularly satisfying about the moment blood explodes outward like a pink starburst in the water. She allows herself to savor it, taking longer than necessary to clean up, and if Orpheus is sitting one wall away wondering what she’s doing, that’s quite alright with her.

When she finally emerges feeling like a new person, she empties the bag from Marcus to take stock. All the usual things are there: loose drawstring pants, plain undergarments, and a button-up shirt. The shirt would comfortably fit a giant, so she opts to tie the corners together at her waist rather than fasten the buttons. It makes sense that Marcus errs on the side of large clothing, but Eurydice prefers tighter clothing over baggy ones that are easily grabbed or snagged. She wonders where she could get some clothes of her own. She carefully tucks the threatening note into her pocket and exits the bathroom. Orpheus is sitting at the desk in his bedroom, staring intently at a sheet of paper and tapping his pencil against his hand to the beat of a song only he can hear. His eyes light up when he sees her, until the tips of his ears turn pink at her unexpected interpretation of the shirt.

“Are you hungry?” he asks, making a conscious effort to look nowhere but her face.

“Always,” she answers automatically, “What are you working on?”

He sheepishly looks away from what Eurydice can now see is a very blank page and starts toward the kitchen. He pulls a random assortment of food out of the pantry, and Eurydice munches on some salted crackers and an orange as he explains.

“I’m trying to figure out a way to make the climate here self-sustaining. Ideally, Elysium would stay how it is now for at least a few generations after I die. I’ve read a lot about meteorology and ecology from old textbooks. Nature is all about cycles and patterns; if I can combine the right conditions, I think I could make a feedback loop that continuously reinforces itself. But there are so many parts that have to work together, and so many stochastic events from the war, it feels impossible.”

Eurydice considers him. He truly serves his people with every waking moment— to the detriment of his own well-being, if the state of his house this morning is any indication. It is admirable and incomprehensible to her.

“Are you so sure that the old books will help? As I understand it, it was the people writing those books who fucked up the planet and started the war in the first place.”

“Yes, but their fuck-ups were very well-documented. It seems to me they knew exactly what they were doing wrong, but they didn’t care enough to stop.”

“And who else is working on this?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, who helps you? Who else is reading textbooks and thinking about ‘stochastic events’? They can’t be okay with being entirely dependent on one person.”

She knows already that there is no one else; his perplexity is answer enough. She wonders how long a place like this could last with only one person’s anomalous magic sustaining it. Even if Orpheus lives for another fifty years, which is rare these days, there are plenty of children in the city who will grow up sheltered only to be thrust back into the real world.

They are interrupted by a knock at the door. Rafael lets himself in and pokes his head around the corner, Marcus not far behind him.

“Family meeting!” Rafe calls out, unbothered by the fact that they are not family, nor that he is in someone else’s house.

Eurydice and Orpheus make their way to the living room, and Marcus glances at her shirt, stifling a smirk at Orpheus. Rafe has the sword they retrieved earlier slung over his shoulder.

“So here’s what we know,” he starts, swinging the sword around sporadically for emphasis “A big-ass storm rolls in way too soon after the last. Orpheus stops it like normal, and Marcus and Eurydice go out looking for the potential cause. They find a dead girl and a sword. Based on the state of the body, I think she was killed at most half an hour after the storm ended, which means whoever killed her was in the woods at the same time as you two, probably not far away.

“Now, I think they made a mistake in leaving the sword behind. I cleaned all the blood off, and there’s an inscription at the bottom of the blade, near the hilt. It’s not a language I know, but it looked a bit like the Tamil on the back of Kaveri’s jacket she always wears. I copied it onto a piece of paper and went over to the dairy shop to show her. She said it’s a different language, but there are only a few towns nearby that use it and also have the capability to forge their own swords.”

The others stare in amazement as he catches his breath.

Orpheus is the first to recover. “Wow. That’s really good work, Rafe,” he says, “I don’t see why we need to know exactly who did this, though. What would we do about it?”

Rafe shoots Eurydice a desperate look, and she jumps in, “If someone is attacking people trying to get here, they clearly have something against Elysium. It’s always worth knowing who your enemies are.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Orpheus concedes, “Knowledge is power.”

Marcus interjects, “Eurydice and I can go to the library tomorrow morning and look at some maps. We’ll get with Kaveri to narrow down some options, too. For now, let’s get some rest”

Orpheus nods in agreement before bidding everyone goodnight and stealing Eurydice’s hand for a kiss. She smiles fondly at him before following Marcus outside.

When they arrive at his apartment, Eurydice’s stomach churns, all too aware of the message that feels like it’s burning a hole through her pocket. She needs to tell Marcus; Rafe probably won’t keep his mouth shut much longer. She senses that Marcus needs to know more than anyone else, including Orpheus. He strolls to the kitchen with a heavy sigh, retrieving two glasses from the cabinet as she takes a seat at the counter.

“You want a drink?” he asks, already preparing one for her.

“Absolutely. We’re both going to need it.”

His brows furrow, but he waits until he’s served the drinks before leaning against the wall. “What is it?”

Eurydice takes a hefty swig, fishes the paper from her pocket, and slides it to him. She scans his face as he digests the message.

“He doesn’t know?”

An undercurrent of fury simmers in his voice. She shakes her head slowly.

“Good. The last thing we need after today is him getting himself killed. How did you find it?”

“Rafe did. It was stuffed in Collette’s mouth.”

He paces as he calculates what to do next, his dark eyes focused on something far away while he seemingly plays through several conversations in his head. His usual warmth is replaced by visible anxiety, and she finishes her drink before he speaks again.

“Thank you. You did the right thing bringing this to me. I’m not sure why you didn’t tell Orpheus, but I’m grateful.”

His reaction affirms belief that the person in charge here is Marcus. Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes, but she gives a salute and replies, “Happy to be of service.”

Chapter Text

The next morning, Eurydice wakes up before Marcus, and she relishes the reprieve from the chaos of the past few days. She takes her time unpacking her bag, though it doesn’t actually take much time. As she sips a cup of tea, she’s drawn to a bookshelf tucked in the corner of the living room that she hadn’t had time to examine until now. Most of the titles are easily recognized, but some are unfamiliar— old enough to be heirlooms even before the war. Marcus has made no effort to preserve them, so she starts to reorganize, pulling out them out and replacing them on the bottom shelf, away from the sun’s rays. Most of them are written in a language she doesn’t recognize, and she wonders how they ended up here.

Though she had ample time to read when she was alone on the road, it was always hard to come by new material that hadn’t already been pilfered. Plenty of things from before the war are easily found if you knew where to look— factories made enough clothes, cars, furniture to last at least three apocalypses. Dry, intact books are another story.

The creaking of footsteps on the stairs breaks her focus. Shadows trace Marcus’ eyes. He drifts down the stairs and to the kitchen, making coffee and guzzling it down with the hollowness of a ghost and the fervor of a madman. He pushes a few dark curls out of his face and slaps his cheeks a little, which seems to revive him.

He wastes no time with pleasantries. “I know I volunteered you to help me last night, but you really don’t have to. No one meant for you to become entangled in all this, and no one would blame you if want to tap out.”

“I want to help,” she states confidently, “It feels good to be useful. And it’s a great way to procrastinate things like thinking about my future and talking to Sam.”

He snorts. “You still have to do those things. Let’s go.”

She spends the morning in the library, engrossed in maps and books of all sorts. Despite the dour subject matter, she enjoys herself immensely. The library is three stories tall, beautifully painted, and filled to the brim with the smell of books. Occasionally, the jovial old man who minds the library, Gaius, traipses by her table humming, his good mood infectious. Marcus had started the morning working alongside her but left to attend to the matter of increased security.

“How does that even work here?” She had asked, “I haven’t seen guards walking around.”

His face screwed up in an almost pained expression before he responded, “They’re not guards, strictly speaking. Just some friends who are good with this sort of thing, and they’re discreet.” The last part was said with a pointed look.

“You’re awfully well versed in hiding things from Orpheus, I see.”

His jaw tensed, and his voice lowered. “Everything I do, I do for him.”

And with that, he strode out of the library without looking back, and Eurydice is still wondering what other secrets he may hold as she pours over her reading material.

The map she examines now is hand drawn and dated what she estimates is about thirty years prior; it’s been a long time since she’s kept track of the years. It depicts the ten major towns surrounding Elysium in a one-hundred-mile radius, but it fails to identify the smaller villages and traveling groups of the area. Another issue is that much can change in thirty years— Eurydice can surely attest to that. In her lifetime, she’s seen countless settlements destroyed or dissolved due to the god’s attacks or each other’s. She regrets having been the cause of a few such situations. She can rule out some of the cities on the outskirts of the map, at least. While she was traveling to Elysium, most people didn’t know anything about it, and the ones that did were skeptical it exists at all. If even the neighboring towns aren’t all convinced, there’s no way distant villages could know about Orpheus’ gift.

It’s also doubtful that whoever was in the woods had ridden in on horseback. If they’re right about the intruders being close by when they found the girl’s body, then horses would have been difficult to hide, and there would have likely been unmistakable hoof prints in the muddy earth. She’s examining water bodies that might influence travel on foot when Marcus returns, a cup of tea in hand and Kaveri in tow.

The two find Eurydice with the cap of a pen between her teeth, buried in a mess of documents. Marcus smirks, but Kaveri’s smile is as full and warm as Dottie’s famous rabbit stew. Eurydice has tried to replicate it many times, but it’s never the same.

“You look just like my niece did when she was young. So eager to learn and unable to part herself from her books.” Her gaze is wistful as she loses herself in the memory until she abruptly points her finger at the town just north of Bicata.

“This place was abandoned right before I left. Everything was buried in a mudslide, and I heard only a few small cabins survived on the outskirts of town. Many of the survivors migrated to Bicata”

Eurydice’s attention returns to the map and the matter at hand. That eliminates two out of ten possible locations, but Kaveri’s not finished.

“Here,” she continues, pointing to Namarton, “there’s a smaller group that speaks Kashmiri. They’re not friendly to anyone but their own— not very friendly to their own, either, I hear.”

“They could be anywhere by now, though,” Marcus interjects, “and the note could have come from someone living anywhere who just speaks the language.”

Eurydice eyes the man warily, wondering what cover story he told Kaveri to avoid raising suspicion. She leans back in her chair and nurses the cup of tea while Marcus and Kaveri continue their debate; she’s earned a break after hours of study. She wonders absently about who else Kaveri left behind in Bicata. She would have already been an elder when she decided to seek out Elysium, and Eurydice knows that people don’t leave their families lightly. Striking out on your own is a last resort, and most would rather stay in awful situations than risk walking straight into the proverbial and literal storm alone. Whatever led Kaveri to journey here alone, it wasn’t good.

She’s yanked back into the present by the obtrusive grumbling of her stomach. Marcus and Kaveri’s eyes land on her, and Marcus gives her a bemused look.

“Just go eat. It’s not like you’re paying attention, anyway. Orpheus usually gets lunch at the bakery— I’m sure he’d be glad for the company.”

She glares back at him in mock annoyance. “I don’t need you to play wing man, Marcus.”

“You don’t, but he does,” he retorts, his grin widening, “Have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“I don’t even fucking know you,” she grumbles, but she peels herself out of the chair and leaves them to it.

She only takes one wrong turn on the way to the bakery, and she considers it a victory. The sky is clear, and the air is warm again, with no evidence of the previous day’s thunderstorms. There’s no sign of damage to the buildings or gardens, either, which would require a miracle in any other place. But she supposes Elysium has its miracle. The inviting scent of warm bread leads her in the right direction, but the sight of a woman inside stops her in her tracks.

Samantha works in the bakery.

She darts away from the door, then leans back in to peer through the glass. Sam is entrenched in her work, and Eurydice can’t help but watch as she cuts and rolls pastry dough, dodging others moving around the kitchen like a well-oiled machine. She looks happy.

Eurydice peels her eyes away and finds Orpheus tucked into a corner table, sitting alone. She decides the bakery is busy and large enough that Sam may not even notice she’s there. Pushing through the door as discreetly as possible, she makes a beeline to Orpheus’ table and slides into the seat opposite him with as much nonchalance as she can muster.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Not at all,” he says quickly, looking up from his plate with a startled expression, “I thought you’d be tied up with Marcus today.” Red blooms on his neck as he reconsiders his words. “I don’t mean that Marcus would tie you up. Of course, I mean— I thought—”

“I’d rather be tied up with you,” she cuts him off with a smirk, “Now, how about you go get me some lunch?”

His head bobs up and down furiously, and he nearly falls out of the chair. “What would you like?”

“Whatever you recommend,” she replies, keeping her body angled away from the kitchen.

He returns with a day’s worth of food. His face is still tinged pink, and he’s slightly out of breath. “I didn’t know what to get, and I panicked, so I pretty much grabbed one of everything.”

Her insides warm at that; it feels so good to be taken care of. A sudden surge of anger shoots through her at the thought of someone threatening to hurt him, and it’s quickly followed by the guilt of hiding this fact from him. She can’t bring herself to tease him again.

“It’s perfect. Thank you.”

While she eats, she tells him of what she’d learned that morning, though she is regularly distracted by each new food. The croissant is crisp and buttery, flakes sticking to her lips while each bite practically melts into her mouth. The jam is the perfect balance of sweet and tart. Her favorite is a goat cheese and honey pastry with dried thyme sprinkled on top.

“Who’s the culinary genius behind all this? And can I kiss them?” she only half-jokes.

“Jesse is. They’ve been obsessed with perfecting every baking technique since they were a kid. That bakery has been Jesse’s whole life for the past fifteen years, aside from their husband, who I think would take issue with your proposition.”

She just smiles in response, and they enjoy the atmosphere and their full bellies in silence. When he suggests they go on a walk, she agrees. He takes her hand in his, and, still careful to keep her face turned away from Sam, she allows herself to be led into the sunny afternoon outside.

“Tell me one thing about yourself,” he says as they stroll through the city, “You’ve been awfully tight-lipped.”

She snorts and considers his request, trying to come up with something personal enough to satisfy him but not so depressing as to scare him off. She lands on the perfect thing and gives a smug smile.

“I can shoot a bow with my feet.”

“You’re joking,” he accuses, but continues when she shakes her head, “How did you even figure that out?”

“When you’re alone in the mountains for months on end, you find yourself with a lot of free time.”

The sun is creeping past its peak by the time Orpheus realizes he’s late to meet with someone and apologizes profusely for keeping her so long. He hesitates before turning away completely, then places a hand on her upper arm and brushes a kiss against her cheek.

“You should come by my place tonight. I’d like to spend more time with you- maybe even learn one more thing about you.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Two things in one day? You’re pushing your luck.”

They share a smile, and when they part ways, Eurydice finds her fingers ghosting over the place where his lips had made contact. Everywhere he touched seems to burn like the embers of a fire that is never fully extinguished. She makes her way back to the library, her chest feeling lighter than it has in years.

Pushing through the heavy doors, she finds the library empty, save for Gaius. When he looks up from behind a precariously balanced stack of books, she expects the same welcome he had extended earlier that morning. Instead, he purses his lips disapprovingly.

“The library is closed. Come back in the morning or not at all.”

She doesn’t want to believe her ears, but there could be no misunderstanding his words. Stunned by his total shift in demeanor, she can do nothing but comply. Her mouth is still slightly ajar as she pivots in place and walks back to Marcus’ apartment, her feet leading her automatically while her mind whirls at a hundred thoughts per minute.

What was that about? Maybe he’s just getting old, and his mind is slipping. She’s heard before that some people can become irrational and bad-tempered as they age, though she’s never witnessed it personally. Once inside Marcus’ apartment, she calls out but receives no response. She settles into a sunny spot on the sofa and continues to ponder the old man’s words. Wishing that Marcus were here to give his opinion and drowsy from the sun, she drifts off to sleep.

She startles awake to find the sun dipping behind the westward mountains and Marcus still not home, so she heads to Orpheus’ house. Thinking of him sends a warmth to her chest that she hasn’t felt in years. Sam’s brother, Everest, is the last person she’s cared for in that way, and since his death, everyone else has paled in comparison. Orpheus, though, is something different, like a work of art that you can’t pull yourself away from. She finds that anywhere he is is somewhere she wants to be. It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s gentle and kind and gorgeous.

That train of thought has the warmth in her chest traveling downward, and now that she thinks about it, she hasn’t been with anyone physically since Everest either. Orpheus has been slow to act despite the chemistry they both obviously feel. Images of him half-dressed surface in her mind, and she wonders how his bare chest would feel against hers.

Her train of thought fizzles when she knocks on Orpheus’ door and receives no answer. The door is unlocked, so she pushes it open and calls out his name to no avail. She lets herself inside, manners be damned, and goes room to room, searching for any sign of him but unsure of what exactly she’s looking for. There are papers and pens out on the table, a half-eaten bread roll in the kitchen, and his bed is unmade— nothing unusual. If anything, this is probably what he considers to be cleaned up. He’ll probably be back any minute, wondering why on earth she’s snooping around his house, but she can’t stop the butterflies that were previously in her stomach from turning into venomous snakes.

After ten minutes of aimless searching and nervous pacing, she decides to try and find the man he had gone to meet after lunch, Horace. She asks the first person she sees where to find Horace and is directed northward to a triangle-shaped house at the edge of the city.

“We haven’t met yet, but my name is Eurydice,” she introduces herself when the scraggly-looking Horace greets her. She itches to question him immediately, but knows better than to cause unnecessary panic.

“Yes, yes, I’ve heard,” he drawls, “I suppose you know that I’m Horace, the town kook. Come in and have some tea.”

She had not known about his self-proclaimed kook status, but she could have guessed by the expression of the woman who directed her here. She doesn’t want to stay any longer than necessary, but Horace is already inside pouring two cups of tea.

“Please, have a seat,” he says when she follows him inside.

Nearly every surface in the home is covered by stacks and stacks of books, but she finds a spot on the sofa and accepts the steaming cup when he arrives in the living room across from her.

“I apologize for the mess. I don’t get too many visitors these days.” He doesn’t seem bothered by this fact, but it sounds lonely.

“It’s alright,” she assures him, “That’s kind of why I’m here, actually. Orpheus mentioned that he was supposed to meet you today?”

“Yes, we were going to test the effects of his ability on electricity. I’ve been trying for decades to power the town again, but I suppose the gods have qualms. Every time I got close, a freak hail storm or a well-placed lightning strike would wreck all my progress. The whole town thinks I’m off my rocker for trying again and again, but I never could let go of it. I’m hoping now that Orpheus has a handle on the weather ‘round here, he might be able to help. After all, if he can control the climate and command a seed to sprout, why shouldn’t he be able to make an electron jump? At its core, it’s all made of the same stuff.”

Eurydice finds herself drawn into Horace’s words, with his animated gestures and southern lilt. She almost forgets why she came here in the first place.

“So you were going to see if Orpheus could create electricity, but he didn’t show up?”

“That’s right, but I don’t mind,” she said with a smile that almost hid his sadness, “He’s a busy man. I’ve been waiting nearly forty years to make progress— I can wait a little longer.”

She hates to leave on such a note, but now that she knows Orpheus never arrived to meet him, her worry is quickly blossoming into a panic. Eurydice excuses herself and waits until the triangle house is out of sight before turning her brisk walk into a jog. The words on the note burn themselves into her mind, and her anxiety grows with every strike of her feet on pavement.

She approaches Marcus’ apartment just as six unfamiliar faces- four men and two women- are ushered out the door. They don’t pay her any attention as they silently separate and hurry in different directions, each following their purposes elsewhere. Eurydice bursts through the door to find Marcus crouching over the kitchen counter retching into the sink.

His head jerks up, and their eyes lock.

The scene only solidifies her suspicions, and she says aloud what they both know.

“He’s gone.”

Chapter Text

“What do you know?” Marcus demands.

“We ate lunch together, and he left a little after noon to meet Horace. But he never got to Horace’s, and he’s not at home. That’s all I know.”

“Fuck!” His voice is hoarse and his eyes are rimmed with red. He presses his hands to his head to stop them from shaking.

“Those were your lookouts, right? What did they see?’

“Randy saw him with you, then lost track of him between the greenhouses.” He swallows. “No one else has seen him since. Gods, why was I so stupid? I should have told him, should have made him stay home. Now who knows where the hell he is? He could be hurt— he could be dead— and it’s my fault!”

She grabs a glass of water and splashes it into his face. “Get it together! Orpheus is not dead. Whoever took him wants his power, so they need him alive. Your people are out looking for any trace of him, right? Tracks, hoof prints, signs of a struggle?” He nods, eyes wide. “Good. In the meantime, you’re going to tell me everything I missed in the library. Once we decide which direction they went, I’ll go after him. Rafael should come too, in case he’s injured.”

“You’ll go? You think I’m letting you go without me?”

“You need to stay here, Marcus,” she says sternly, “You keep this city running. Don’t act like you’re not the one calling shots.”

His mouth opens and closes before any words come out. He runs his fingers through his hair and pulls at it helplessly. He takes a deep breath. Then another. And nods.

“I’ll stay,” he acquiesces, “But you can’t go alone. I’ve seen Rafe try to fight, and he’ll be no help to you.”

She knew this was coming and knows there’s only one choice— the only other person in this town with the experience and ruthlessness that Eurydice will need. “Sam.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“No, but she’s the best chance we’ve got. If I can get her on board, there’s no stopping us.”

This, she knows with absolute certainty. Their five-person gang of teenagers conquered every opponent they faced, and they always came out richer on the other side. They took what they wanted and showed no mercy.

Marcus looks skeptical. “How exactly are you and Sam going to go against who knows how many men with who knows how many weapons?”

Confused, she furrows her brow. “She already told you. We were in a gang,” she shrugs and adds, “A rescue mission is just robbery with better morals.”

“I thought the ‘gang’ was just your group of friends or something.”

Her jaw drops and, despite the situation, she breaks into a grin. “Oh, Marcus. That’s so cute.”

Marcus rolls his eyes, exasperated, and says, “So we have two actual, full-on criminals in Elysium.”

“Can we really be criminals if there are no laws?”

“Just go get her and meet back here. I’ll ask Rafe to come too.”

Eurydice approaches the bakery with trepidation, where she knows Sam will be preparing the ingredients for tomorrow morning’s bakes. When Sam sees her coming, she rolls her eyes and scoops a ball of dough out of a bowl and onto the floured counter.

Eurydice takes a shaky breath, and asks, “Truce?”

It had been something of a sacred word between them, back when there was a them. There was no end to the squabbles and arguments between their five members, but asking for a truce reminded them that they were all on the same side, that they were there for each other, always. In all their time together, a truce was never denied.

But Samantha scoffs and retorts, “A truce? You have the gall—”

“Orpheus has been kidnapped,” Eurydice cuts her off, trying to impart the severity of the situation.

Her jaw is made of stone as she kneads the dough with more vigor than Eurydice has ever witnessed. She does not doubt that with every twist, Sam imagines that it’s her neck she’s wringing.

Finally, she speaks, “Okay, that’s really fucking bad.”

Eurydice’s whole body sags in relief that Sam seems to be willing to hear her out. As she explains, Sam’s hands never stop working the dough.

“I want your help getting him back. I don’t know if I can do it without you.”

“Why are you the one who has to help him?” she questions coldly.

Eurydice chews on her lip before replying, “Because it’s my fault. I knew these people were after him, and I didn’t stop it.”

At that, she laughs mirthlessly, “Well, what a surprise that is. Eurydice’s fucked everything up again.”

She swallows down the guilt and asks, “Will you help me or not?”

With a final smack of the dough on the counter, Sam acquiesces. “Fine. But it’s for him, not for you. He doesn’t deserve this shit, and we’re all basically dead without him, anyway.”

Eurydice recounts the details of the situation while they walk to Sam’s apartment to pack a bag. When she hears that Marcus is asking Rafe to join as well, her posture perks up.

“It’s good that he’s coming. He’s useful to have around in a pinch,” she defends when Eurydice glances her way.

“Careful, Sammy. You might accidentally compliment someone.”

“Shut up.”

But Eurydice has never been good at shutting up. She wants to get this over with before they’re stuck together for who knows how long, and with an audience. There are a few minutes of silence before she works up the courage to begin.

“Sam, I need to apologize,” she rushes before she can back down.

The younger woman halts her search of the pantry and gives her a blank look as if she’s trying to retreat from her own mind.

Eurydice trudges on, her voice cracking. “For Everest. I am so sorry, more than I can say. I loved him, you know I loved him, but there was nothing I could do to save him.”

Once the words dislodge from her hoarse throat, they tumble out of her like an avalanche. Sam has to know why she did it— that she’s not a monster. There are no tears left in her to cry over him, but the pain is still raw.

“A squirrel bit him and gave him rabies. He tried to hide it, even though I told him it was a bad idea, until it had almost completely taken over his body. He begged me not to tell you and the others, but I should have anyway. I knew I should have. Then he asked me to make it stop. So I did.”

By the end of her confession, her voice is small, ashamed, and her eyes are locked onto the floor in fear of finding hatred in Sam’s face.

Sam looses the breath she had held for the length of Eurydice’s rambling, and says with a voice cold as ice, “I know.”

Eurydice blinks once. Twice. “You know?”

“Yeah, dumbass. I know. Did you think I wouldn’t check his body? Give me some credit. No one ever thought you just killed him for no reason. But you ran. You didn’t bother to explain or give me the chance to forgive you. I don’t blame you for his death, by the way, not that you ever asked. I blame you for fucking leaving. Rabies killed my brother, but you left me for dead. Gods know Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were no help. He was my brother, and you were my sister, and I lost both of you at the same time.”

Eurydice’s world is spinning on its axis, thoughts swirling around in her head so quickly she can’t keep track of them. I’ve been blaming myself for the wrong thing for years? She realizes just how much of a coward she is. Staying with Sam and the twins, trying to explain the situation, hadn’t even crossed her mind as an option at the time. She thought she had learned her lesson after Dottie and Isaac, but apparently not. I’m no better than my parents.

Stunned, Eurydice doesn’t move, doesn’t breathe, as if Samantha has physically pushed the air out of her chest. That might be preferable. Sam, ever pragmatic, cinches her bag closed and swings it over her shoulders.

“Let’s go.”

By the time they regroup with Marcus and Rafe, who agreed to accompany them, she has successfully shoved down all feelings related to her conversation with Sam to be dealt with later. This isn’t the time for her to unpack her issues. It’s time for them to do what they do best: scheme.

Marcus arranges the maps from this morning on the floor. His scouts have identified hoof prints leading westward along with a line of blooming dandelions in the same direction.

“That’s good, right?” Eurydice asks hopefully, “He’s leaving us a trail, so he must be conscious.”

Chewing on his thumbnail, Marcus replies wearily, “Not necessarily. He hums in his sleep sometimes.”

They return to the maps. One town is circled a few times in red ink, indicating that it was Kaveri’s top pick for the most likely origin of the sword— partially Kashmiri-speaking, developed enough to forge their own weapons, and combative with the neighboring villages. It lies directly west of Elysium.

“It looks like Kaveri was right, and we’re headed to Namarton.”

Sam points to a spot southeast of the town. “I’ve been here before. There’s a hunting cabin where we stashed some weapons and supplies. We should stop there first.”

“I don’t know,” Marcus says nervously, “It’s out of the way. Won’t that add too much time?”

“Not much,” Eurydice replies, shaking her head thoughtfully, “We’ll have to navigate around the mountains anyway, and if we’re going into Namarton blind, we need every advantage we can get. Even if all the weapons are gone, it’s better to have a roof over our heads.”

“And it’s a place to rendezvous if we get separated,” says Sam.

“Or recover if someone gets hurt,” Rafe adds.

Within the hour, the four have devised their plan, and Eurydice excuses herself to pack a bag. Grabbing the tattered backpack she had arrived with, she finds almost everything she needs still packed and ready to go. She’s ashamed to find a small part of herself itching to climb out the window and fend for herself once again, despite everything, but she feels oddly responsible for Orpheus.

When she returns to the kitchen, Marcus is preparing a bag with food and bottles of water. They walk somberly to the stables and saddle four horses. None of them are particularly experienced riders, but they need speed on their side if they have any chance of pursuing Orpheus’ captors. While they suspect the kidnappers are from Namarton, there’s no guarantee they’re correct, and they’ll follow the trail of dandelions for as long as they can. She fastens her bags to the saddle of her horse, and Marcus pulls her aside.

“I need him back in one piece, Eurydice. Promise me.”

The weight in his tone sits on her chest like an anvil. It’s a dangerous thing to make a promise like that, but she finds herself nodding anyway. His eyes harbor a desperation she’s only ever seen looking back at her from a mirror. The fate of Elysium hangs in the balance, but if they fail, it might just kill Marcus. She’s heard you can die from a broken heart. Taking his hand in hers, she squeezes tightly.

“I promise.”

Rafael has already helped Sam onto her horse, and Marcus assists him and Eurydice. And then they’re riding away. The vibrant, yellow blossoms stand out like beacons in the night, surrounded by the dead and decaying leaves of early winter. Each one reminds her of his golden hair, and her stomach churns.

One outside of Elysium’s perimeter, the temperature drops to its natural state outside of the city, and the biting wind chafes at Eurydice’s cheeks. They ride long into the night before finally stopping to let the horses rest and set up camp. Sam and Eurydice make quick work of pitching the tent, and when they’re finished, Rafe tosses three bedrolls and a pile of blankets inside. All three of them fall asleep the moment their eyes close.

Chapter Text

Eurydice jerks awake, aware that Sam has rolled over in her sleep to be much closer to her. Not touching, but close. Eurydice remembers how they would squeeze into the same small bed in the wintertime as if they had been sisters their whole lives. Her thoughts are distracted by an enticing aroma slithering its way into the tent.

“Up and at ‘em, folks!” Rafe calls from outside the tent.

Sam jumps away from Eurydice like she’s been electrocuted and scrambles out of the tent. Eurydice follows to discover that Rafe has built a small fire and is brewing a fresh pot of coffee. There must be coffee beans growing in one of the greenhouses, aided by Orpheus’ magic; it’s a rare delicacy, and not much makes it this far north.

Rafe finds three tin cups and serves the drink, announcing, “I’ve decided that we’re done wallowing. I know this is a rescue mission with dire implications, but for the next two days, there’s nothing to be done about it. So you two are going to act like you like each other, and we’re all going to live in harmony until everything goes to shit. Got it?”

Eurydice can’t help but laugh at his demands. He looks so ridiculous trying to be authoritative, with his too-long limbs crouching over a coffee pot and his eyes alight with too much energy.

“I’m going to need at least two more punches on Eurydice before I’m ready to play nice,” Sam states plainly.

Eurydice faces her and opens her arms wide. “Come on, take the shots. I deserve them.”

The younger girl glares at her and grumbles, “Well, it’s no fun if you want me to.”

“You two are absolutely feral.”

They down their coffee and breakfasts quickly and set out again. This time, they chatter amongst themselves as they ride, and the time passes much faster. Well, mostly Rafe fills the silence with silly games and questions that Eurydice is happy to indulge, and Sam begrudgingly participates in. The dandelions are still visible, though beginning to wilt, and still leading them to Namarton.

The weather treats them suspiciously well. Eurydice wonders absently if the nature spirits are as infatuated with Orpheus as everyone else seems to be and want him to return home safely. She has the sense that the forest is propelling them forward. It certainly would be nice to have the supernatural working with her instead of against her for once. In the meantime, she enjoys the chirping birds and the rustling leaves, mentally tracing new constellations out of the patchy sunshine breaching the trees’ canopy. They take a short break to water the horses and grab some snacks.

“So, how do you plan to get Orpheus back?” Rafe asks, trying very hard to be casual.

Eurydice and Sam share a glance, and Eurydice says, “We won’t know for sure until we get there and see what’s up— where they’re keeping him, if he’s guarded, stuff like that. But we’ll probably have to fight our way out.”

“I’m scared for you two charging in, guns blazing. I don’t know about you, Eurydice, but Sam is so clumsy, she might just fall right into their hands.”

Eurydice stares at him like he’s grown three extra heads and a tail, then cranes her neck to see Sam reddening. There is no planet in the universe in which Sam could be considered clumsy. Eurydice has often wondered if the girl isn’t descended from water nymphs with how easily she can slip through the grasp of anyone trying to catch her.

“Yep, that’s Sam,” she lied, “Don’t worry, Rafe. I’ll keep her out of trouble.”

If looks could kill, Eurydice would be dead five times over from the withering glare Sam shoots her, but Rafe continues, oblivious, “You’d better. I swear she’s in the clinic every week with a new way to hurt herself.”

Eurydice bites her hand to keep from laughing, not trusting herself to say anything else. Sam must be down bad for Rafael to be making excuses like that to visit him, and Rafe must be blind or gay enough not to see it. She wonders if he’ll realize Sam is full of shit before he witnesses her in action.

The remainder of the day passes amicably, and Sam gradually warms up to speaking to Eurydice directly. When the shadows grow long and distorted, they decide to travel another hour in the direction of the cabin before making camp. At first light, they’ll continue to the cabin.

They are closer to other towns tonight, so they take turns keeping watch, and Rafe wakes them up again with coffee. Sam leads them the the area where she remembers the cabin to be, but it takes some canvassing to spot it. It’s so overgrown with vines and shrubbery that they almost miss it. It obviously hasn’t been touch in years.

Rafael is the first to enter, using his shoulder to push through the rusty hinges of the door. The cabin consists of one room with two bunk beds pushed against opposite walls, and a small kitchenette on the back wall. Every crevice and corner is covered with dust and cobwebs, but the relief is evident in everyone’s posture. Sam strides to the back of the cabin and opens a closet door. Rafe and Eurydice looking over her shoulder, Sam reveals a five-foot-tall gun safe tucked neatly into the closet. She turns the dial, landing on numbers that Eurydice recognizes: Everest’s birthday.

The safe door pops open, and Eurydice and Rafe say in unison, “Holy shit.”

Inside are swords, daggers, throwing knives, bows, and quivers full of arrows, but most shockingly, there are guns and stacks of ammunition. It is Eurydice’s understanding that people completely lost their minds when the gods’ anger started raining down on them, literally and figuratively. Blaming each other quickly devolved into killing each other. In the two hundred years since, ammunition has grown scarce.

“We broke into this industrial bakery one time, thinking we might find some food worth taking. Imagine our surprise when we cracked open a walk-in freezer and found all this. We added the swords and shit ourselves for good measure. We hid it all away if we ever needed it for an emergency. I haven’t thought about this place in forever.”

She bends down and slides a small metal box out from under the bottom shelf, handing it to Eurydice. When Eurydice opens the clasps, her jaw drops. In the box are three hand grenades.

“Do these still work?” she asks, incredulous.

Sam grins. “They sure do. There used to be four.”

“I’d say we’re well-equipped, then,” Eurydice says, tossing the others a grenade each and tucking one into her own coat pocket, “For emergencies only.”

Rafe handles the weapon as if she’s just handed him a live rattlesnake but doesn’t protest. Instead, he sets himself upon the kitchen, clearing away dust and debris from the counter. “If any of you injure yourselves, I won’t have you getting infected. You can die of whatever the hell you want, but it won’t be sepsis on my watch.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Sam mutters.

The three of them discuss their next move while they eat. Namarton should only be about an hour’s ride from the cabin, and they still have the whole day to make a plan.

“We need to get an idea of how much manpower they have and where they’re keeping Orpheus,” Eurydice starts, “Sam, you should go ahead and scope out the situation. Pick a rendezvous point and I’ll be there before nightfall to regroup before we go in.”

Sam nods in agreement, but Rafe balks. “You want her to go alone? That’s crazy, right? What if something happens to her?”

He looks back and forth between the two women, incredulous and distressed. Sam must have done an excellent job leaving their old life behind if he thinks there’s any chance she gets caught.

“Trust me, Rafe. Eurydice will only slow me down.”

“It’s true. I can sneak well enough, but Sam moves like a ghost. If someone sees her, they don’t see their next breath.”

“That’s so hot,” Rafe blurts out, then slaps his hand over his mouth.

Eurydice’s face lights up in devilish delight at the same time that Sam’s cheeks flush.

“Are you too turned on to be scared? You should make note of that for future reference,” she nudges Sam.

“A man can feel two things, Eurydice!”

She giggles gleefully as Sam pushes between them and mounts her horse in single swoop, her hand forming an obscene gesture at Eurydice as she rides toward Namarton. Rafe tilts his head slightly as she disappears into the trees.

“She didn’t need my help.” When Eurydice furrows her brow, he explains, “Leaving Elysium, she asked me to boost her onto the horse.”

There is a faraway look in his eyes as he gazes in the direction Sam had just traveled, like she’s a puzzle he’s trying to piece together without looking at the box. Eurydice takes pity on him.

“I know I haven’t been around for a while, but if there’s anything I know about Sam, it’s that she doesn’t need anyone’s help. If she’s asking for it, it’s because she wants it.

He hums in acknowledgment but doesn’t say anything else on the subject. Eurydice busies herself with collecting firewood, cleaning out the cabin, and doing some target practice with the shotguns. She’s only used firearms a few times since her parents, who kept a handgun and a single clip for emergencies, and she’s reminded of her mother teaching her the correct stance and how to aim. The memory comforts her, although she wishes it didn’t. It takes several attempts before she gets a handle on the kickback, and a dozen more before she hits the pot she had set upon a tree stump.

Satisfied that she can shoot well enough to hold her own against the kidnappers, she moves inside to find Rafael removing various vials and jars from his bag and sorting them on the kitchen counter. When she asks him what they are, he explains the contents of each container and all the ways they can be used. His knowledge is impressive.

“Where did you learn all of this? I’ve never found textbooks with so much information on traditional medicine.”

“I have a few books that are a decent introduction, but I learned most of this from Apollo, Elysium’s old physician. Both my parents died when I was young, but Apollo took me in, raised me, and trained me as his apprentice until he passed a few years ago. Since then, I’ve been working solo, and attendance has declined drastically. Not many people trust an eighteen-year-old with their health. They all wish Apollo was still here, and I can’t say I blame them— I do too.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” She can sympathize with losing every parental figure you’ve ever had. “But they’re fools to turn their nose up at you. Most villages would kill to have your knowledge and experience at their disposal, regardless of your age.”

It’s true. To turn your back on medical expertise simply because the person providing it is young is a luxury Eurydice can’t even begin to comprehend. A question lurks in the back of her mind.

“What would you do about rabies?” she forces herself to ask, not sure what’ she’s hoping for.

“I don’t know of anything that can be done for rabies. I could relieve the pain. Maybe amputate if I got to it quickly enough, but that’s risky too. The uncomfortable truth is that sometimes it’s better to let people go when it’s their time.”

Her shoulders sag in relief. When he questions why she asks, she replies airily, “No reason,” then adds, “Could you teach me more? When we get back, I mean.”

“Of course.” He looks happy to talk about his work, and Eurydice wonders what it must be like to have a passion like that, to be able to help people instead of finding more and more ways to hurt them.

They putter around the cabin the rest of the afternoon, trying to think of everything they might need to be prepared for the coming night. When the sun hangs low in the sky, she loads her horse with weapons for herself and Sam and straps a makeshift stretcher onto Orpheus’ horse in case he’s not able to walk. She doesn’t want to consider the possibility, but when Rafe suggests it, she can’t deny it’s a smart idea.

Before she leaves, she turns back to Rafael, who fiddles nervously with the straps of her saddle bag. “Everything’s going to be fine. But if we’re not back by sunrise, I want you to ride home as fast as you can. The weather has been too quiet, and I don’t trust that the gods will see you home safely if you linger.”

“Shut up,” he argues, “You’re going to make it back, and if you don’t, I’ll come back with Marcus. Hades will freeze over before he lets Orpheus go without a fight.”

A smirk ghosts over her lips as she nods and bids him goodbye. The ride to Namarton passes in the blink of an eye, and it only takes a few minutes of searching to find Sam’s signal. A small knife protrudes from the trunk of a tree, with two notches scratched into the bark with an inch between each mark and the knife. Eurydice yanks the knife out of the tree and leads the horses on foot for two hundred paces north. On her two-hundredth step, she lets out a single whistle and waits. Thirty seconds later, Sam materializes out of the shadows.

“Orpheus is alive and conscious.” She wastes no time. “He’s being held in an old warehouse on the east side of town, about a mile away from the nearest houses. Leadership wants to keep him hidden so he can protect the town without the people knowing. The new king claims he’s descended from the gods and doesn’t want Orpheus getting any credit for protecting the town.”

“Is he a demigod?” she asks thoughtfully. It’s not unheard of, and it would make their goal of defrauding him that much more dangerous.

“Definitely not. Just some guy with too much confidence and dirt on his competition.”

Sam continues her debrief, laying out every detail from the warehouse’s entrances, to the number of guards, to the type of chains latched to Orpheus’ ankles. It takes only a few minutes to hash out a plan, deciding on one of their usual plays.

The women arm themselves with practiced silence and efficiency, Sam with small weapons that are easy to climb with and aren’t noisy enough to draw attention, and Eurydice with the shotgun and blades of varying sizes. They assist each other, adjusting straps and tossing weapons and ammunition between themselves like no time has passed since their last mark. Once finished, they exchange only a nod. They part ways, and Eurydice strides directly toward the warehouse entrance.

Chapter Text

Eurydice crouches behind a storage shed that lies across from the warehouse’s main entrance, which consists of two sliding garage doors and one regular door to the right. Two guards stand in front of the loading bays, armed with swords of the same style they found buried in Collette. The sight of them fills her with an unexpected— though not unwelcome— rage, but she waits until two more guards emerge from the door for shift rotation to strike.

Still partially hidden by the cover of the shed, she lifts the loaded shotgun in her hands up to her shoulder and presses her cheek into the stock. Two shots ring out, and the guards that had just exited the warehouse drop to the ground. One of the remaining guards charges in her direction while the other runs to the open door and calls for backup. Eurydice whips the pistol off her hip and fires, hitting the guard in the shoulder as she approaches then swinging the butt of the gun toward her head. The woman anticipates her move and knocks the pistol away from them both with her sword while the other hand clutches her wound. Unsheathing her sword, she manages to block the guard’s blow just before it falls down on her neck. It doesn’t take long to disarm her, but in that time, two more guards have joined the one who sought out help, and they waste no time in surrounding her.

“Fuck,” she cries out, desperately jerking her head around to find some way to escape.

“Drop your sword, and raise your hands,” a gruff voice instructs.

The command comes from a stout, bulky man. She hesitantly lays her sword on the grass. Her hands creep up to eye level, palms open. The man’s grip cinches tight around her wrists, and another guard offers him a length of rope to bind them with. Once she’s restrained, he levels his sword at her chest, the point piercing her shirt and digging into her skin, just a few inches separating the blade from her heart. A warm trickle of blood escapes the wound, but though her pulse races with adrenaline, she forces herself not to flinch.

“Explain yourself, and choose your words carefully.”

“You kidnapped my fiance,” she says, her eyes brimming with pained tears.

What else can she say that will hold any weight to these people? Yes, they had only known each other for a few days, but he had technically proposed marriage when they first met, and here she is, risking her life to save him. She tends to save life or death situations until after the third date, but needs must.

“And you thought you’d come and save the day?” the man mocks and Eurydice’s cheeks burn. “We’ll see what the general has to say.”

The sword drops away from her chest, and she stumbles forward a step. The retinue of guards pushes her to the warehouse, and she drags her feet as much as she can to stall coming face-to-face with the general, who is certain to be even less pleasant than his subordinates.

Her assumption is correct. The general towers over her with a hawkish expression like he’s just been served his favorite pie, delighted and ravenous. His eyes rake over her and settle on the wound. He traces the collar of her shirt with his little finger until it rests at the bottom of the v.

“Such a shame,” he tuts, “to tarnish your lovely skin. You should be more careful.”

He pats down her body gracelessly, his voice smooth as silk. Crouching to run his hands down her legs, he finds the knife strapped to her calf, hidden beneath her pant leg. She looks away from him as his cold fingers work their way up her leg to remove the knife, focusing all her energy on trying not to flinch or show any sign of weakness. The gazes of the three remaining guards burn into her. A fourth is visible in the corner of her eye toward the back of the building, where Sam had placed Orpheus. She doesn’t dare turn her head to look.

The general places her weapons on a table behind him, leaving Eurydice exposed and itching to retaliate. “I’d like to know,” he purrs, “how you came by your little arsenal. It’s not every day a woman comes barging into my town shooting at my guards.”

“If I tell you, will you let him go?” Her voice is strong, but her eyes are desperate.

“You are in no position to bargain,” the man sneers, dropping his suave pretenses and shoving her against the wall with his hand to her throat, “You will tell me everything you have and where to find it, or you will die.”

Her windpipe burns from the pressure of his grip, and she gasps for air. The next few seconds pass in a blur of movement. Eurydice slams her knee hard into the general’s groin, ignoring him as he doubles over and swears. She lifts her hands high above her head and separates them as much as she can against the binding. A knife flies through the air and directly between her wrists, cutting clean through the rope and lodging into the wall at her back. Eurydice rips apart her wrists and dislodges the knife before slicing it deep across the general’s throat. The blood that sprays across her face is warm compared to his cold, clammy hands.

She turns to face the shorter man who ordered her inside and buries the knife low in his gut, then swings him into the path of the remaining guards. Eurydice retrieves her own weapons and finally looks to the back of the warehouse where Sam has silently unchained Orpheus pushed him away from the final guard. The guard lunges at Sam, who is poised with a dagger in each hand, but Eurydice shoots her square in the back. The guard crumples to the floor, the crack of her head against the cement floor reverberating between the walls. Eurydice whips around to find the remaining guards raising their hands in surrender. She keeps the gun aimed at them while Sam ushers Orpheus outside.

She looks the guards up and down slowly. “Remember my face. I know I’ll remember yours. If you bother us again, I’ll blow this whole town to bits.”

She doesn’t wait for a response, just turns her back to them before joining Sam and Orpheus in their escape. They move slower than Eurydice would like, with Orpheus unsteady on his feet. She reaches for his arm to help him, but he jerks away from her like she’s a live wire. There’s fear in his eyes, and the pieces click together in her mind. He’s scared of me. It’s only then that she remembers she is painted red with blood for the second time in as many days.

He doesn’t say anything the entire ride back to the cabin. When they arrive, she allows Rafe to examine the wound on her sternum, and Orpheus goes back outside when she removes her shirt. The wound is shallow but a few inches long, so Rafe cleans it thoroughly and stitches it up. Eurydice grits her teeth but doesn’t cry out. When he’s finished, he coats it with a thin layer of ointment, and silently agrees with Sam to make themselves scarce. Orpheus returns, inhaling deeply and closing his eyes for several seconds. He looks like he might scream or cry, and Eurydice doesn’t know which she would prefer.

“You killed people today.”

There is nothing to say to that. Even the powerful winds could not coax the cabin into creaking. She waits again.

“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to say that it’s never happened before, and it’ll never happen again. I want you to say that it wasn’t easy. I want you to say that you regret it and that one life isn’t worth all of theirs.”

The pleading in his eyes shatters her, but those would be lies. They both know it. “I can’t say any of those things.”

He lets out a short breath like he’s been punched in the gut. “Who even are you? Does life mean nothing to you? I just— I can’t make sense of this, and I can’t stop seeing those people die at your hand. I know they were bad people, but Zeus Almighty, they were still people!”

She isn’t angry at him exactly. She can’t be; she didn’t understand either, once. There is no denying that she is the defective one between the two. She’s angry for herself— who has so much red in her ledger that there’s no hope of it ever coming clean— and for Orpheus— who will never look at her the same way again.

“You want to know who I am? I am anathema to you and your perfect city. I am violent and deceitful and hungry. I didn’t do anything tonight that I haven’t done a hundred times before. And you want to know the worst part? It doesn’t even bother me anymore. In fact, It was kind of fun. I’d love to be as moral and generous as you are— really I would. But those aren’t the cards I was dealt, and I didn’t make the right play when I had the chance.

“So yes, life means everything to me. My life. My friends’ lives. I don’t give a single shit about those guards, but if they had killed you, it would haunt me for the rest of my days. Which would be numbered because Elysium would burn me at the stake if Marcus didn’t get to me first. Is there any part of you that can understand that?”

“Gods, I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to. I don’t know if I can. How many people have you killed?”

“I don’t think you should ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” she responds warily.

His eyes squeeze closed, and he leans his forehead against the wooden frame of the bunk bed. “You’re right. I don’t want to know, not now at least.” He takes a few shaky breaths and sits down on the bed. “I guess we should be more careful. Marcus deserves to know he was housing a murderer.”

“Was?” She stills, her posture tightening. “I save your life, and you make me homeless?”

“No,” he scrambles, “I don’t know. I just mean I can’t expect him to keep hosting…”

“Marcus knows.” She doesn’t elaborate, letting her words sink in. She knows they cut deep, but she can’t bring herself to care at the moment.

“Marcus knows,” he repeats, “And he didn’t tell me? Gods, you’re a poison.”

This is apparently one truth too many; he pushes himself awkwardly off the short bed and out the door, letting it shut heavily behind him. Sam appears in the next breath, assessing Eurydice’s defeated expression.

“That was harsh. Are you guys going to be okay? I was listening at the door.”

A small grin escapes Eurydice’s lips at her confession. “I don’t know, Sam. He’s not like us. I’m not sure he can understand.”

“I think he’ll come around. You should have seen him when he heard your voice, before… you know.” She mimes stabbing the guards.

“I’m not even sure why I care what he thinks. We couldn’t be more different.”

Sam’s expression hides something that probably seems obvious to her, but she doesn’t say anything, and Eurydice lacks the energy to question it.

“Thank you,” Sam says instead, “for taking care of that guard.”

She nods her acknowledgment. “No need for both our body counts to go up tonight. Good shot with the ropes. It was just like old times.”

Eurydice drags herself up from the floor and crawls into the nearest bed. It’s not very late, but the wave of exhaustion crashing over her is suddenly insurmountable. She is aware of Sam leaving the cabin, but everything else falls away as her breath deepens.

She wakes up that night, after everyone else has joined her in the cabin and long since fallen asleep, to see that she’s been covered by a blanket. No, not a blanket— Orpheus’ long winter coat. She tucks her arms into the too-long sleeves and rolls over, comforted by the warmth and the smell of him.

They sleep in the next morning, allowing themselves a chance to recover. Orpheus and Rafael do most of the talking over breakfast, with Sam chiming in occasionally without consideration for the food already in her mouth. Eurydice busies herself with packing up their things and readying the horses, trying her hardest not to feel out of place. She listens to their conversation.

“So what happened? What did they do?” Sam asks eagerly.

“I was on my way to meet Horace, and I heard one of them whistling at me and waving me over,” he began in earnest, ever the storyteller, “I didn’t recognize him, of course, but contrary to what I’d like to believe, I don’t personally know everyone in Elysium. So I went over to see what was up, and he pulled a knife on me. He said I’d better follow him or he’d cut me open and let my guts spill out. I’d rather keep my guts inside me where they belong, thank you very much, so I did what he said. We were close to the treeline already, but when we got to the woods, two others were there with swords, arrows— the whole shebang— and horses. They tell me to jump, I ask ‘How high?’, and so on. If they noticed the flowers, they didn’t say anything. I don’t think they knew exactly what I can do or how it works, because when we arrived in Namarton they had a lot of questions. Aside from the chains, it was pretty civil. They threatened to beat me if I didn’t cooperate, but I did. I have nothing to hide.”

Eurydice forced her expression not to reveal her true thoughts, which were along the lines of How the hell does he think he has nothing to hide? and He even try to defend himself or get away?

Sam voices Eurydice’s thoughts out loud. “You didn’t try to stop them?” When he shakes his head looking confused, she continues, “You can control every force of nature, and you didn’t use that against them?” She shrugs and says, “To each their own, I guess.”

Eurydice is glad not to be the only one with such concerns. Orpheus, for his part, purses his lips and looks into the fire, avoiding Sam’s eyes.

“How did you come to be part of the rescue squad, anyway,” He asks, conspicuously changing the subject, “We’ve only spoken a few times since you came to Elysium. Not that I’m not grateful, but I would have expected Marcus and his thugs he thinks I don’t know about.”

Sam glances conspicuously at Eurydice with a single raised eyebrow, and she sighs as everyone’s attention lands on her. It must be a strange group from his perspective: an undefined romantic interest, a girl he barely knows, and a teenage doctor. Rafe is the only one of them that makes any kind of sense.

“Sam is here because I asked her to be,” she answers cautiously.

“Why would you do that? Do you two even know each other?” He’s clearly confused by her unhelpful answer, looking back and forth between them, and then Rafe, who raises his hands in surrender.

“We were like sisters, once. The two of us, her brother Everest, and some others were bandits, thieves, highwaymen— whatever you want to call us— and we were very good. Last night was a walk in the park. And it’s lucky for you; you’re evidently too good for your own good.” It’s a low blow, but when faced with the real world, it wasn’t his morals that saved him. It was Eurydice.

“I, for one, am glad that you’re so good at being criminals,” Rafael pipes up, “Aside from Eurydice’s little scratch, you didn’t get yourselves or Orpheus hurt, so I just got a high-stakes hike with friends.”

“I’m going to fill up with the water bottles.”

She needs to escape this conversation. A creek flows a few hundred feet away from the cabin, so she gathers the bottles and strides toward it. It only takes a few minutes to refill the water, but she lingers by the creek, relishing in the sounds of babbling water, scuttering bugs, and chirping birds. The woods are oddly at ease. It’s been nearly three days with no signs of a stormy reckoning. She wonders if this is how it used to be, before men’s greed and gods’ wrath shattered the earth.

A wide, flat stone sits at the edge of the stream, and Eurydice perches atop it, taking the opportunity to rinse away some of the blood crusted on her arms and under her fingernails. A hiss from somewhere below startles her out of her thoughts. She looks down to see the bright white interior of the snake’s mouth before it snaps closed against her forearm.

Chapter Text

“Goddammit!”

The snake releases her after a few seconds and retreats across the surface of the water. Eurydice, now more irritated than anything, gathers the water bottles— because she’d be damned if she let this snake get in the way of her usefulness— and stomps back to the cabin.

The three others look up, when she approaches, wary that her mood has worsened instead of improved. She lets the bottles tumble from her arms and crunch the dead leaves below. Rafael springs up when he sees her arm.

“What happened?”

“A snake bit me. A cottonmouth.”

“You’re sure? How big?”

“A meter long, maybe a bit more. I’m sure. Brown bands, white mouth.”

“An adult then. Good.”

Orpheus cuts in, “Why is that good? How can a huge snake attacking you be good?”

“It’s good that it was an adult instead of a juvenile,” Rafe explains, “Adults know how to limit the venom they inject since they have a finite amount. There might not be venom at all.” He turns back to Eurydice and orders, “Sit down, don’t move, and breathe slowly. Everyone else: pack up. We’re leaving now.”

She settles down on the ground, counting in her head to manage her breathing. Rafael enters the cabins and returns a few minutes later with his bag of vials and supplies packed up. He sits beside her and washes the punctures with soap and water, then hands her a pouch of dried snakeroot to chew on. Meanwhile, Sam collects their things and loads up the horses, directing Orpheus on how to help. Within fifteen minutes they are riding away from the cabin and back home to Elysium. They travel faster on the return trip and only stop when absolutely necessary. Rafe continues to give her snakeroot and instructs her to rub some of it on the wound after she’s chewed it up.

The sight of a sleepy Elysium in the not-so-far distance is a relief to them all. The four of them, rumpled and exhausted, stumble through the dark streets of Elysium, cutting through gardens and alleyways when they can. Sam raps on Marcus’s door, and it swings open instantly. Marcus looks almost as bad as the rest of them, and from the scraggly red imprints on his left cheek, it’s apparent he’d been sleeping on the doormat.

Marcus stares at them in disbelief— no, not at them. At Orpheus. He grabs Orpheus by the shoulders and pulls him over the threshold before crushing him in a hug. Orpheus freezes at first, before hugging him back tightly.

“We’re still alive too, you know? Gods, get a room,” Sam cuts in after ten full seconds of silence.

They break away from each other, and Marcus starts to thank them, but Rafe cuts him off with a wave.

“Yeah, yeah. You’re both deeply in our debt. Eurydice’s hurt, by the way, so we’re just dropping off the golden boy on our way to the clinic.”

His attention snaps to Eurydice and he scans her, searching for her injury.

“Snakebite,” she supplying her arm in explanation.

“Oh my god! Are you—"

“Don’t worry about it,” she shrugs, “You should see the snake.”

The fact that the snake is alive and well is irrelevant. Marcus barks out a laugh. Then he keeps laughing, hysterical and contagious. Within seconds, both of them are doubled over, gasping and giggling and maybe shedding a few tears, while the others look on in exasperation.

Once they collect themselves, Rafe directs her to the clinic and Sam goes her separate way. They arrive at the clinic, and Rafe hurries to make up a bed for her. Before she can dive into it and sleep for a thousand years, he puts out an arm to stop her.

“You should really take a bath first,” he reasons, “There’s still dirt and blood all over you, and you’ve got half a dozen pathways to infection.”

Eurydice groans but changes course to the bathroom. She’s been awake for over a day at this point— what’s one more hour?

Rafael hand her a towel, clean clothes, and soap. “Do you need help with anything?”

“I’ll manage,” she assures him, accepting the stack of supplies and letting the door swing closed behind her. It’s a relief to be alone, even if Rafe is only a door away. She hasn’t had such constant company since Everest died, and it’s simultaneously energizing and exhausting.

The stitches sting in her chest and her forearm stings as she maneuvers out of her clothes. She doesn’t waste time scrubbing away the grime of the past four days, but she treats the wounds more gently. After patting herself dry, she inspects the clothes Rafe gave her: a simple white linen shirt and shorts. Eurydice looks herself over in the mirror briefly. White doesn’t suit her. It makes her bruises look too purple.

When she emerges, Rafe applies more antibacterial ointment to her wounds and checks on her stitches. She vaguely hears him say he can probably remove them soon, but she is already crawling into bed and crashing into sleep.

Her eyes open into the vast expanse of a cloudless sky, painted pink and orange as the sun sets. Tall grass cradles her body on all sides. She lies there, unmoving, for a long time, but the sky never grows darker. It’s peaceful and somber and perfect; she never wants to leave.

A dark, winged figure soars across her field of vision. Then another, and another. The three birds circle her from far above, and she watches with fascination. Their movements are more graceful than any creature on earth. They grow larger and larger until they are close enough for her to make out the shapes of their feathers, and then the shine of their eyes. The vultures bite into her one at a time, tearing at fabric and flesh and hair, but she feels nothing. Only balance. She watches the sky’s colors shift and morph but never fade. When a beak pecks into her eyes, the darkness that follows feels like home.

She can no longer see the birds, but she can sense them picking her apart until she is fully unraveled. She doesn’t mind. A warmth washes over her consciousness, the heat rising and rising and rising until she’s blissfully on fire.

Waking up into the real world is abrasive and jarring compared to the dream world. A thin curtain surrounds her bed, but it does nothing to block the sunlight beaming in from the wide windows. Somewhere outside, a woodpecker works relentless at the panels of the building. She pushes back the curtain to find Rafael sitting cross-legged on a bench and scribbling in a notebook.

His eyes meet hers at the sound of the swishing curtain.“Good. You’re awake,” he remarks, unfolding himself and moving to lean against the shelf next to her bed, “I did some reading last night, and it looks like you got a dry bite. If there was snake venom in your blood stream, you would already be in much worse shape. Your main problem is that there are two lubed-up slip-and-slides going straight into your veins, and they’re just begging bacteria to take a swim.”

“Fantastic,” Eurydice grumbles.

Rafe continues as if she hasn’t said anything, “You’re my only patient, obviously, so I’ll be watching you like a hawk for signs of infection.”

“Even better.”

Ignoring her again, he goes back to his workbench to retrieve his pen, ink, and a ruler and gestures for her arm. When she extends it, he places a gentle hand under her elbow and uses the ruler to take several measurements of the shape, width, and length of the redness surrounding the wound. He then rolls over a cart with his supplies. It doesn’t take him long to clean and dry the bite marks. He spreads a layer of honey onto the bandage with a kind of metal spatula before wrapping the bandage carefully around her forearm. While she appreciates the help, the fuss he’s making is uncomfortable and unnecessary. All she wants is to lie down in her own bed— well, Marcus’ spare bed— eat snacks, and read about vampires or something until she falls back asleep. Rafael finishes tying off her bandage but doesn’t release her arm.

“Why did you go after him?” His eyes search hers, his seriousness surprising her.

“The same reason you did,” she replies, confused, “I wanted to help.”

“I don’t buy it.” He shakes his head. “You’d been here for, what, a day? Two? It doesn’t make any sense for you to go when anyone else could have.”

She could say that she’s just so selfless. It’s ingrained in her nature to disregard her own safety and comfort for the sake of a man she barely knows and a city of full of strangers. Wouldn’t anyone else do the same? If I say all that, she thinks, Rafe’s bullshit meter might explode.

“Without him everything falls apart. There’s no point in being here if he isn’t.”

“And what better way to protect yourself than to make sure Orpheus is in your debt?”

That’s a little too on-the-nose for her liking. “You’re awfully young to be so cynical, and I know you’ve lived here your whole life, in the land of sunshine and peaches.”

“Just because we’re better off than the rest of world doesn’t mean we’re perfect. People are still just people. And sometimes people suck.”

True enough, but she has a hard time imagining that neighborly disputes and gardening dramas ever reach the level of hardship she’s seen outside the city.

“Whatever your reasons, I’m glad you were here to help, and I’m glad you made it back. But you don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not.”

“I don’t think Orpheus sees it that way.”

“Then fuck him.” When Eurydice raises an eyebrow in consideration, he clarifies, “I don’t mean ‘sleep with him.’ I mean who cares what he thinks?”

“Um, I care. I care very much about not getting banished.”

He scoffs, “Trust me, Eurydice. You’re not going anywhere unless you want to. Even if Orpheus wanted to banish you or something, we wouldn’t let him. Maybe you’re too cynical to see it, but he’s not the dictator type.”

“How would you know?”

“I’ve read books!”

She laughs. Here she is, getting lectured by a hyperactive teenager who is also her doctor. She laughs harder.

Chapter Text

The days waiting for Orpheus to return are the longest of Marcus’ life. He lies awake that first night with the image of Eurydice, Rafael, and Sam riding away burned into his mind. Riding away without him.

Each day, Marcus goes about his business, filling in for Orpheus and dodging questions about his whereabouts. He’s under the weather, as far as anyone else in the city knows. It’s a believable lie. Orpheus has always been prone to sickness, too focused on helping everyone else to remember his own needs. No matter how many times or how many different ways Marcus tries to convince him to take care of himself first, he never listens.

So when Marcus steps in as the leader of Elysium for a few days, no one bats an eye. Only a select few guards know the truth, and they know better than to spread it around. It’s not difficult to maintain the lie. The difficult part is breathing and eating and sleeping, knowing that anything could have happened to Orpheus by now. Or to the others. By the last day, Marcus has nothing more to worry about because he has already painstakingly examined each of the worst possible scenarios his imagination has to offer. His mind is blissfully and maddeningly blank. He goes through the motions of the day on autopilot. He exists somewhere in his body, but only as a spectator.

No one notices.

That night, he makes a cup of tea and forces himself to open a book, any book. He knows that the others are still at least a day’s ride away, and that he needs to eat and sleep in order to survive. And yet, he finds himself sitting on the carpet with his back against the door. He stares at the pages without reading a single word; he’s not even sure which book he picked up. After a long while, sleep finally greets him, and the tea goes cold on the kitchen counter.

The knock at the door startles him, and his body jumps up to open it before his brain is even fully awake. The tired but triumphant eyes of Eurydice, Sam, Rafael, and Orpheus look back at him.

No force in the world could stop his arms from flying out to capture Orpheus. It takes a moment for the other man to register his action— they haven’t hugged like this since they were kids— but he doesn’t care. With his best friend in his arms, alive, he breaths in fresh air for what feel like the first time since Orpheus went missing. They don’t separate until someone interrupts, and he isn’t really listening until he hears that Eurydice is hurt. He may have said something, but he can’t be sure. The next thing he knows, he is laughing— desperately, painfully. Because what else can he do? When the others are gone, he and Orpheus collapse into chairs opposite each other.

“Tell me everything.”

Orpheus starts out with the same tale he spun to the others, but Marcus cuts him off. “No. Give it to me straight.”

The man turns his face away and says nothing for a while. Finally, he goes to the fireplace and adds another log, illuminating the dark circles under both their eyes.

He begins again, “I was terrified, Marcus. They pointed knives at me and threatened me. Every waking moment, I was scared they would realize I was leaving a trail. And then we got to Namarton, and they chained me to the floor, and there were so many more of them.

“It was easier after I answered their questions, but they still wouldn’t let me go. I only got bits and pieces of what they wanted me for, but it didn’t sound good. I don’t think they ever would have let me out of that warehouse.”

“You’re safe now,” Marcus says, expecting his face to soften. It does the opposite.

“Am I? Living among thieves and murderers no better than my captors.”

The bitterness in his voice catches Marcus off guard. It isn’t a good look on him. “What are you saying?”

“Eurydice and Sam are killers. But you knew that already.” He scoffs. “She had so many guards on her. A sword to her chest. I was terrified for her! Then Sam came out of nowhere to unchain me. She picked the lock in seconds, and the next thing I knew, Eurydice became a killing machine. I watched her kill three people like it was nothing, and Sam didn’t bat an eye.”

“Are you actually angry with them right now?”

“Yes! Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Well, you’d better get over it. They deserve medals, not your judgment.”

“You think I don’t know that? I hate that I feel this way. But how am I supposed to live with them when I’ve seen what they’re capable of? What if others we take in are like them? Or worse?”

“So what if they are? You don’t get to look down on people for doing what it takes to survive. Have any of them caused problems once they were here?

“No, but—”

“Then whatever they’ve done before is not our business. The world has been unusually kind to you, Orpheus. Don’t assume it’s the same for anyone else.”

He hates arguing with his friend when it should be a happy reunion, but he can’t help but push back. Orpheus has never known a world outside of Elysium, but Marcus remembers. He remembers the man who almost killed him and his father for daring to leave their village. He remembers how his father killed that man first.

“Tomorrow, I’m going to go see Eurydice and thank her profusely for saving your life and, by extension, the entire city. I hope you come with me. For now, we should go to sleep. You can take my room.”

Orpheus opens his mouth to say something, but reconsiders. He trudges up the stairs, and Marcus hears the familiar creaking of a body falling into the bed. It takes Marcus a while to center himself and get comfortable on the couch. He’s alive, he’s safe, he’s home. He repeats it in his head like a mantra until he finally accepts it as truth. It doesn’t stop the images of Orpheus’ dead, vacant eyes from haunting his dreams.

Chapter Text

Rafe goes upstairs to his apartment above the clinic to take a bath, and Eurydice counts to fifty before she rises from her cot. Sitting in a room doing nothing is driving her crazy. While Rafe truly never does shut up, the thought of motionlessly staring at the walls in silence is unbearable. Just when her bare feet touch the floor, however, Marcus bursts into the clinic, followed closely by Orpheus.

She sighs. Having so many people who care about her well being is turning out to be quite inconvenient. It’s the best problem she’s ever had.

“How are you feeling?” Marcus inquires, in much better spirits than the previous night.

“Rafe says I’m not going to die, so that’s good. How was everything here?”

He waves a hand absentmindedly. “It was no problem. No bad weather to make anyone suspicious. Really, I just had to wait— which is not my strong suit— but I had full faith that you’d be back soon.”

What a load of horseshit. She’s be surprised if he slept more than a few hours over the course of all four days.

“You thought we were doomed.”

He held her gaze for a few seconds’ pause before confessing, “I did. But I was wrong, and I have you to thank for that. We’re both grateful.” He elbows Orpheus, who steps forward with the look of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I’m sorry for how I reacted. I—”

“Let’s just forget about it and move on,” she cuts him off before she can spontaneously combust.

So they do. They chat about nothing and everything, and when Rafe comes back downstairs he joins in. Mostly Eurydice listens to them talk and enjoys feeling like a part of something. After some convincing from Orpheus, Rafe agrees that she can leave the clinic as long as she checks in with him twice a day. It takes a little more convincing from Eurydice for him to go to the bakery for an early lunch.

The remaining three retreat to Marcus’ apartment, and she changes out of her clothes from the clinic. She really needs to get some of her own. Marcus has a random assortment of items in various sizes, very few of which fit her properly. She settles on a long skirt that stays up well enough when she rolls the waistband a few times and a thin sweater.

When she emerges, she asks Marcus if he has a deck of cards. She’s almost certain he does; it’s one of the few things that nearly everyone in the country seems to carry. Her own deck— which she’d managed to hold onto for nearly five years— was lost to her over the summer when an alligator took a bite out of her backpack.

Marcus’ cards are small and neat, with a protective lacquer painted to keep the paper dry. Still, the edges are fuzzy and worn, and she can tell that they’ve been used for years, maybe decades. He and Orpheus teach her a game, and she teaches them one. Marcus wins every time. It’s easy to distract themselves, easier than addressing the elephant in the room. Orpheus doesn’t look at her much, and he never lets their hands touch, even it it means losing a round. It’s not that he’s unfriendly. He’s just more guarded, more skittish, and less playful.

The rest of the week is uneventful, punctuated only by eating and sleeping whenever she wants. It’s glorious. Eurydice remembers Merna’s blouse with the intricately embroidered flowers and seeks her out one afternoon, confessing her lack of suitable clothes. Merna excitedly takes her to a tailor and helps her pick out some things that are already made to be adjustable while the rest of the items are being made.

“If anything needs mending, I can take care of that too,” the tailor adds, glancing indiscreetly at the sloppy stitches outlining the many patches on her shirt.

They thank the woman and leave the cozy shop. Merna leads them on a stroll through the city, picking up supplies here and there as they go.

“You know, you’ll need a dress soon for the Winter Dionysia festival too. I assume you’re here to stay?”

Her tone is casual, but Eurydice can sense the curiosity bubbling beneath the surface. To this point, she hasn’t mentioned the public altercation between her and Sam—nor has anyone else— and she commends the other woman’s restraint.

“Yes, it does seem that way. Is that okay with you?”

She shrugs, unconcerned. “If Sam hasn’t killed you in your sleep yet, that’s good enough for me.”

“Do you know her well?” Eurydice inquires hesitantly, “How was she, when she got here?”

“We talked some when she first arrived— the same kind of thing as when you got here — but not much since. She was kind of a wild thing for the first few weeks, and hostile. The way she would slink around in the shadows was pretty freaky.”

“I’m sure ‘freaky’ is an understatement,” Eurydice ventures, and the woman nods in concession. Guilt eats at her stomach for putting Sam in a position like that.

“So what’s this about a festival?” Eurydice changes the subject.

Merna perks up and explains, “Every year on the winter solstice, there’s a big festival in the barns at the edge of town. Everyone makes a dish to share, gets dressed up in their finest, and drinks lots of wine. We set up a stage in the big barn for singing, dancing, theater— everything!”

In her excitement, she hadn’t stopped to take a single breath. Many villages have similar celebrations under different names, but Eurydice has only ever attended as a servant. She imagines herself perfectly put together with a flowing dress dancing with Orpheus under the moonlight, her only concern the impending hangover. Beautiful. Powerful. Indulgent. Too good to be true.

On her walk back, she passes the library and remembers Gaius’ unexplained hostility toward her. Without a conscious thought, she turns up the marble steps and into the building. She opens the door only wide enough for her to slip through and then closes it gently behind her. Eurydice may not have the Sam’s cat-like stealth, but she knows well enough how not to get caught.

A few people wander the stacks, and a few more sit at the tables strewn throughout the main room. Otherwise, the library is quiet, and she doesn’t have to try very hard to not be noticed. She rambles around aimlessly, pretending to peruse the many shelves in the fiction section— not exactly pretending, if she’s being honest. Finally, she spies the librarian waddling into a study room in the far corner and pursues him silently.

When she peeks through the door’s window, she sees the librarian huddled over a stack of books, with Marcus standing beside him. She instantly regrets her suspicions and internally rolls her eyes at her paranoia. But then she takes in the titles of the dozen-or-so books they’re looking at. The ones she can read in English and Spanish all have to do with magic, astrology, and clairvoyance. Others appear to be hundreds of years old, written in Latin or that same strange script as the books she found of Marcus’ shelf earlier that week.

As she makes her way back through the stacks, grabbing the first book she sees with a dragon on the cover, she contemplates Marcus’ chosen study material. She resolves to ask him about it when he gets home, and maybe get to the bottom of the librarian’s distrust in her as well.

She spends the rest of her afternoon curled up by the window reading the new book, which draws her in quickly. When the sunlight from the window is no longer sufficient, she retrieves a few candles from a kitchen drawer and sets them on the windowsill, saving one to place in a candle holder that she keeps close. A distant noise startles her, and when she looks up from the page, Marcus is standing in front of her with an amused glance at the half-spent candles at the window. A shadow in the corner of her vision alerts her to Orpheus’ presence in the kitchen as well. They eat dinner together, and Orpheus invites her on a walk through the gardens.

Marcus sends them off with a glib warning not to stay out past curfew. It’s the first time they’ve been alone since returning to Elysium, and they both bristle with hyper-awareness.

“You never got to come over that night. You were supposed to tell me another something about yourself.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “You haven’t heard enough?”

“Look, Eurydice. I want us to be okay. I just don’t know how to get there. I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you. I know that. But I don’t know how to see you the same way again. I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same.”

“So don’t be.”

“What do you mean?”

“Being who you were is what got you kidnapped in the first place. So be different. Be stronger.”

He stops them and studies her face like it’s a code he can’t decipher. “Is that what you did?” She doesn’t say anything, which says enough. “I don’t want to be stronger. I want to live in a world that’s better.”

Wouldn’t that be something? There’s no place for me in a world like that.

“What would you have told me?” He breaks her out of her thoughts, “If you had come.”

“More charming lies,” she answers with a wave of her hand, “or something wildly sexual.”

His cheeks flare red, but he isn’t deterred. “So you can’t shoot a bow with your feet?”

“Of course not. That’s insane.” She laughs coarsely. “I just couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t scare you off.” Her face hardens. “You don’t have to see me the way you did before. And you don’t have to keep spending time with me just because you were interested before. I can move out of Marcus’ if it bothers you to see me there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’d like to get to know the real you. I’m not sure I’ll always be able to handle it, but I want to try. If that’s okay with you.”

Her voice is small, and her breath is shallow. “Okay.”

“Then tell me something again. Something real.”

A fresh start. A new beginning. She holds out her hand, her chin high. “I’m Eurydice. I’ve trekked all over the continent, but I’m ready to find a home.”

He shakes her hand firmly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eurydice.”

————————————————————————————————————————

Later that night, Eurydice sits at the kitchen counter munching on some dried fish, bread, and cheese while Marcus pours them each a drink. She asks as casually as she can, “Why are you and Gaius researching magic?”

He freezes mid-gulp, but his expression remains unhelpfully neutral. His Adam’s apple dips as he swallows carefully. “Gaius is something of a collector. He’s been in Elysium for more than twenty years, but before that, he was in this occult group. It’s a long shot, but I wanted to find out if some other magic could be used to protect the city so Orpheus doesn’t always have to. Or in case the worst happens…” he trails off. “Sorry. That’s morbid.”

Eurydice nods in understanding. She had always been skeptical that any real magic existed, but Orpheus himself is living proof. “I don’t think it’s morbid to be practical,” she assures him, “Even superheroes die, and it would be short-sighted not to try to have a plan. Especially since Orpheus is preparing for it too.”

Marcus furrows his brow at that. “What do you mean? What is Orpheus preparing?”

It is Eurydice’s turn to be confused. Orpheus had spoken so openly to her about searching for a permanent climate solution, she had assumed it was common knowledge, even if he embarked on the endeavor alone. She realizes now how stupid that is. If Marcus knew what he was working on, there’s no chance he wouldn’t want to help.

“Gods. For best friends, you two sure don’t talk about the important shit. I’m not interested in being the keeper of even more secrets. He knows about your guards, by the way.”

Surprise flashes in his eyes, but he recovers quickly. “You know, my guests don’t usually lecture me.”

She takes a large swig of the drink. “And I thought I was the most fucked-up person in the room, but I think you might have me beat.”

He snorts, and Eurydice gives him a crooked smile. “The secret,” she confesses, “is to act like I know I belong here. Then maybe you’ll believe I do. ‘Fake it ‘til you make it,’ and all that.”

“Does that usually work?”

“No!” She laughs. “This would be the first time,” she amends.

Because somehow, it has worked this time. Against all odds, she seems to have carved a place for herself here. Maybe the drink is just strong, but being here, talking with Marcus feels easy. Wandering the streets with Orpheus and shopping with Merna was easy too.

“I have a confession too,” Marcus says, wistful. “I did the same thing when I came here as a kid. Sometimes I think I’m still acting.”

Chapter Text

The month goes by without incident, the weather chilling as winter sets in, but less so than the surrounding region, Eurydice knows. She settles properly into her room, though she has next to nothing to fill it with. She’s never had her own space before. When Merna takes her to the market, she finds trinkets and scarves and oils to take home with her. She’s about to call it a day when something catches her eye at table covered in stationary. It’s an old trading card, with a certain spidery superhero on it. Seeing it stops her in her tracks. Knocks the breath out of her lungs. Her companion watches her tuck the card carefully into her pocket.

“I have things like that too,” she comments, “little reminders of the people and places I left behind. They stopped haunting me, eventually.”

“That’s something to look forward to, aside from the Winter Dionysia.”

When she gets home, Eurydice methodically places everything from the market around her room until the trading card is the only thing left. She hold it in both hands, eyes burning, and sits on her knees in the middle of the room.

Ever since they got back from their adventure in Namarton, Rafael has been showing her more and more around the clinic. She discovers her favorite tasks are grinding and pressing herbs, mixing tinctures and medicines, and conducting simple tests on blood samples. She’s worked a little bit with the people themselves but never has the right words to ease their minds, so she prefers to let Rafe interact while she works in the background. The way he speaks to people about their health fascinates her; it’s like he’s ten years older and twenty years wiser when he’s working.

This afternoon, she grinds dried echinacea leaves into powder and boils used bandages to sterilize them. They work in comfortable silence with a palpable anticipation for the Winter Dionysia that night. The city has been bubbling with infectious energy all week.

She finishes up early in the clinic and bids Rafe goodbye before heading back into the streets and preparing to meet Orpheus for lunch. While he has served her many meals over the last several weeks, this is the first time she is cooking since arriving in Elysium. Yesterday she had pleaded with Sam to give her a recipe, idea, technique, advice, prayer—anything— to help her. It’s not that Eurydice is a bad cook. It’s just that she’s never had much of a kitchen to work with. Roasting a squirrel on a spit over an open flame is hardly the same as using a stove top and cookware. And though she’s worked in kitchens before, she was always given the most menial tasks like plucking chickens or potato-duty.

Sam, ever-pragmatic, entertained no fantasies of Eurydice learning to cook in one day. “Make something you can’t fuck up,” were her exact words. She then thrust a baguette into Eurydice’s arms and wished her luck while shooing her out of the bakery.

So today, she visits the potter and the butcher and returns home with a jar of clay, a duck, and a plan. Her hands work without much thought, falling into the routine of this primitive but well-trodden meal. She scoops out the bird’s insides, saving the liver and heart for later, then fills it back up with the cranberries and apple slices she had grabbed from the greenhouses the day before. She surrounds the bird in a casing of clay and places it directly in the fire of the oven.

Then she moves to the living room and removes the Spiderman card from her pocket once again, unable to resist returning to it day after day. She crouches with her back against the sofa, and allows the sorrow to wash over her. She doesn’t hear Orpheus enter, but suddenly he’s sitting next to her. For a long while, neither of them speak. The warmth of his arm pressed against hers is a small comfort as tears trickle over her cheeks. She had thought she couldn’t possibly cry anymore over them.

“I had a little brother. Kind of,” she sniffs, “His grandmother found me alone in a grocery store and took me in. Isaac and Dottie. She was everything I wanted to be. And he was so kind and pure. He wouldn’t even let us kill bugs because their families would be sad.”

Orpheus turns his head to face her. She can’t bring herself to meet his eyes, but she can sense his patience and sincerity. It radiates from him.

“It sounds like a perfect family,” he says so gently she can barely stand it.

It was. For almost three years, it was.

“I can’t remember their faces very well anymore.” Shame and disgust bubble in the pit of her chest. “Issac was wearing a T-shirt with this same print on it when he died.”

She angles the card so that he can see it. It’s the same pose, the same coloring, the same art style. Isaac would have lost his mind over it.

Orpheus takes the card and gingerly runs his thumb over it before daring to ask, “What happened?”

She closes her eyes. Snapshots of that day flash in her mind unbidden. Waking up to find Issac asleep against her shoulder. The cracked corner of the bunker that leaked when it rained. The short hike to check their traps for rabbits. Men breaking open the hatch and swarming their home with military precision. She was pushed aside roughly, the hilt of a sword colliding with her jaw. Isaac screamed a high, teary scream, and Dottie pulled him against her. Eurydice couldn’t bring her eyes up from the floor, her gaze fixed on the black boots of the intruders. And then Dottie’s carving knife glinted where it had clattered to the floor. Eurydice clutched it in her small fist. And ran.

She doesn’t say any of that. She lets out a breath and returns to the present. “The food should be ready by now.”

She lets Orpheus help her off the floor and strides into the kitchen. His eyes squint in confusion at the lack of dishes and food preparation. She uses metal pokers to lift the clay casing out of the fire and onto the counter. Then, she breaks the clay open and fragrant juices dribble out. Once the bird is free, she cuts the meat away from the bones and loads it onto two plates, scooping the berries and apples on top. Orpheus’s appears equal parts impressed and skeptical, but tucks in with enthusiasm after the first bite. It may not be the most sophisticated, but Sam was right. It’s something she can’t mess up.

Once finished, they hurry to the festival grounds to join the early festivities. A cool breeze carries the scent of smoke and wine, guiding them to the epicenter of the revelry. In front of the three barns is a huge bonfire, lined with painted stones. The center barn is lined with half-filled buffet tables, the left contains a large stage and chairs set up in rows, and the right is wide open with playerless instruments tucked into a corner. At first, residents only trickle in, but soon, they’re pouring in from all directions.

Marcus approaches them with mugs full of spiced cider. Eurydice accepts one and takes a greedy gulp, while Orpheus sips his absentmindedly. The square is densely packed, the atmosphere buzzing with energy. When they reach the barns, she can see a group of teenagers dressed in traditional togas preparing for the first performance.

“They’re about to start,” Marcus says, “Let’s stay and watch.”

The find seats near the front, only a stone’s throw from the stage, and others fill in all around them. One of the performers chimes a bell three times, and the crowd quiets. A single violin player makes a lap around the stage with a slow, romantic melody before relegating to an upstage corner. Two performers step forward, perfectly in sync, and the rest find their poses along the back of the stage. One is in a black toga, his short black hair framed by a crown of bones. The other is in dainty pink, a plush in the shape of a half pomegranate pinned to her shoulder. Hades and Persephone. The music picks up, and the two move together in a lively pas de deux. With every leap, he lifts her higher, and with every step, they ground each other. The applause is unanimous as they take their bows and step back, making way for the next two dancers. Before the next song starts, The boy in yellow with golden thread mimes strumming a guitar, and performer scurries from the back and presents unfurls a single rose. The boy gallantly extends the flower to his counterpart, a girl in wispy gray dress, and as her jaw drops, she can feel every eye in the room shift to her.

The dance begins, slower and more measured than the first, and Eurydice doesn’t dare tear her eyes away, lest she make accidental eye contact with Orpheus. The dancers stretch and reach around each other like they’re each the vine and the trellis. The song ends, and the next begins without missing a beat. It’s upbeat and jovial, and all other dancers crowd around the stars as the boy drops to his knees and the girl stretches her right hand up and places it atop her left. The stage erupts into a joyful celebration, and the dance ends with an embrace between stage-Orpheus and stage-Eurydice.

Eurydice sneaks a glance sideways to find Orpheus frozen, flushed from head to toe, and Marcus biting glancing between them, biting his finger to keep from laughing. She sends a few telepathic daggers his way, but claps along with everyone else. The next song is quick and low, cautious. A girl in green with scales painted on her shoulders slinks to center stage, and everyone but stage-Eurydice retreats to the background. They play an anxious game of cat-and-mouse, the girl just barely evading the serpent, until finally, the snake sneaks up behind and slings one arm around her waist. The girl is lifted in a final turn before the snake guides her wrist until it’s millimeters from her lips, bares her teeth, and bites down against nothing. Stage-Eurydice crumples, and her killer lowers her gently to the stage, stopping to brush the girl’s hair out of her face.

The ensemble step together in a mourning procession to lift the girl away and comfort Orpheus. She is twirled into the arms of Hades before moving to the background. The bell rings to signal the next act, and the scene shifts to show stage-Orpheus begging with Hades to release his love. When the king of the dead refuses, Persephone pleads along with him. Relenting, Hades points to the boy, then to his own eyes, before crossing his arms and gesturing at the ghostly girl. They’ll be allowed to return home, but only if he does not look back to his wife on the way out of the Underworld. Stage-Orpheus heartily agrees, and the girl follows in his dance, always a few steps behind. The music builds and build and builds, until the ensemble is in sight, reaching out and welcoming them home. And the same thing happens that always happens. He turns around. Everyone on stage freezes, and the audience holds its collective breath. The sounds of the festival outside the barn might as well be planets away. Hades is the first to move, gliding forward to whisk her away. No one else moves for a long time, just standing and breathing into nothing. The bell rings. The performers all clasp hands and bow together. The crowd erupts into a standing ovation, and Eurydice nearly has to shout to her friends, “I’m going to get some air!”

She can’t get out of the barn fast enough, downing the rest of her cider as she escapes. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sam socializing with Justin and Elena, looking completely at ease. Glancing elsewhere, she spots Rafael who is also looking at Sam and chewing his bottom lip. Rafe is startled out of his concentration by Eurydice waving a hand in front of his eyes when he doesn’t notice her approach.

“Dance with me? I don’t know the steps, but I’m sure you can teach me.” The right-most barn has filled up with musicians and people dancing.

“Uh, sure. I’m not that good either, though.” She doesn’t think he’s ever sounded so unsure of himself. She rolls her eyes and leads him onto the dance floor. It doesn’t take long for him to explain the few steps of a simple salsa, and soon they move without much effort.

She wastes no time in revealing her true intentions. “Watching you pine after Sam is physically painful. Why haven’t you just asked her out?”

He opens and closes his mouth wordlessly a few times before finding the words to respond. “Is it that obvious?”

“Yes.”

He sighs. “I don’t know what to do. I really like spending time with her. I really like her. But I’ve never done this before. I’ve never been with anyone like that before.”

She furrows her eyebrows. “Are you talking about sex?”

“Gods, Eurydice, yes. I’m talking about sex. I’ve never been with anyone like that.” He visibly gulps. “And I’m not sure that I want to.”

Saying the words out loud seems to have lifted a weight off of him, his shoulders relaxing and his grip on her loosening. They haven’t stopped dancing, and she’s impressed that he hasn’t missed a beat despite her interrogation.

“When I’m with her, I want to be closer to her. But I’ve never wanted her or anyone else like that. Not in the way other people talk about desire.”

He seems to have finished talking, but Eurydice is far from satisfied. “Okay. And?”

“And what?”

“That’s not really a reason not to try. Maybe you’ll get together. Maybe you’ll want to bone eventually, maybe not. Same goes for her. A month ago, you agreed to leave the city to spring Orpheus from kidnapping jail. Sam could have died. You could have died. You’ve taught me a lot, so let me teach you something: ask for what you want— reach for it. Life’s too short to be in the way of your own happiness. Talk to her; she might surprise you.”

He scoffs but doesn’t argue. “One more question,” she says, and he gives a weary look. “Is there always a ballet recreation of the story of ‘Orpheus and Eurydice’?”

He tilts his head in puzzlement. “No. That would be kind of weird, right?”

“Yep.”

Chapter Text

Rafe retreats as soon as the dance ends, and Eurydice finds Orpheus in the last barn. She piles a plate high with corn, beans, and stuffed peppers before meeting him. His face brightens at the side of her, the tips of ears prickling red instinctively.

“Some ballet, huh?” she says sitting across from him.

He rolls his eyes back with a sigh. “I talked to their instructor afterwards. Apparently those kids took it upon themselves to put together that whole piece behind his back. They thought it would be funny.”

He seems to be holding his breath, waiting to gauge her reaction, but can’t keep herself from laughing. “It was very well done for a joke.”

“That’s what I told the instructor,” he says, grinning.

The shadows grow longer and longer until the sun disappears completely behind the mountains. Eurydice refills her plate and cup, then goes back for cake, returning to find a little girl in her spot trying to toss berries into Orpheus’ open mouth. When she finally succeeds, Orpheus cheers and gives her a high-five before she darts away, lost in the crowd as quickly as she emerged.

A droplet of juice pools at the corner of his mouth. Eurydice brushes her thumb over it and brings it to her own mouth, smacking her lips. “Sweet.”

Without a word, he pushes from his seat and extends a hand. She accepts it without hesitation, and he leads her back to the dancing. The music now is lower and slower, the dancing around them more sensual. He wraps her hands around his neck and places his own at her lower back. She follows the steps the best she can, but there’s not much to them besides swaying, their hips almost touching. This close to him, she can make out the light stubble on his chin and the tiny freckles dotting his forehead. His golden hair reflects the firelight, and shadows paint his face. He looks soft around the edges, like a painting rather than a man, but feels solid beneath her hands. Distracted by studying him, she almost misses that he’s asked a question.

“Is everything alright with Rafael? He looks like he’s seen a ghost.”

She follows his gaze toward Rafe— who is crouched on a bench with his hands tucked beneath his chin, staring lifelessly into the fire— and smiles conspiratorially. “He will be once he works up the nerve to confess his feelings for Sam.”

“Is that right?” His voice is soft, and his breath tickles the hair around her face. He’s only an inch or two taller than her, but he has to lower his head to murmur into her ear, “And what if he’s waiting for the perfect moment?”

They’re so close together now, but they continue their dance, Orpheus’ leg stepping almost in between hers as they sway. When she tilts away and rolls back into him, he lets his eyes roam over her, and nothing has ever felt so divine.

She twists her head, her nose ghosting over his jaw. “Then he’s a fool,” she says with mocking sorrow, “There are no perfect moments. There’s only now.”

“Now seems pretty perfect to me.” Orpheus glides his fingertips up and down her back, squeezing slightly when he reaches her hips. His gaze is molten lava, his pupils wide. She hadn’t thought he could become any more beautiful, but here he is. Everywhere his hands make contact electrifies her.

“For Rafe and Sam?” she feigns confusion. She can’t resist teasing him; she hasn’t had fun like this in ages.

“Hush, you.” He grins devilishly, something she hadn’t thought him capable of. When the song ends, Orpheus leads her wordlessly away from the crowd. Without the bonfire, there’s only the waning moonlight and a few scattered torches to light the way.

Away from the anonymity and headiness of the dancing, his short-lived bravado is replaced with tenderness. She faces him and takes his hands. His throat bobs, but he squeezes them tightly.

“I want to do this right,” he begins, more to himself than to her, “I am drawn to you in a way I’ve never experienced before. You’re brave and clever and beautiful. You scare the hell out of me, but I’ve never felt so alive. If you’ll have me, I’d like to court you properly.”

While he speaks, her focus shifts up and down— his lips, his eyes, his lips again— unable to rest in one spot. Her heart races with each word, even as his formality and old-fashioned nature amuse her. She doesn’t even know what “courting” really means, but she hopes it entails kissing him. She finally, slowly, excruciatingly brings her face to his until their eyelashes could touch. She pauses a hair’s breadth away. When she presses her lips to his, the two melt into each other.

She doesn’t push too far, afraid of offending his delicate sensibilities. She’s content to snake her hand up his back and hold his neck to guide their gentle, close-mouthed kisses. He cups her face and lets his thumbs brush her cheekbones, making her skin tingle with the desire for more.

He pulls away just enough for her to see the intensity in his eyes. “Is that a yes?” he breathes.

“Yes.”

————————————————————————————————————————

They spend the rest of the night together, dancing, drinking, and stealing kisses. It isn’t until Marcus stumbles upon them that they awkwardly separate. Eurydice grabs a cookie to munch on while she walks home with Marcus.

“One more drink, on me,” he says as they pass the threshold and Eurydice dusts the sugar off her face.

He doesn’t wait for a response before mixing up an elaborate drink. It had become a routine for them, whenever they find themselves still awake at the end of a long night, which is often. Orpheus is an early sleeper. They’ve made a hobby of Marcus fabricating new drinks for her to test and Eurydice tutting with each sip and pretending to be a connoisseur. They’re usually quite tasty, though she has had to choke down some of the more creative recipes.

Tonight, the drink he presents is golden and smells like warm spices and honey. When she takes a sip, the nutty, sweet flavor dances across her tongue and heats her throat. The taste is distinct, but she can’t quite taste where she’s had it before. She takes another long sip, determined to figure it out.

“You’ve outdone yourself on this one. Something about it is so familiar. What’s in it?”

This is her kitchen, after all. He could only have used what she had in the cabinet unless he brought some secret ingredient from his place.

“It’s just honey, cinnamon, and thyme. Nothing too crazy this time,” he replies, his back to her as he makes one for himself and returns the spices to their places in the cabinet.

He comes to sit next to her at the bar and raises his drink in the air toward her. She clinks her glass against his and takes another drink, holding it in her mouth before swallowing in a last-ditch effort to identify the elusive flavor. Marcus nearly empties his glass in one swig.

It finally clicks into place in her drink-addled mind. “No, it tastes like something else I had a few times out west. Amaretto— almonds. Do you even have almonds here?”

He doesn’t answer, only stares intently at his own glass, his knuckles white as he grips it. His chest shakes as he takes uneven breaths; he opens and closes his mouth a few times before speaking.

“I’m sorry, Eurydice. I’m so sorry.”

Confused and concerned, she says, “Why are you sorry? It’s fucking delicious. Are you okay?”

She places a hand on his shoulder, and he jerks away. If she were sober, she would be embarrassed by how long it takes her to connect the dots.

“Oh,” she breathes, “Is it because you love him?”

Her filter has disappeared completely, but she knows it’s true. His head snaps up. He finally meets her eyes, and she knows she isn’t wrong.

“Something like that.”

Eurydice has never seen so much sorrow radiating from one person, and she thinks he may be in more pain than she is, even as she feels her breaths become shallower. Her shock nearly overwhelms the intense betrayal coursing through her. Nearly. She pushes herself off the stool and stumbles to the floor, her hands shaking. Marcus silently joins her on the cool kitchen tile. He cradles her in his arms, and she flinches. Eurydice is dying, and the only one able to comfort her in her final moments is her first friend in ages. Her killer. She lets him.

Each inhale is increasingly ragged, almost gasping. She knows she should be trying harder to stay afloat, but she is drowning, and she’s so, so tired of fighting. She thinks of everyone waiting for her on the other side and, for better or for worse, wonders if she’ll see them again. If that’s the kind of afterlife waiting for her in Hades. Her parents, maybe, Dottie and Issac, Everest, the kidnappers and slavers, all somewhere on the other side. She can’t help but think that maybe these last few weeks have all been a dream, and now she’s finally waking up to her normal, shitty life.

She blinks, and there is another figure crouched in front of her, shrouded in unnatural darkness and studying her with a tilted head.

“Already?” The figure sounds surprised, and a little exasperated.

“Believe me, I’m not pleased either” she responds deliriously.

Her voice comes out choked, and she barely understands her own words after they leave her mouth. The figure coalesces into the shape of a man, with entirely man-like features except for his fully black eyes. Like a newborn knows its mother’s voice, she knows him.

“Who are you talking to?” Marcus asks, still shaking himself, but perplexed enough to ask.

Before she can ponder any sort of lucid response, a name spits out of her mouth, “Death.”

There is nothing more to say, even if she had the breath to speak. As it is, her body grows colder, and she’s vaguely aware of tears dripping down her face. Trying to force air into her lungs is like trying to collect all the fish in the sea into a single net, futile and foolish.

Death reaches out a hand to brush her cheek, and everything— everything, everything, everything, everything— fades into darkness.

Chapter Text

She blinks and sits up, Marcus’ hold on her melting away like butter. Something feels out of place, but she can’t quite name what it is. Her throat doesn’t hurt anymore. Actually, nothing hurts anymore; all the soreness in her muscles and the ache of her neck have vanished. She’s never felt lighter.

Death still crouches before her, on the floor of Marcus’ kitchen. She notices for the first time his deep caramel skin and the sad smile that softens the stark blackness of his eyes. He doesn’t get too close, and he moves slowly, like she’s a newly uncaged animal.

“We have to go now,” he murmurs, kindness and apology lacing his voice.

He reaches to take her hand, and she offers it freely. When she starts to hold her breath to brace herself for whatever might come next, she realizes what it is that feels so different. She isn’t breathing. Death squeezes his eyes shut and shadows creep into the room, seeping out of the floorboards and crawling their way up the walls. After all the light has been snuffed out and Eurydice’s eyes adjust to the unwavering darkness, she realizes that they are no longer in the townhouse and that Marcus has vanished. Or more accurately, she has vanished from him.

Instead, they stand in a open field, still hand in hand, with a boundless night sky overhead. No wind rustles the tall grass. No mice or crickets stir. There is not a single living thing in this prairie, not even Eurydice. It’s peaceful, here. And familiar.

She lowers herself to the ground and lays back, gazing into the sky. No clouds or lights conceal the stars, and they are more numerous than she has ever seen; the moon is nowhere to be found. Death regards her curiously but doesn’t protest.

“I can’t just stay here, can I?” she asks reluctantly, already knowing the answer.

“No,” he confirms, “You must be processed by the underworld. Bureaucracy and such.”

“And what should I call you, deliverer of bureaucracy?”

He looks away, evidently dissatisfied with being reduced to a cog in the machine. “I am Thanatos, god of death.”

Reluctantly, she pulls herself up from the grass. Thanatos offers her an arm, and she takes it easily. His body is covered only by a draping black toga and a wolf skin hanging across his shoulders, but his skin is hot to the touch. She resists the urge to draw closer to the warmth. They walk in silence for a long time before a river materializes in front of them. It’s not very deep, but the water moves swiftly over jagged rocks. Eurydice glaces side-to-side but sees no paths across it and no narrowing pinches.

“The River Lethe,” Thanatos announces grimly.

She recognizes it vaguely, but the name means nothing to her. She releases the god’s arm and trudges forward, but he stops her.

“This is the first trial, Eurydice. The current is strong. If you get dragged below the surface, you will loose all your memories. Your sense of self will be devoured, and what’s left of you will work the fields until you dissolve into nothing.”

Fear creeps into the periphery of her mind, but she steels herself against it. She doesn’t have many attributes to be proud of, but self-preservation has always been a strong suit.

“I won’t go under, then.”

She doesn’t allow herself to hesitate for even a moment. Her feet step into the shallow, rocky bank, and she starts walking.

The dark water doesn’t reach higher than her ankles, but it nearly sweeps her feet out from under her. She clutches the protruding rocks for balance. She glances back at Thanatos, searching for reassurance maybe, but his face is unreadable. She turns her glare to the water itself. If the stormy Mississippi couldn’t best her, neither can this. She’ll be damned if a little bit of water gets the best of her. Literally.

Her next step is no more cautious because this river is pissing her off. Both Eurydice and the Lethe know that she’s going to make it across, so the river is just being spiteful. With another step, she grumbles, “Well, fuck you too.”

The waterline rises just above her knees now. Another step. Two. It reaches her hips. With each step, the current pushes her a little bit downstream, but she remains upright. She pauses when the water kisses her ribcage, contemplating how much deeper it will get. She looks over her shoulder to gauge her progress, but the riparian is gone. Thanatos is gone. Behind her, an ocean roils and churns with no end in sight.

Her head snaps forward again. Focus. An impossible trial wouldn’t be a very good trial. She braves another two steps, but the water doesn’t rise any higher. Her shoulders sag in relief. There can’t be more than five yards between her and the opposite bank. She lurches forward, trying to reach the other side in a final push. Five yards become three, two. The water barely touches her knees now, but just when she’s confident it’ll be over soon, a large, flat stone beneath the water tilts under her weight.

Her foot slides out from under her, and she tumbles into the river hips-first with a shriek. She shoots her arms out to save herself from being swept down the river. The only things available to grab are the jagged rocks, and she hangs onto them desperately, despite the sharp stones digging into her fingers. Emerging from the water, she practically throws herself the last few feet and crumples into the tall grass lining the river. She forces her arms to drag the rest of her onto the bank, rolling onto her back and heaving a sigh of victory. The sense of a shadow overhead prompts her to open her eyes.

Thanatos stands behind her head, looking down at her with a trained neutral expression. If she didn’t know better, however, she might think a glint of satisfaction hides behind his transient eyes. She lifts her hands up to the otherworldly night sky in a silent request. Thanatos understands, grasping her forearms and pulling her to her feet.

“Well done,” he says simply, with far too little fanfare.

“Well done?” She sniffs and turns back to the river. “I made Lethe my bitch!”

Shouting at the water is cathartic; it always is. She suspects that her triumph will be short-lived, though.

“That was the hardest trial,” he confirms. Can he read her mind? “Not the worst, but the hardest.”

“That’s just fantastic. How many trials are there?”

“Three. The next one starts now,” he adds, almost like a confession. Pointing to two spires a distance away, he says, “You need to walk through the gate.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“It isn’t,” he agrees, “If you stop moving, you’ll be eaten by harpies.”

Sure enough, When Eurydice squints at the spires, she sees several somethings circling them. The moment she notices them, however, they cease circling and and start to grow larger and larger in her vision.

“Go, now,” she hears Thanatos’ voice in her ear, but he’s vanished again.

She groans, and begins her march to the gates of hell. She can’t truthfully say she’s ever given much thought to an afterlife, but she had supposed it would be more passive. She might have figured she would line up at the gate and wait for Hades to pass judgment on her. All this effort just to get into the underworld seems wholly unjustified.

The harpies approach impossibly fast, their grotesque features becoming more and more visible with each passing second. Skin stretches tightly over their wings, exposing bones that could burst out at any moment, and feathers pepper their bodies without cohesion. They look like half-plucked chickens left out in the sun. The smell could be described that way, too.

Eurydice’s walk turns into a brisk jog. The spires still seem miles away, but the creatures are almost upon her. They swoop down and then shoot back up into the air one by one, their timing almost rhythmic, choreographed. She can see their faces now, and she wishes she could unsee them. One of them has a ghoulishly long face, gray and gaunt with small slits for a nose and an enormous mouth full of needle-like teeth. Another is more like a bird, sporting the beak of a raven but with perfectly human, bloodshot eyes. She doesn’t think this one has eyelids, but she doesn’t look long enough to decide. The third is the most human, though far from the most palatable. It is the face of someone who has been dead in a swamp for days— bloated and greenish-purple, with bile seeping out of its nose and mouth. A fungus grows on one side of its head, and flies buzz around it’s perimeter.

They place themselves directly in her path, much too close for comfort, but she doesn’t waver. She grits her teeth and directs her mind elsewhere; dissociation is an old friend. Food has always been a good distraction, but now, with no desire to eat or a physical body to do so, she has to search elsewhere. Orpheus and Marcus are unsurprisingly what comes to mind.

She attempts to think logically about why Marcus would want to kill her. ‘Want’ isn’t the right word. Nothing about past night indicates he wanted that at all. No, he needed Eurydice gone— permanently— for some reason. Anyone could see that he’s in love with Orpheus, but he never discouraged her relationship with him, whatever that relationship was. It certainly wasn’t a crime of passion either. People don’t keep poison lying around to dole out at their whim.

Orpheus will be devastated. Or maybe he already is; she can’t be sure how much time has passed. He already has too much weight on his shoulders. He shouldn’t have to deal with his best friend being a murderer. Is she devastated? She honestly can’t tell. She’s been clinging desperately to life for so long, and she had finally found a safe place to belong. Friends to care for. Work to be proud of. But for people like her, dying young is par for the course.

It must take an eternity or longer, but the spires in the distance finally feel within reach. Just when relief starts to creep in, a hard yank on her hair causes her head to jerk back. One of the harpies cackles above her, and another swings down with one claw and slices deep into Eurydice’s right shoulder, just missing her collarbone. She forces her feet to keep moving. With the end in sight, her walk shifts into a run. A piercing, tearing pain explodes through her when the beaked harpy clamps down on her opposite arm. She can’t help a cry escaping from her lips, even as she swings her fist between the creature’s beady eyes.

The next several seconds pass in a blur, with her singular focus on reaching the gates now just a few yards away. When she’s only steps from the threshold, she sees Thanatos extending a hand toward her. A final burst of energy is all she needs to pass through the gates and leave the harpies hovering bitterly on the other side. She tumbles to her knees, but Thanatos catches her by the elbows and lifts her up.

“What’s the third trial?” She wants to put it behind her as soon as possible, and maybe the adrenaline of escape can work in her favor.

“They call it the judgment,” he explains grimly, “Your heart will be weighed against a feather. Each poor action and intention in your life makes your heart heavier. How much heavier it is determines your fate.”

“And this is a metaphysical heart, or…?”

“Your heart will be cut out of your chest.” Then he looks away and amends, “I will cut your heart out of you. It will be painful, but I’ll do it as quickly as I can, and you’ll heal soon enough. You might have noticed your wounds from the harpies are gone.”

Her fingers rise to her shoulder and find no sign of the creature’s attack except for a tear in her blouse. After a moment of surprise and amazement, his words finally register. They tumble around her mind in a mess of incomprehension and terror.

“Without your heart, nothing in the living world can take you back. You’ll be here, serving penance until your spirit fades back into the universe.”

She doesn’t understand everything he’s said, but it makes her want to scream nonetheless. She wants desperately to return to that infinite prairie and stay there forever. With a clenched jaw and jerk of his head, he leads her past a set of grand doors and through claustrophobic stone hallways until the walls open into a small courtyard.

Chapter Text

Marcus doesn’t know what to do now. After an hour or three of sitting on the floor clutching her body, the shock of what he’s done gives way to the panic of not knowing what comes next. He’s always known what comes next— how to deal. But now, with a friend’s cold body against his chest, he has no idea.

He has never killed anyone before, and he chose a cowardly way to do it. He treated Eurydice like an animal needing medicine, and his disgust with himself makes his stomach churn. She came into his home as a paranoid guest, and she grew to trust him completely. He let it happen; he let them become friends. Compounding his revulsion is the pragmatic part of him weighing what to tell the others. He could even dispose of her body right now and feign complete ignorance of her whereabouts in the morning. He can’t stay on this floor a moment longer.

When he shifts away from Eurydice, her body tilts with him before sliding to the floor. Positioning her neck and limbs to look somewhat natural takes more time than should be possible. With each passing moment, bile rises in his throat until he manages to drag himself into the bathroom beneath the stairs. It takes several minutes for the contents of his stomach to empty into the sink. Even when there’s nothing left to purge, he heaves and chokes out sobs and refuses to lift his gaze to his reflection in the mirror.

He doesn’t have time for this. He splashes some water onto his face and takes a deep breath. In. And out.

Almonds don’t grow anywhere near this region naturally. It’s conceivable that Eurydice had never eaten one until tonight and had an allergy that never presented itself. Gods, he should have thought of these things sooner, but making plans had felt too real. He’s been carrying around the cyanide for weeks, not so much waiting to be alone with her—that would be easy— but waiting for his brain to shut off enough to go through the motions. Play card games, hang out with their friends, make drinks. Find glasses, mix together whatever he finds, add a splash of something extra. Just another ingredient.

He returns to the kitchen and gags once again upon seeing her corpse on the tile. He steps around her, snatches the small bottle of poison from the counter, and pockets it. He’s already decided to implicate himself by claiming the almond extract killed her; he doesn’t need any extra scrutiny on the contents of the drink. His own self-hatred grows into an inescapable beast clawing at his chest.

If he waits another second he’s going to combust on the spot, which is what he deserves. He sprints to Orpheus’ house and straight into his bedroom. Orpheus jumps awake at the sound of slamming doors, and it take Marcus three tries for any words to escape his lungs.

“Get up! It’s Eurydice! She needs help now!” He stumbles through his words, not needing to fake the tears streaming down his cheeks.

Orpheus, still in his clothes from the festival, falls out of bed and runs toward the clinic without a word. His eyes are wide as saucers.

Marcus returns home. Waits. Orpheus arrives with Rafe and Sam in tow, and Rafe springs into action to help her. Marcus forces himself to pretend like there’s hope. Sam looks on in shock and pity. She, too, sees that Eurydice is long gone. Orpheus is the last to approach, and Marcus notes absently that his knees will be bruised from falling beside her. Rafe sits back on his heels and shakes his head. There’s yelling, crying, pounding of walls. Some of it is probably comes from Marcus. He can’t be sure.

They hold a funeral two days later as dusk. Orpheus can barely speak, so Marcus makes arrangements for her to be buried in the cemetery outside the city. Next to Collette, another girl who shouldn’t have died. Everyone she had met in Elysium is in attendance, but no one speaks over her. Either they didn’t know her well enough to say anything, or they knew and loved her too much for words. No one even knows her real name. Orpheus carries her the whole way to the hill, despite carts being available. He lays her down on the mat of intricately woven fronds and pine needles that Kaveri and Merna dropped everything to make. The air is frigid and the wind is stinging, but Orpheus makes no effort to warm himself or anyone else.

Orpheus looks down at Eurydice one last time before dropping the first shovelful of dirt into the grave. When he finishes, his arms fall limply to his sides, and the shovel clatters to the ground. Samantha drives a torch into the earth in front of the headstone and lights it.

They all watch in silence long into the night, until the fire has burned through the torch entirely. Usually, family members and friends speak in memory of the deceased, and Orpheus plays a somber melody on his violin. Today, not even the birds sing.

Finally, Orpheus retreats from the grave, and Marcus wraps a wool blanket around him. As everyone makes their way back into the city, Gaius approaches him, obviously primed to say something, but he shoulders past the old man. There’s nothing he can say that would make Marcus forgive him or himself.

Marcus avoids Orpheus the rest of the week, unable to face his best friend’s grief until the man appears in his kitchen one night with red-rimmed eyes and sloppily tied-back hair. Marcus can’t bring himself to speak, just waits for Orpheus to announce himself.

“It isn’t right, Marcus,” he finally explains. “It doesn’t make sense that she could survive everything she has only to die from a nut allergy one room away from you. Just since she arrived here, she’s been attacked a venomous snake and people twice her size and still come out on top.”

“What are you saying?” He isn’t certain the words even come out, since it feels like wrought iron chains encircle his lungs and pull tighter with every attempted breath.

“I think the gods or the fates or something is fucking with us. She’s not really gone. I’m sure of it. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since the funeral.” Something behind his eyes is familiarly unhinged. Marcus recognizes it instantly as the same mania that causes him to fixate on his music, sometimes not sleeping for days.

It might continue for days or weeks, Marcus can’t be sure. What he is sure of is that he won’t be taking his eyes off of the man until it passes, lest he do something monumentally stupid.

Chapter Text

In the center of the courtyard stands a blindingly polished silver scale. A vibrant red tail feather rests delicately on one side; the other remains empty. To her right is a throne made of the same silver, but decorated with bleach-white bones and thorny black vines. A buck’s antlers emerge from the top of the seat like wings. The throne is so brilliant, it takes Eurydice a moment to recognize the shape of a man sitting on it. His skin in sallow and nearly translucent, his jet black hair slicked tightly against his skull. He stares out at nothing, apparently too bored to acknowledge their entrance. To Eurydice’s left is a table.

Thanatos doesn’t acknowledge the man— no, the god, she understands now— as he directs Eurydice to the table. She wants to hate him, to rage against him, but she can see how much he resents this task. He has been kind to her thus far, and something in her yearns to trust him. Maybe she just wants to have someone to trust at all.

“Is your knife sharpened?”

He gives a look of bewilderment before replying, “I’m a god. My blades are sharper than any made on earth.”

“Good.”

She ignores his curious glance and takes a deep breath to steel herself as she steps toward the table. Her eyes meet the death god’s, and she unbuttons her shirt halfway down and loosens the stay around her chest. When she lies down, Thanatos secures her wrists and ankles with leather straps. With pursed lips, he places a thicker strip between her teeth. His eyes flicker to hers, and she offers him a tight nod, not of permission exactly, but acceptance.

He leans across her body, blocking her view, and cuts swiftly and deeply into her skin. She screams into the leather and bites down so hard her teeth might shatter. Black spots dance across her vision, but when she feels the god’s hand reach into the wound, she loses consciousness entirely.

She hears Thanatos’ voice distantly, as if the sound were traveling under water, and she can’t make out any words at first. Her eyes squint open, the scene flooding back to her. Thanatos frees her limbs from their restraints. Her undergarment and shirt, now soaked with her own blood, have been corrected and rebuttoned. A long stretch of skin above her sternum stitches itself back together, leaving raw, pink flesh in its wake. Only a phantom pain remains. When one hand is free, she clutches at her chest. It doesn’t feel any different, being heartless.

Thanatos speaks softly, and only when his back is turned to the presiding god, reassuring her. “It’s over with,” and “I’m sorry,” and “You did well,” he says, in no particular order.

Eurydice doesn’t remember how to speak. She sits upright on the table and watches listlessly as Thanatos caries her heart to the center of the courtyard and places it on the scale opposite the feather.

“Let this soul be judged by the heart,” he incants.

“Let this heart be measured by the Truth,” the god returns, as if the two have repeated these words for millennia.

Thanatos releases her heart and steps away from the scale. Eurydice holds her breath. At least, she tries to hold her breath; she hasn’t consistently breathed since she died, and with her heart outside her body, the line is even fuzzier than before. The scale hovers for a moment, then her heart sinks decidedly lower than the feather, though still far from the lowest point. She’s not sure what she had expected or hoped for. There’s no denying who she is and what she’s done.

The god peers at the scale, then at her, making eye contact for the first time. “The gollum can have you.”

Thanatos’ eyes flash at that, his posture stiffening. “King Hades, are you sure? She could be useful serving in the palace.”

“My sentence is final, Thanatos. We can discuss her uses privately.”

His words carry a palpable finality, and Hades raises an eyebrow, daring him to challenge her again. Thanatos nods his begrudging acceptance, and Hades waves a hand to dismiss them.

They exit the courtyard through a gate opposite the throne. Eurydice is still unsteady on her feet, and Thanatos supports her wordlessly with one arm. Everything is happening so fast, she can’t even begin to comprehend it all, but one thing gnaws at her.

“Why did you speak for me? Why are you helping me?”

Her voice is strong, hard— in contrast to the rest of her right now. Despite being battered, maimed, nearly drowned, and literally dead, she refuses to appear weak. And she can tell there’s something the god isn’t saying.

He gives her a long, sad look. “How do you know I don’t try to help everyone?”

“Do you?”

“No,” he admits.

They walk in silence for a while, and Eurydice takes in their surroundings. Gray moonlight illuminates the landscape just enough to be visible but not clear. The palace rests on the edge of a plateau, with hundreds of stairs crisscrossing the cliffside. Ahead is a range of jagged, snow-tipped mountains. To their right, a swampy delta opens into a tideless sea. The whole place is eerily motionless. No birds chirp and flutter overhead. No wind rustles the sparse trees or cracks against the cliffside. Everywhere she looks is plagued with rot. It’s the facade of an ecosystem, the ghost of Earth.

“Does everyone get a personal escort through hell too?”

“Gods, just take the help. Do you have to question everything?”

“Yes. Who is the gollum?”

Thanatos rolls his eyes, but his mouth doesn’t quite reach a smile. She still leans on his arm, though she regained her footing not long after they departed the palace. It feels good to prickle him a bit, like she’s taking something back after he took her heart.

“Not who, but what. It’s a human-clay hybrid creature. It’s your garden variety corporeal torture: beating, lashing, cutting, and the like. It’s not very creative.”

“Where would I be going if I had stolen less food and killed fewer people?”

“I really couldn’t say. Hundreds of demons agree to let Hades and Persephone rule the underworld, as long as they each get their cut of the souls that complete the trials. It’s quite political.”

“And where does the gollum fall on the torture scale? One through ten.”

“Perhaps an seven.” Any hint of amusement is gone from his face. “The pain will be terrible, but it will offer you a way out. Don’t take it.”

They reach the bottom of the stairs as he speaks, and he turns to face her, gripping her arms earnestly. His black eyes are unreadable, but the urgency in his tone unsettles her. Even if she couldn’t see his scowl, she would hear it in his voice. They walk another long stretch without speaking. Surrounding the stone path are dusty, dried-out shrubs and gnarled mushrooms. They turn at a fork in the road toward the end of the mountain range, just before the landscape turns swampy.

“How do people usually feel without their hearts?”

He frowns. “Some people say they feel empty. Some feel despair ripping through them from the inside out. They’re usually a lot more scared of me.” He gives her an accusatory sideways glance.

She’s uncharacteristically quiet for the next few minutes before, he finally asks, “How do you feel?”

She fixes her gaze at the mountaintop before them. “The same.”

He looks at her then, lips parted and eyes slightly widened, and emotion— she can’t decide which one— radiating from him in ripples. He looks away just as quickly, his lips pursed together. They walk in a more comfortable silence this time.

When they finally approach the base of the mountain, she notices a handful of caves lining the steep rocks. Thanatos leads her to one’s mouth, and she can make out the outline of something pacing in the shadows beyond the entrance. Her stomach twists itself into knots.

He stops them several paces away from the entrance and looks her up and down. She’s sure he notices the ghost of a tremble in her jaw and stiffness in her posture. They stand there for a few seconds, evaluating each other. She doesn’t want him to go. He’s been kind and helpful for however long it’s been since she died; even then, the presence of his disembodied form brought her more comfort than she’d like to admit. He’s been by her side, guiding her through every step into the underworld. She’s not ready to be alone again.

She can’t help but feel Thanatos is leaving a lot unsaid. His face is guarded as ever, but a small twitch in his hand toward her gives away his uncertainty. Fuck it, she decides and pulls him into a tight embrace. She’s never been much of a hugger, but if there’s ever a time she needs one, it’s now. She hopes Thanatos doesn’t mind. He stiffens at first but recovers quickly and places his hands lightly on her back. Then he inhales deeply, breathing her in, and holds her tighter.

Without breaking their embrace, he speaks quietly and quickly into her ear, “This is where we say goodbye, Eurydice. I can’t say anything more; you already know too much. I just need you to trust me. Wait it out.”

She locks her arms tighter around his neck, and she’s surprised to notice that he smells like a forest after rain. His words are lost on her; she can’t focus on them with the image of that pacing shadowy figure fresh in her mind. She wishes the moment would never end.

But it does. She lets the god untangle himself from her arms, even though the emptiness could swallow her whole. She swallows once, twice.

“Say something annoying.”

Thanatos smiles weakly. “Give ‘em hell?”

“Piss off.”

There’s no bite to her words, but the familiarity eases her mind just enough to be able to turn away from him. She doesn’t look back.

Her steps don’t falter as she closes the distance between herself and the creature awaiting her. She rolls her shoulders back and schools her face into neutrality. Her armor is thick, and she builds it up around herself methodically. Soon, the light from the cave entrance begins to fade and the creature launches itself at her from the darkness. Her resolve doesn’t waver. She will not be broken, no matter how much she deserves to be.

Chapter Text

Eurydice can’t distinguish all of the gollum’s features in the low light, a fact for which she’s grateful. What she can see are two bulbous, oversized eyes covered by milky blue cataracts, broken teeth surrounded by blackened gums, and a hand digging into her elbow with bloody, exposed bones. It looms over her, perhaps eight feet tall, but hunches down to sniff her hair, her armpits, between her legs. She tries to wriggle away in disgust, but there is nowhere to go. A cold, slimy wall presses against her back.

“Mhmm… You’re a nasty one, aren’t you?” the figure rasps, “Yesss, you’ll do nicely once you’re broken.”

She does her best not to react, and the gollum yanks hard on her arm, nearly pulling it from the socket. She stumbles blindly through the ever-darkening tunnels as the demon drags her behind it. They come to a halt after curves, turns, and stairs that she can’t keep track of. The shrill screeching of rusty hinges fills the air, and Eurydice cringes at the earsplitting sound. In the next moment, she’s being snatched forward by her hair, her spine twisting painfully.

“When I come back, I’m going to pull out your fingernails, yesss,” it informs her gleefully, “Then, I’m going to bleed you dry and make you bathe in it.”

With a final shove, she falls to the floor, her skull cracking against the stone. The door closes, and a heavy click indicates the latch locking behind the gollum. Bile riles in her throat at it’s threats, but her mind is already drifting away. She knows how to play this game. If she had allowed her pain to rule her, she would have wound up in this dank cell at least a decade ago.

No, she will not let herself be broken. The gollum may know how to inflict physical pain, but it obviously doesn’t understand the human spirit. People can live every day hungry, dehydrated, and oppressed and still have the strength to sing and dance and laugh. Eurydice’s life had been a twenty-some-year training program on how to go on when everything hurts. How to minimize damage.

She smiles to herself and says, “Do your worst, bitch,” though she knows the thing is out of earshot.

The gollum does, however, do its worst when it returns. Eurydice doesn’t make a sound, her mind fully separated from her body. And when the thing grows bored, it leaves her at the mercy of her thoughts and the cold stone floor. It tells her again what manner of punishment she can expect to come next. The cycle continues dozens— then hundreds— of times.

Tonight, the gollum appears, carrying a torch for the first time, and offers her clemency if she agrees to join him in punishing others. When she spits in its eye, it uncovers a jagged stone knife and presses it slowly into her abdomen, dragging downward inch by inch until the gash reaches her pelvis. Blood rushes in her ears, and stars dance across her vision as she breathes in broken gasps. Pains sears through her in a way she’s never even contemplated. The acrid smell of blood and burning flesh suffocates her. The gollum has wedged its lit torch into the wound. She barely has time to process that fact before she falls into oblivious unconsciousness.

The request comes again the next time, and she refuses once again. She now sports a dozen shallow cuts and many large bruises all over her body that she knows will disappear the moment her attention drifts away from them. She runs her fingers through her hair, detangling it as best she can, and hums Isaac’s lullaby until her eyes droop closed and there are no more knots to be found. It’s a sick routine: the gollum commanding her to take part in the eternal punishment of others on pain of pain, Eurydice refusing and shielding her mind from the ensuing torture.

The last time she was locked up like this was right after Dottie and Isaac died. She had been careless, too used to people watching her back, and too stuck in her own head to see the signs. Maybe part of her thought she deserved it. They came for her while she was washing out her dirty laundry in a tributary. Her small body didn’t stand a chance against the three men who swept her away and into a small boat. She struggled against the ropes binding her, but she hadn’t yet known how to escape them. They dragged her aboard a bigger ship on the edge of the Mississippi River, where she was chained to the deck along with five other girls— some her age and some a bit older, maybe seventeen or eighteen.

Some of the other girls chatted in low voices when their captors were out of earshot, but fear paralyzed Eurydice into silence. Their voices were garbled nonsense to her ears. After nightfall, when fewer guards paced around them with swords, she finally worked up the courage to ask where they were being taken.

“I heard them mention High Memphis,” One of the older girls responded sourly.

The first thing High Memphis is known for is its namesake unique construction. Buildings are set atop other hollowed-out buildings, bridges and ladders of wood and rope connecting them in the air. The river floods the lower level of the city when there’s heavy rain, which is all the time. Rather than abandoning the city and moving eastward, they built a whole new Memphis on the scaffolding of the old. It’s a brutal place to live. If rumors are true, the babies that won’t be able to climb on their own are dropped into the waters at the next flood.

The second thing is its brothels. It’s determination to contend with the river makes it one of the few remaining stops on the Mississippi. Nearly everyone traveling the river stops there, and High Memphis has made it easy to stay awhile. There’s an establishment on nearly every block of the west side. The slavers probably already have buyers arranged for each of the girls. The name brings vomit to the back of Eurydice’s throat, but she forces it down. She can’t afford to waste any food. She doesn’t ask anymore questions. Just stares into the water hoping it will swallow her up before they arrive.

Her wish came true that morning. It started as a hot summer rain, relieving the stagnant humidity that had been simmering for days. Then the winds and the lightning picked up in a violent flare. The boat heaved and rocked against rapidly rising water level, edging too close to the riverbank. Lightning stuck a tall oak tree whose roots were barely clinging to the sediment, and it fell, colliding with the center of the ship. Planks snapped and people screamed. The searing trunk had landed just a few feet from Eurydice and the other girls, and their chains were yanked free from the deck. A surge of water from upstream inundated the ship, sending Eurydice toppling into the current.

She struggled to stay above water amidst the storm, her wrists still awkwardly bound. A wave forced her under, and the chains got caught around something. She panicked, yanking and pulling as hard as she could but unable to dislodge them.

The next thing she knew, she was waking up, coughing and sputtering, on a silty shore. The sun was up, and her lips were dry and cracked. One of the girls her age and one slaver were already sitting up, watching her.

“I wasn’t sure you’d wake up,” the man said.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” she muttered to herself, rasping through every word.

“What was that?” he asked gleefully. He had definitely heard her.

“Who are you?” She was too tired and weary to be fearful, a dangerous recipe.

“Oh, it don’t matter who I am,” he sighed, “what matters is you’re not going to High Memphis.” Eurydice’s eyes flicked to the other girl but she looks more like a frightened mouse than a person. “No,” he continued, “We’re on the wrong side of the river now. I’m taking y’all to Sunnyrise. Cockfights and cat fights. They don’t pay like the brothels but it’s still a pretty penny.”

It took them a few days to get there, and Eurydice and the girl— she wouldn’t say her name— barely spoke more than a few words the time. The man liked the sound of his own voice and chattered the whole trip, much to Eurydice’s annoyance. When they arrived, the man dumped them both into a fighting pit with one other man spectating and twirling a bow on the ground.

“Fight,” the other man commanded them. When they looked at each other and back at him, disoriented, he notched an arrow. “Fight or I’ll pick one of you to shoot.”

Eurydice didn’t waste any more time, lunging clumsily at the other girl, who only shrieked and cowered as she pinned her down. Eurydice looked up at the men, unsure of how to fight someone who isn’t fighting back.

The second man rolled his eyes. “Fine. Good enough.” He motioned for them to get up, and not one second after the girl was on her feet, an arrow was through her chest. “Weakness won’t be tolerated,” he said, looking down at the girl, bored. “The more you win, the better off you’ll be.”

And with a simple handshake between the men, Eurydice was owned. She followed the man— Archer. He introduced himself tersely as he directed her down a hall lined with cells containing girls and women painted with bruises and gaudy stage makeup. After Archer left, the heavy wooden door latched tight, a woman in the cell across hers welcomed her to The Lion’s Den.

“How old are you?” she asked, and when Eurydice shrugged, said, “Well, you look young. You’ll probably be fighting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They call it ‘Kids Eat Free.’”

————————————————————————————————————————

She sometimes hears distant cries echoing through the caverns, so she takes to singing the lullaby out loud, along with anything else she remembers. If they bring comfort to her, she figures, maybe they can do the same for the other poor souls alongside her. Some part of her believes this action is her real penance. She hurt so many people in so many ways while she was alive, the best she can do now is try to soothe people’s suffering instead of causing it. She knows that someday she’ll forget all the words to her songs and what the sun looked like setting over the mountains and the faces of everyone she ever loved. Maybe then she’ll give in to the gollum’s demands, whether out of eternal boredom or a need to feel anything at all. But for now and as long as she can manage, the song continues.

She doesn’t sleep aside from fainting when it’s too much to bear, but each time she wakes up, she scratches a tally mark into the wall with a loose stone. When she looks again, the wall is smooth. She marks it anyway. Another restless night passes by, and the gollum returns. The same demand, the same refusal, the same beating.

Just when Eurydice slumps to the ground, the sight of that nameless girl with an arrow through her chest lingering behind her eyes, the sweet singing of music bounces around the cave and into her ears. She’s startled to realize it’s not her own humming as she returns to her body. It’s not another prisoner, or even her own mind deluding her. It’s a violin. It’s his violin.

Realization slams through her harder than anything the gollum has to offer. Pieces fall into place like a chipped and dusty mosaic, and her brain cannot keep pace with what her heart knows to be true. Orpheus is here. Orpheus is here. Orpheus is here, again.

He’s here for her, and for the first time in her life or death, she understands what she needs to do; she has seen this play before, and she knows how it ends. Eurydice doesn’t spare the gollum a single glance as she hauls her aching body off the stone floor. It hears the music too, and it knows what that melody means. It doesn’t stop her when she pushes open the rusted gate. She follows the faint light and the soft, enthralling music out of the caves and begins the ascent to Hades’ palace.

She seethes and simmers for the entirety of the trek. After so long severing herself from any feeling at all, anger is the only one she can manage to surface. She chastises herself for not paying more attention. What are the odds of a Eurydice stumbling into the city of an Orpheus with all the mythological cannon powers? She should have known the moment she laid eyes on him and felt the magnetism of an inescapably linked fate. She should have turned around and hauled ass to the great city of Anywhere Else like she’d done a hundred times before.

When she’s finished kicking herself, she starts kicking whatever puppeteer is pulling the strings. Because someone is behind it. Their story is as old as time. How many times have they rerun the same story? Thanatos knew her, and on some level, she knew Thanatos the moment she saw him. She reaches into her memory to find his reassuring words before her judgment. Wait it out. Bastard.

She snakes her way up the endless stairs, ignoring her burning thighs and focusing on the music pouring from the palace gates. When she makes it to the top of the cliff, she’s pulled magnetically through the halls toward the sound’s origin. Her steps slow down as she considers the scene she’s about to walk into, but she clings to her anger like an addict and trudges onward.

Finally, she’s faced with a set of tall double doors already open. Behind them lies a throne room, much grander than the courtyard where Hades had assigned her to the gollum. The ceiling is made of a cloudy glass, and the floor is solid, unmarred obsidian. Golden, jewel-encrusted scones line the walls. Twenty or so people— though many of them don’t appear human— stand on either side of the room, forming an aisle through the center. On the back wall sit Hades and a goddess who must be Persephone on matching golden thrones.

Although Eurydice has made her entrance, all eyes are focused on one man standing before the thrones, playing his violin like it’s an extension of himself. Orpheus is radiant as ever, like he’s emitting his own light to combat the shadowy, fire-lit room. For a moment, the sight of him reduces her fury to an afterthought. Seeing him is like the sun’s rays on her face on a perfect summer day. As if he can sense her presence behind him, he pivots slowly and meets her gaze unerringly. Without breaking eye contact, he brings the chord to a close, finishing his performance.

Hades claps once, and the room’s attention shifts to him, breaking the reverie that Eurydice had found herself in. In the edges of her vision, the ceiling seems to shift in a distinct footprint pattern. Her anger returns, bubbling beneath the surface and increasing in pressure. It would appear they have a secret audience more worthy of privacy.

“State your business,” the Hades commands with both authority and boredom.

“I’m here for Eurydice,” he states plainly, then looks to her, “I’m here to take you home.”

The distorted and shapeless figures above stir in anticipation; she supposes they’re on the edges of their seats, so close to the grand finale. From his perch, Hades regards the couple with something like pity. No— disappointment. Persephone’s expression is one of stone— cold, unbreakable, and lifeless. If it weren’t for the vibrant colors she drapes herself in, Eurydice may have mistaken her for an ancient marble sculpture from the history books. For her part, Eurydice meets Hades’ gaze but doesn’t speak and doesn’t approach.

With a sigh, Hades nods. “I’m sure we can make a deal. Everyone loves a love story, right?”

Orpheus’ shoulders sag in relief at his words, but Eurydice’s stomach twists into a knot. It won’t matter. She knows it won’t. At least the Orpheus from the stories had the chance of survival. Some say when he turns to see Eurydice, and she falls back into hell, he’s able to go home, grieving but unharmed. That is the best she can hope for now.

Everything comes with a cost. The cost of her life is suffering for herself and everyone she encounters. The cost of her freedom is a test that Orpheus cannot pass. The cost of her future is Orpheus. She knows what she has to do.

“No,” she calls out, strong and clear, “I am not leaving the Underworld. I am dead, and I choose to remain dead.”

Orpheus’ jaw drops and his face drains of all color as he digests her words. No one has ever looked so betrayed. She can’t bring herself to look at him fully, honing her focus only on Hades and Persephone. She grips her fingers together tightly to keep them from shaking.

Hades furrows his brow and squints at her as if he doesn’t have the perfect vision of a god. “You… don’t want to go home? You’re giving up your only chance to be with your lover?”

“Correct, Your Majesty.” She takes advantage of a fleeting moment of courage and looks to Orpheus, then up at the spectators, “We all know I’m never going home. Let’s cut to the chase. I’m guessing whoever is watching up there gets a kick out of recreating the greatest hits of Ancient Greece? Well, I’m done performing. I’m not your goddamn reality show.”

There is an indistinct rumbling in the air, an aura of dissatisfaction and contempt pressing into her from all directions. Hades and Persephone mutter to each other, but she pays them no mind. “What are you going to do about it?” she mocks upward into the void, “Kill me? I’m already fucking dead!”

This seems to snap Orpheus out of his shock, and he grabs her shoulders. “What the hell are you doing? I’m trying to save you!”

“I cannot be saved.” She rests her dusty palm against his cheek and urges him, “You should go now, while you have the chance.”

“I’m not leaving you here to die! I love you!”

“I know you do,” she soothes with a sad smile, “There’s more love in your heart than you know what to do with, but I am already dead, Orpheus. You need to go home.”

His face bounces between confusion and distress, but she continues gently, “I’ll keep their attention. You run. Go, now!”

She pushes him through the increasingly restless crowd and stirs up as much of a ruckus as she can, hoping against hope that he can make it out of this alive. When she can’t see him anymore, she pushes to the exit, yelling, “I’ll be back in my cave, if anyone needs me!” She turns her focus to Hades and Persephone, who for their parts look utterly baffled, and asks, “Unless you have a problem with that?”

The two gods look at each other to confer. Persephone shrugs, and Hades rolls his eyes. She takes that as an assent. She scans the throne room one last time for Orpheus, disguising her search by raising both middle fingers at the sky and turning in a quick circle. She doesn’t see him anywhere. With a huff, she struts out of the room and back down the many, many stairs.

She keeps her eyes cast to the ground, her heart pounding with adrenaline. A glint in the brambles catches her attention, and she reaches down to discover a slender knife with a smooth obsidian handle. She tucks the knife into her sleeve, and treads on.

When she reaches the caves, she runs her fingers along the slimy walls to find her way back to her cell. The gollum snores heavily on the stone floor where she left it but awakens at her approach. She still struggles to read the expressions on its inhuman face, but she think she’s surprised it. Before it can attack, she takes two long strides forward and drives the knife into the creature’s heart. Black goo and saliva spurt out of its chest and mouth respectively and onto her face. Her tormentor then dissolves into steam and dust. She slides her back down the cave’s cold wall and sings a song.

Chapter Text

She tries unsuccessfully to fall asleep. Instead, she stares blankly at the moldy patterns on the wall. Orpheus came for her, and she turned him away. It hardly seems real. Except, that’s what she’s always done, isn’t it? Run away.

It’s different this time, though. She broke the cycle, and it feels good to break things. She’d rather the whole world turn upside down than watch someone fail her again. She knows Orpheus loves her— she could feel that those words weren’t just desperation— but love isn’t enough to save her. And she can’t honestly say she loves him back. Not like that. How could she? She knew him for a few months, and she has a lifetime of walls around herself. But she cares enough to want to save him. From her, or from himself.

Footsteps echoing faintly between the stone walls shake her from her thoughts. Thanatos materializes at the cave’s entrance, and the emptiness chasming inside her recedes. He takes in the ash still piled on the floor and the black substance dotted on her face.

“I see you found my knife.”

Her mouth twists into a grin. “It seemed a shame to let it go to waste.”

“The queen has requested your presence.”

Eurydice snaps her head to face him and asks sharply, “What does she want with me?”

“I can’t say for certain,” he warns, “but it’s not uncommon for Persephone to recruit her favorites to the household staff. You did put on quite the show. And now that you’re no longer in service to anyone else…” He raises an eyebrow pointedly at the gollum’s remains and lets his sentence hang.

Her head falls back against the wall, eyes closed, and she takes a long, meditative breath. Then, against her will, a laugh bubbles out of her. Once again she’s played right into their hands.

She turns her head to Thanatos, who looks mildly concerned. “What the actual fuck did I just do?”

He starts to say something but snaps his mouth shut at the last second. She laughs again, this time a persistent giggle, teetering on the edge of crying. Every time she catches her breath, she sees Thanatos’ incredulous expression and starts all over again. He watches her with caution, like she’s a wild animal. At least her coping mechanisms aren’t predestined.

Eventually, she pats the floor for him to sit by her, then recoils at the viscous slime on the ground and wipes it off on her pants. He lowers himself to the floor.

“Ask me three questions. I’ll answer them if I can.”

She rolls her eyes. “What are you, a genie? I have a thousand questions.”

“I know. But let’s start with three.” He smiles coyly, and she sighs in resignation.

“Fine. How long have I been down here?”

His eyebrows scrunch together, and his mouth twists to the side in thought. “Time is different here. Slower. Days and nights are less distinct than they are on Earth. Since the moment of your death, it’s been maybe three months here. On Earth, it’s been one week.”

“Did Orpheus escape?”

“Yes.”

“How many times?” She searches his eyes for any confusion, but, fortunately or unfortunately, he knows exactly what she means.

“Six,” he answers gravely, the words deflating him. “The first was in the old days of Greece, like the story goes. Then every time the gods wanted some entertainment, they would pluck your soul out of the underworld and into a mother, bless a new child with Orpheus’ power, and send you off into the world.”

Eurydice has suspended her disbelief enough to ignore the insanity of it, like she’s listening to a ghost story around a campfire and not her own anthology. She had mostly guessed correctly. What confuses her now is that they never recycled Orpheus’ soul in the same way as hers. She had thought they were at least in this together.

Thanatos seems to read her thoughts because he continues without prompting, “Every time, Orpheus fails to save you, and every time, it wrecks him. His soul dissolves into universal energy within a month.”

She stares blankly at the cave wall, her head nodding slowly and without emotion. Sure, why not? She had asked her three questions in quick succession because refuses to give herself time to process the answers right now. Pushing up from the floor, she sets her jaw in determination and jerks her chin toward the cell door.

“Best not to keep the queen waiting.”

He studies her cautiously, as if bracing himself for a bigger reaction. When she raises an eyebrow in challenge, he shrugs and joins her by the door. They walk shoulder to shoulder through the narrow tunnels.

Even after escaping not long ago— only a day?— she’s relieved to see the light again after so long trapped in the caves. In truth, she feels a bit ridiculous for returning to the gollum at all. It’s just that she hadn’t known where else to go. They stop at the base of the cliffside, and Eurydice gazes at the endless stairs once again.

“I just climbed this,” she sighs, “Is there really no better way to get to the palace?”

He grins fully for the first time, showing his perfect teeth. Before she understands what’s happening, he takes her hand, and everything around them melts into shadows. Or perhaps they are the ones dissolving away.

In the next moment, they are in a bedchamber. It’s small, containing only a twin-sized bed and a wardrobe, but it’s tidy and warm.

“This is your room from now on. I’ll give you the tour after we see Persephone, but for now, I’ll just show you to the baths. You can’t appear before the queen looking like that.”

She hasn’t paid any mind to her appearance since her death; the thought hadn’t even occurred to her. Her clothes are in tatters thanks to the gollum’s knives, torches, and beatings. Her skin is coated with grime and dried blood, and her hair may never recover. She looks less human than Thanatos, and his eyes are fully black. She takes the risk of sniffing herself and nearly gags.

“There’s a robe for you in the wardrobe,” he says, amused.

She finds it on a hook inside the cabinet door and peels out of her clothes, some of them sticking to her skin with dried blood. Thanatos turns his back to her as she changes into the robe. It’s silky smooth, and surely more valuable than anything she’s ever laid eyes on. He shows her the way to short set of stairs covered at the bottom by a thick velvet curtain. As the god pushes the curtain aside, and steam seeps out. The aroma of vanilla and warm spices draws her into the room eagerly, and Thanatos follows behind her. Inside is a long pool surrounded by benches and lounging chairs. Perhaps a dozen women and creatures resembling women are scattered throughout the stone chamber, some soaking in the water and others combing their hair, tending to their toenails, or simply relaxing in the soothing environment.

Behind her, Thanatos motions for a woman nearby to join them.

“This is Ivy. Ivy, this is Eurydice. Would you please help her clean up? She’s to meet with Queen Persephone after this.”

“Of course,” she agrees with a small curtsy.

Thanatos nods his farewell, and something in Eurydice twinges to be left alone in this new place. She doesn’t have time to dwell on it, however, because Ivy whisks her away and sits her down at a vanity facing away from the mirror. She retrieves a bucket of soapy water and muslin cloth and sets them on the table. Her hands are firm but gentle as she removes Eurydice’s robe and starts to wipe the filth from her face. She doesn’t protest; maybe there’s a calming magic in the baths, or maybe it just feels nice to be taken care of.

The girl is clearly not human, with pale green skin and vines for hair that brush the floor, but Eurydice is somehow unbothered. After experiencing the gollum and the harpies, Ivy is a welcome sight. There are many stories about nymphs and dryads and satyrs, but Eurydice has never considered what they might look like.

Ivy hums softly while scrubbing away the blood, and when she reaches Eurydice’s feet, she finally speaks. “I saw what you did yesterday.” Her hands still as she lifts here eyes to meet Eurydice’s. “It was brave. And very foolish.”

Her cheeks redden at the knowledge that others had seen her outburst. There had been a room full of people, but they hadn’t mattered to her in the moment. “I was angry. I didn’t know what to do. I knew I couldn’t win, but they could still lose.”

“It’s talk like that that will get you chopped into bits.”

Satisfied that she won’t immediately sully the water, she directs Eurydice to a bathtub. The water is perfectly hot, and she wants nothing more than to sink in and stay here forever. Ivy makes quick work of washing her hair and combing some kind of cream through it, making curls appear where she’s only ever managed loose, frizzy waves. By the time Eurydice returns to her room with clean skin and a fresh, fluffy robe, she feels like a different person entirely.

Opening the wardrobe again, she takes a closer looks at its contents and is surprised to find it full of all sorts of things that look exactly her size. She chooses a simple white dress with finely embroidered trim that reminds her of Merna. It’s one of the more formal options, fit for an audience with the queen.

Just as she finishes lacing her boots, there’s a soft knock at the door.

“Come in,” she calls, and Thanatos enters.

“Are you ready?”

She nods in agreement and walks with him down another hall, trying to pay attention to the route they take.

“Any advice?” she inquires dryly, “I’ve never spoken to a goddess queen before.”

He squeezes her arm. “Don’t let her rattle you. She’ll look for any sign of weakness. Don’t show her one. Try not to be overtly disrespectful, though.”

She appreciates the pragmatism. It wasn’t so long ago that she asked Marcus the same thing about Orpheus and was told to be herself. This is much more effective at calming her nerves.

Soon enough, they’re back in the throne room, but the throne next to Persephone now sits empty, and no courtiers fill the hall. The goddess looks just as terrifying and magnificent as first time Eurydice saw her. She looks down her nose as Eurydice with mild interest.

Eurydice lowers her head and curtsies deeply.

“Rise.” She does. “You surprise me again. I thought you would be hideous after seeing you yesterday.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Do you have anything to say for yourself? You caused us a lot of trouble going off-script. The pantheon was furious.”

“That was the intended outcome, Your Majesty.”

Persephone cracks a smile then, so small she almost misses it.

“I understand the gollum is no longer able to serve as your lord. A pity. You will carry out the remainder of your sentence here as my maid until I decide what to do with you.”

“It is an honor to serve you, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, it is. Be at my chambers at dawn each day, and Bryony will give you instructions. Dismissed.”

She curtsies again and sees Thanatos bow from the corner of her eye. He escorts her back to her room, closing the door behind him.

“You did well. Here,” he says, retrieving something from his pocket and offering it to her. “It’s a timepiece. Like I said, time is different here. This will help you keep track.”

From the outside, it looks like a regular pocket watch, fancy and delicately molded but otherwise ordinary. He clicks it open to reveal a clock face with only four markings: dawn, midday, dusk, and midnight. At this moment, the hand hovers near dusk. Tiny illustrations of stars and moons outline the circle.

“Thank you.”

He moves to leave, but she stops him. “Wait. I want three more questions.”

A small, exasperated smile crosses his lips, and he nods his agreement.

“What I did— refusing to leave, killing the gollum— is it all part of the plan?”

He shakes his head slowly and leans back against the doorway. “No. This situation has never happened before. You always go with him.”

“Did it ever work?” She kicks herself for wasting a question on something that doesn’t really matter anymore, but her curiosity moves faster than logic.

“No.”

This gives her more relief than she’ll ever admit. She was right to stay. As much as she hated to turn Orpheus away, it had been the better choice. For now, at least.

“Why are you helping me? It’s not that I don’t appreciate it, but I can’t believe that you babysit everyone like this.”

His expression becomes guarded suddenly. He considers his words carefully. Too carefully. “A long time ago, I made a promise to someone.”

Chapter Text

Once Eurydice is alone, she sinks onto the bed and fixes her eyes on the closed door. All the information that she refused to process and the events of the past day that she’s powered through come bubbling to the surface, slowly at first, and then crashing over her. She is well and truly dead. Alone. Orpheus is safe, but she will never see him again. Or Sam or Marcus or Rafael.

There were lots of other presumably dead souls in the baths. Is she safe here? She’s sent many people to an early grave. Can they find her? Hurt her? She can only hope that she never recognizes a face here. Better to be alone than to have a target on her back.

But some of the gods know her by name, which is never a good thing. Gods only recognize mortals as heroes or villains. Odysseus or Prometheus. Either way, she knows she’s fucked unless she can keep a low enough profile that they forget she exists. Part of her doesn’t want them to forget, though. The same part that raged at the false ceiling of the throne room, it has a need to confront them. To show them the damage they’ve caused. To self-destruct just to spite them.

She’s been coerced into broadcasting six lifetimes to any gods feeling bored, and she only remembers one. The one that was cut short. The one where she is too cynical. The one without enough love for Orpheus to believe that love would be enough.

Eventually, the timepiece’s hand creeps closer to dawn, and she breaks out of her reverie. When she starts down the hallway, however, she realizes she doesn’t know where Persephone’s chambers are. She contemplates knocking on doors until she finds someone to help, but she’s distracted by a petite figure rounding the corner.

It’s a little girl, or perhaps the ghost of one. She is clearly human, unlike the nature spirits and creatures that roam the halls, but everything about her is insubstantial. Her wide brown eyes are sunken and unfocused, and her skin is almost gray. A simple blue dress covers her, making her look even more anemic.

“Hello,” Eurydice says cautiously, like she’s approaching a wild animal. The girl’s eyes drift over her but her slow pace doesn’t change. “Can you show me where the queen’s chambers are?”

The girl nods lightly and takes Eurydice’s hand. She’s a bit surprised when the girl’s fingers don’t pass right through her.

“What’s your name?”

She lowers her head slowly and points to her dress, smiling when Eurydice guesses, “Blue?”

They walk together until they arrive at a large set of double doors, carved from dark wood and painted with gold and silver. Before Blue can knock, the doors swings open, and the sprite that must be Bryony gestures for them to enter. Her skin in green like Ivy’s, but she’s only a few feet tall, with strung berries for hair. She puts them both to work polishing the unfathomable amount of silver in Persephone’s apartments, with the promise that tomorrow it will be the gold. A handful of others pop in to change the bedding, clean the floor-to-ceiling windows, and complete other tasks. Some are human spirits but most are creatures like Bryony. Persephone herself makes no appearance.

Blue’s eyes droop closed a few times, and Eurydice eventually feigns a cough to wake her back up. The girl jostles awake, smearing her rag across her face and getting polish in her mouth. She spits at the floor, and Eurydice giggles at her soured face, wiping away the offending polish with her thumb. When Blue is satisfied with her tongue-scrubbing, she gives Eurydice a poisonless glare. Her heart melts.

They finish their task as the hand of her timepiece teeters between midday and dusk and make their way back to the servants’ wing. Blue disappears into her room, and Eurydice decides to wash off the feeling of tarnish. She lowers herself into a steaming bath and relaxes immediately. She’d polish all the silver in the palace if it means a hot bath. She lingers after scrubbing herself clean with a rough sponge, soaking in the jasmine-scented steam. Eventually, she notices that women who entered the baths after her are already drying off and decides to follow suit, unsure if she’s breaking some kind of etiquette.

As promised, she and Blue polish Persephone’s gold the next day, but Eurydice is sent alone to do laundry after that. When she doesn’t have Blue’s silent but pleasant company, she hums to herself— the same songs she sang in the caves for months. At Bryony’s instruction, she goes back to the servants’ quarters at dusk or when the task is done. She’s thankful that laundry duty doesn’t mean endless vats of boiling sheets. Each day after work, she enjoys a hot bath and her own warm bed. It’s not a bad life at all, and she’s certainly had worse jobs.

One day, Bryony shows her to the kitchens where she’s to clean the wine cellar. Eurydice hadn’t realized the palace even has kitchens. She hasn’t seen any food in the Underworld, and she hasn’t felt even the smallest pang of hunger since she died. Bryony explains that the Underworld creatures like Thanatos and the lords still need to eat, but the gods eat and drink only for pleasure. The dead don’t require food, nor do they have the luxury. She bites down an argument that Thanatos is a god, not a monster like the gollum. Maybe he can be both. They walk down a small staircase at the back of the kitchens, and Bryony pulls open the heavy door. A cool air escapes from inside the cellar, and the torches light themselves as Eurydice crosses the threshold. Being outside the bounds of mortal reality has it’s perks, even if she has to be dead to experience them.

“Are there dusters and brooms somewhere?”

Bryony gives her a strange look but points to a small closet at the back of the cellar. She shrugs and goes to retrieve the supplies. When she turns back toward the door, the nymph is gone. Puzzled, Eurydice turns her attention to dusting the shelves, bottles, and barrels. Bryony is kind enough, though a bit distant. She focuses on work and doesn’t ask questions, which Eurydice respects. Leaving without a word is a bit out of character, though. Maybe the dust disagrees with her.

When the cellar is spotless, and it’s only just after noon, curiosity gets the best of her. She grabs a small tin cup and dislodges the stopper from a barrel. Dark red wine splashes into the cup, and she quickly replaces the stopper. Taking such a large gulp proves to be a critical error. All her curiosities are instantly satisfied in the worst possible ways. Will Underworld wine taste like mortal wine? Gods, no. What is it made of? (What grows in hell?)? She no longer wants to know. If the gods drink it, it must be amazing, right? Absolutely not.

She scrubs her tongue furiously with her sleeve to no avail and resolves to brush her teeth thoroughly when she goes to the bath house. However, her plans to go straight there are quickly compromised by the rush of drunkenness that overtakes her. She makes a face at the cup still in her hand and giggles as she hides the evidence behind a row of barrels.

Sneaking around the edges of the kitchen, she bumps right into Blue, who never seems to be far from her. The girl startles and shows a rare delighted smile when she realizes Eurydice’s state. She takes Eurydice’s hand and darts through the kitchen, pausing pausing every so often to stake out their next move. Once Blue has successfully navigated through the bustling kitchen without being noticed, she abruptly disappears. Eurydice isn’t able to track the movement with her addled eyes.

Eurydice leans against the wall as she tries in vain to retrace her and Bryony’s earlier steps, but it’s still too new. After walking in either the wrong direction or a complete circle, she gives up and sinks to the floor of a tucked-away alcove. A few of the tiles in the corner are cracked in a spiderweb pattern, which is inexplicably fascinating to her.

Footsteps approach, and she tucks her knees fiercely to her chest, as if she could shrink enough to render her invisible. The sound is distorted— by the chamber’s echo, she’s sure, not by the wine— and she expected a full regimen of heavy-footed soldiers to surround her at any moment. She squeezes her eyes shut and physically braces for the impact of discovery.

“Eurydice,” a low voice calls out.

Her eyes pinch tighter, and her shoulder flinch.

“Eurydice,” the voice says again, and she peeks one eye open.

Thanatos stands before her, his lips pursed in a puzzlement. She blinks a few times to confirm that it’s him before grinning sheepishly and accepting his outstretched hand.

“What happened?” he asks once she’s steady on her feet, “Blue said she found you out of your mind in the kitchens.”

“That little snitch,” she mutters. “I’m not out of my mind. I’m just drunk, and I believe she could see that perfectly well.”

At that, Thanatos laughs, gleefully and wholeheartedly. She narrows her eyes in irritation, though she can’t deny that the sound is music to her inebriated ears.

“You’re drunk? Can you walk on your own?” he asks.

“Of course I can,” she says primly, “I just don’t know where I’m going.”

To accentuate her point, she pushes past him into the corridor. That’s what she attempts, anyway. Unfortunately for her, she instead fully crashes into Thanatos, who is more solid than she expects, and ricochets into the wall, where she struggles to stay upright. This time Thanatos only smiles, and in one movement too quick for Eurydice to track, he grabs below her hips and swings her over his shoulder.

“Hey!”

Several jostled minutes later, she recognizes the staircase leading to the servants’ wing, then hears the telltale creak of her bedroom door. She glowers at him when he deposits her on the bed, though given his barely tempered glee, she must look rather pathetic.

“Are you going to explain?”

She huffs. “I told you. I’m drunk.”

“On what? Servants don’t eat or drink.”

“Bryony had me cleaning up the wine cellar, and I drank some.” She mumbles the last part almost inaudibly.

“What was that?” He’s having too much fun.

“I drank wine from the cellar!” she proclaims, “In my everlasting pursuit of scientific inquiry and undying thirst for knowledge, I decided godly wine must be studied.”

She gestures wildly to defend her point, and Thanatos no longer bothers to hide his amusement. “How much?”

She sighs wistfully. “A few sips. One large gulp. Whatever you want to call it.”

“And what were your findings? I admit I never saw you as an academic.”

“Disgusting,” she says matter-of-fact, “Truly the worst thing I’ve ever put in my mouth, and that’s saying something.” He laughs. She laughs too. All of a sudden they’re both hunched over, grasping at their sides, and unable to form words. Drunk off stolen wine, caught red-handed with her finger in the proverbial pie, giggling with a boy in her room— she had almost forgotten what it feels like to be human.

“And I’ll have you know,” she says, composing herself, “that I’m very academic. My parents were librarians.”

“Your parents died when you were eleven.”

That sets her off again, laughing until her sides are in stitches. “That’s old enough for book reports,” she sniffs.

“The worst of it should pass soon, but it will take a few hours for the inebriation to wear off completely,” he says once she’s settled down.

She swoons with added melodramatic sigh and hears the door click shut. Only a few minutes later, it opens again, and Blue is standing in the threshold wiggling her eyebrows wildly.

“I’m onto you.” She narrows her eyes at the girl. “You know I’m not sick. Why did you rat me out?”

Blue procures a pencil and notepad from her pocket and scribbles out her defense. Thanatos likes you.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

She rolls her eyes. He keeps an eye on you. He asks about you sometimes.

She hadn’t known that. She’d figured any interest in her had been because her story with Orpheus was unfinished. Now that she’s stowed away in the palace to be a servant for the rest of her days, what is there to look out for? Still, that doesn’t mean he likes her more than anyone else, and she tells the girl as much.

The timepiece he gave you? This time, it’s Eurydice rolling her eyes, and she starts to refute the insinuation but bites her tongue when Blue continues writing. Do you think he gives them to everyone? It’s his personal timepiece.

She examines the object. She has to admit it’s more ornate than the one she’d seen Bryony use. Blue takes her silence as a victory and flashes a smug smile.

“So what, you’re playing matchmaker with us? That can’t possibly end well, Blue.”

It’s fun, though. There’s not much fun to be had around here. Besides, you two are like my mom and dad.

“Your parents were death personified and a criminal who barely knew each other?”

I don’t remember. But I like to think so. Her expression doesn’t show the sting of remorse or pain, but Eurydice’s heart breaks for her. She resolves not to let Blue see.

“Think what you want. I’m too drunk for this conversation. And tomorrow, I’ll be too sober for this conversation.”

She giggles silently, and they spend the rest of the evening playing games on her notepad— tic-tac-toe, hangman, Mad Libs. Blue is relentless in relating the word games back to Thanatos, much to Eurydice’s feigned horror. She admits only to herself that playing into Blue’s fantasy is just a little bit fun. The girl’s joy at acting like a regular preteen girl rather than a palace maid is infectious. Before she leaves, Blue points out that she’s almost out of paper now.

“Ask your dad for more.”

Chapter Text

Some time later, Bryony informs her that Hades is hosting a banquet for the high lords of the Underworld. She explains that the lords are uneasy after the unexplained death of the gollum, who had apparently been among their caste. Bryony makes no reference to the fact that Eurydice herself is the explanation, and she hopes it’s because the nymph doesn’t know.

Eurydice will be expected to keep the food at the banquet table fresh and the goblets full of that disgusting wine. It’s simple enough, and if the gollum is anything to judge by, she expects withstanding their monstrous stench to be the most difficult part of the evening. She’s proved to be only partially correct when she enters the hall, dressed in the formal servants’ uniform that appeared hanging from her doorknob that afternoon. Of the seven high lords, four are more monster than human, each varying in degree of grotesqueness. One has the appearance of an average man, with no particularly distinguishable features, and the final two are what she might have considered angels when she was alive. They are alien, but radiant, perfectly sculpted in almost-human shapes. One has a third eye on its forehead, and the other has feathered wings in addition to its four arms.

In her time in the palace, she’s pieced together the general idea of Underworld politics. Hades and Persephone are obviously at the top of the hierarchy, but only because of an arrangement with the demon lords. The lords feed off different human emotions; each human’s punishment or reward in the afterlife is congruent with the tastes of the lord they’re assigned to by Hades. This is presumably preferable to constant infighting over the souls that enter the Underworld. She still isn’t sure how Thanatos fits into the god-demon dichotomy, and she isn’t sure she wants to know.

Eurydice keeps her head down as she makes her rounds at the feast, trying to avoid notice, though she suspects they all know who she is. She’d rather appear broken and cowed, either by missing Orpheus or the gollum’s torture, than something to take interest in. Blue, who removes used dishes and utensils from the table, takes a similar approach. The girl clings to the walls until absolutely necessary, her face more tense than usual.

Hades and Persephone make easy conversion with the lords, assuaging their concerns about the gollum. According to them, it had grown complacent in the caves and failed to notice the fissures slowly weathering away until a section collapsed. It was cut off from the rest of the tunnels, and agents of the palace found its tar-like remains among the rubble. The monarchs’ lies are expert, and their guests appear convinced that the incident was accidental and entirely the fault of the gollum. Apparently, this type of behavior was characteristic of the demon, and the best lies are wrapped up in a pretty, truthful bow.

The rest of the dinner passes with amicable conversation that Eurydice pays little attention to. What she does notice is Blue’s face looking more ashen than she thought possible with each passing moment. When she catches the girl’s eye, she glances furtively at one of the demons, High Lord Dionellyn. After her next pass of refilling wine, Eurydice stations herself behind it. It has eel-like tentacles for arms, and standing near it leaves a swampy taste in her mouth. Blue darts beside it to grab an empty platter, and Eurydice watches in horror as the lord’s tentacle slithers sneakily around the back of Blue’s thigh and squeezes.

Something in Eurydice snaps, tight as a bowstring, and a stoic, icy wrath overcomes her. Blue is yanked out of the lord’s reach by an invisible force and falls to the ground. A candelabra’s five small flames at the demon’s side rage into a large white-hot fire. The flames rush into the lord’s face and abdomen, and the oily sheen that coats its skin ignites easily. Eurydice stands behind the scene for a full ten seconds, motionless and expressionless as Dionellyn shrieks and flails wildly at her for help, until she finally pours the wretched wine methodically over its head, dousing the flames. The hall erupts into shouting and chaos. Eurydice hears nothing but the blood rushing in her ears.

Finally, Persephone’s voice silences all others. “Enough! High Lord Dionellyn, you may stay in one of our guest chambers for as long as you need to recover from this incident, and I hope you accept our sincerest apologies. The candle makers have been using brandy to scent the candles and evidently used far too much.” She directs her attention to Eurydice. “And you, get out! You stupid, slow girl. I’ll see you in my chambers tonight.”

The fury in her eyes promises a slow and painful death, if only Eurydice were not already dead. She bows quickly, her cheeks reddening, and exits as quickly as she can. She spares only a glance at Blue who still sits on the floor in shock and confusion.

Unsure of how much longer the banquet will last, she waits in her room until midnight before walking the now familiar corridors with a renewed sense of dread. She ponders the best way to deny the incident without looking like a complete fool and comes up short. How can she defend her actions when she doesn’t even understand what happened. There is no good explanation, and this time, there is nowhere left to run. Her head lowers in subservience before she even opens the antechamber door.

Persephone lounges on a small sofa and warning bells ring in Eurydice’s skull. The goddess has never had a single hair out of place before, always moving with enough rigidity that Eurydice has suspected she’s truly made of stone. Seeing her so relaxed is disconcerting.

“Close the door behind you.” Her command is steely as ever.

Eurydice complies, and when she turns, another figure in the corner of the room catches her eye. Thanatos, his practiced stony gaze as uncomfortable as ever. Is he in trouble too? If he ever vouched for her, he’s sure to regret it now.

“Tell me why you think you’re here.”

She drags her eyes back to Persephone. “I reacted slowly to a fire that injured a high lord.”

“You set the fire.”

She shakes her head vigorously, perplexed. “I didn’t, I swear.”

“Do not argue with me, girl. Whether you knew what you were doing or not, you did set that fire. Bryony has been watching you closely for signs of power. Just a few days ago, you ignited a roomful of torches without so much as a glance, and when you bathe, the water does not grow cold or soiled.”

Eurydice bristles at the thought of being under such close observation. Annoyance with Bryony prickles her spine for spying on her, though she knows the nymph could not have refused an order from Persephone. Confusion quickly overcomes her, however, when the meat of Persephone’s words sinks in. Nothing she’s being accused of makes any sense. The baths were enchanted somehow to keep the water clean and warm. And the sconces lighting themselves in the wine cellar was just another convenience of living in a supernatural world.

She blinks a few times, too dumbfounded to remember that she’s being accused of a crime. But the actions she’s being accused of are not the ones she was prepared to defend, and she doesn’t know what to do.

“Lord Dionellyn means nothing to me.” She straightens up on the couch and leans forward. “Witchcraft is a rare thing even among our world, and your power has only grown with each reincarnation. You will learn to control it, to wield it properly and on my behalf.”

“I— I don’t understand.”

“You never do,” she sighs. “But you will. For now, you will continue to act as a servant while you train to avoid suspicion from anyone who might still have an eye on you. Do not let the events of tonight be repeated.” She gestures to god still lurking in the corner. “Thanatos, take her to the workshop. I expect to see progress soon.”

Thanatos nods once and motions for Eurydice to follow him. She gives a small curtsy to the queen out of habit and trails after him. A minute or two into their journey, the shock starts to wear off and be replaced by frustration and anger. She’s being paraded around for the gods’ entertainment once again.

“Thanatos,” she says in a clipped tone, “When we get to this workshop, I want to know everything. No more games.”

She shouldn’t make demands like this from him—god or demon— but she can’t find it in herself to care. Thanatos has had ample opportunity to make her regret her many insubordinances, but he hasn’t. He’s never even threatened to. Now he only nods absently, not turning around to face her. He hasn’t said a word the whole night.

They push through double doors that Eurydice has never noticed anyone using before. It opens to a set of stairs leading down into an indefinite darkness. A glittering light swirls into existence atop Thanatos’ open palm and forms a warm, golden orb. He closes the doors behind them, encapsulating them in the blackness broken only by the glowing light, not much brighter than a candle.

“Be careful. The steps are uneven.”

He isn’t wrong. She drops hard onto her straightened knee after a few steeper stairs, and slips one that’s more gravel than stone, but she’s determined not to ask him for help. It isn’t long before they reach another door, smaller and simpler than the previous one.

Inside is a bedroom, less spartan than hers in the servants’ quarters, but nothing to rival the opulence of Persephone’s chambers. A bed with black linen sheets and blankets takes up one half of the room and a small kitchen lies in the other. A vanity sits against the wall, the mirror lined by the piece’s carved mahogany. At first, she thinks the vanity is the only object that could be considered decorative, but she spots a few paper flowers hidden in plain sight. Three rest on the top edge of the headboard, one on the vanity surface, and another in the kitchen— all folded into origami with black and white paper. It’s an odd touch, but it compliments the minimalist style. Thanatos doesn’t spare the room a single glance, moving straight to the door at the back wall.

“This is the workshop.” he pulls the door open for her and gestures inside.

Many things grab her attention at once— a fireplace with a massive cauldron hanging inside, white paint on the floor in circular, alchemical patterns, a wall full of jars containing everything from grave dirt to chicken livers. All the clutter missing from the bedroom is fully realized here. The tables full of glassware, books, and scribbled notes remind her of Rafe’s clinic. Part of her wants to explore every inch of the room, but she can’t let herself get distracted.

She spins to face Thanatos and lifts an eyebrow in silent demand. He pulls two chairs out from under a table and falls back into one. Eurydice follows suit, crossing her legs under herself.

“I’ll start with this place. The doors from the palace hide themselves from the casual observer. You have to look right at them with intention to see them. Once you’re down the stairs, the bedroom will look like an empty storage room unless you have permission to enter. You’re completely safe here, and you can return without me whenever you like.”

She relaxes a muscle in her jaw she hadn’t realized was tightened, hating that he reads her so easily.

“Start at the beginning,” she implores.

“The war between the gods started—”

She cuts him off, “I mean the beginning of my story.”

“These stories are inherently linked. I cannot tell one without the other.” She huffs but doesn’t protest again. “Zeus was easily flattered by the elites of the mortal world— They wanted more and more at the expense of the natural world, and Zeus allowed it as long as they licked his boots. Eventually, the nature spirits— the nymphs, satyrs, dryads, [etc]— were being cut down by chainsaws and suffocated by pollution, all with Zeus’ permission. Many gods had had enough of their subjects’ suffering, and Poseidon rallied them to overthrow Zeus and eradicate the human race entirely. For nearly two centuries, Zeus’ and Poseidon’s factions have been battling with no end in sight.

“Like I told you before, sometimes the gods like to have mortal souls repeat their lives on earth. They’re so far removed from humanity, it entertains them to study certain people— to observe and anticipate the choices they make. You were their favorite, by far. A tragic love story can be spun in so many ways and lead them in so many directions.

“Just before you were sent back to Earth, you started showing signs of magic. And then, the magic came on stronger and faster after you died again. That pattern continued the next time, and you started practicing witchcraft with me. I only have a small amount of magic myself, but I’ve had eons to study it.

“Then the war started, and the Underworld didn’t side with Zeus or Poseidon. Persephone proposed we start reincarnating you again as a sort of middle ground. A form of entertainment that both sides could enjoy to break up the monotony of war. All the while, you were becoming more and more powerful right under their noses.

“Which brings us here. You were angry at High Lord Dionellyn, so you set him on fire. Last time, it took you almost a year to start a fire spontaneously. Hopefully, now you can become the weapon Persephone wants you to be.”

Throughout his whole explanation, his eyes are distant, never focusing on her for more than a few seconds.

“I don’t want to be a weapon,” she spits, then adds less harshly, “I just want to be done. What happened to ‘sleep when you’re dead?’ What happened to ‘rest in peace?’”

“Peace is hard to come by, Eurydice, even in death.”

Of course it is. Bitterness seeps into her from all directions. This workshop, full of unfinished work in service of a goddess who essentially killed her, sickens her.

“And if I still don’t have enough power? If I refuse to help her?”

“Gods are patient. She’ll repeat the cycle as many times as necessary.”

Eurydice hunches forward to rest her head on her knees, wrapping her arms tightly around herself. She takes several deep breaths to try to compose herself, but ultimately rushes to the nearest empty bucket. She falls to her knees and heaves, but nothing comes out; she hasn’t eaten in months. Her gagging quickly gives way to broken, gasping sobs.

A pressure falls between her shoulder blades, and she jumps before realizing it’s Thanatos. The gesture makes her sob harder. Fear, anger, bitterness, and vulnerability have been gradually building up inside her since she died, and it all pours out now. The god doesn’t speak, just moves his hand in small circles on her back. The two remain together on the stone floor until Eurydice has nothing left to cry out.

Not one to linger, Eurydice props herself up on the edge of the bucket to reorient herself before pulling herself up. “Let’s get to it, then. How about we start with that light trick?”

Thanatos, still sitting back on his heels, jerks his eyes up to meet hers. Shock, then amazement glimmers across his features before he remembers himself and nods tightly.

They work until Thanatos’ timepiece signals the night’s end and Eurydice has to return to her regular duties. She walks freely out of the workshop and up the stairs, but she’s never felt so trapped. She tames her fury for now as she approaches Bryony with a glare; she can be patient too.

Chapter Text

For the next week, she scrubs the floors of the entire palace without complaint. Officially, it’s her penance for disrupting the lords at the feast, but she enjoys having something to do with her hands while she thinks. Magic is real. I have magic, she repeats to herself over and over, trying to make herself believe it. There are plenty of people on earth claiming to have magic, to be gods or demigods, to see demons in the night. She hadn’t found any who passed muster until Orpheus, and even then she would have been skeptical of someone else’s fantastical claims. She knows better now, even if it’s hard to admit how much she couldn’t see. The nature spirits in the Underworld used to walk the earth, maybe the demons and angels too. Maybe there are people out there who see things as they truly are. What would they see in her?

While she works, she repeats the words Thanatos teaches her. It’s an ancient Language that Eurydice struggles to comprehend at first— and it does require comprehension. She can’t just mimic Thanatos’ phonetics and see the same result. She hides a book in the bottom of her wardrobe to practice with, but she mostly learns from Thanatos in his workshop.

He’s a good teacher, kinder to her than she is to herself. In. the beginning, accessing her magic requires a great deal of focus, and she tries to imagine herself back in the fighting pits of Sunnyrise. It’s where she learned to push doubt from her mind. It is antithetical to victory, to survival. She imbues her magic with the same urgency and instinct. After another week, she’s able to hold the ball of light after Thanatos summons it. Sitting on the dusty floor opposite Thanatos, palms upward and fingertips touching, willing it to cross from his hand to hers, the light obeys. The swirling light reflects in her counterpart’s shining black eyes, and she has never felt more powerful.

From then on, she’s ravenous for more. Soon, she’s lifting cauldrons and boiling water from across the room. Once she grasps the basics of the Language, magic comes easily to her, like a wellspring bubbling to the surface. She starts brewing potions, which in conjunction with the Language can alter the creatures who ingest them. A six-eyed frog grows an extra four, a butterfly turns back into a caterpillar, and Eurydice shrinks herself to the size of a doll, her voice shrill and indignant as Thanatos’ laugh booms above her. Everything reverts to its natural state with only a few words.

The only downside is that it takes from her in return. She needs food and water and sleep again. She hadn’t thought it possible for chewing to feel unnatural, but she nearly choked on her first bite. With her position as a servant still demanding half of her days, she barely has time to rest. But the ability to alter reality, to create and destroy, is worth every forced bite and sleepless night.

The thrill of of it all— the power, the knowledge— overshadows the goddess’ expectations hanging around her neck in a phantom noose. And spending time with Thanatos is no hardship. He’s articulate and observant and doesn’t begrudge even the most basic questions, though he sometimes looks at her in a way she can’t quite place. For a while she chalks it up to his lack of irises, but eventually her curiosity gets the best of her.

“What are you thinking when you look at me like that?”

It’s been months now since learning she has magic, and she’s just spent a long day washing the palace windows. Despite her rediscovered capacity for physical exhaustion, she’s eager to learn more. It’s her insistence to keep practicing long into the night that prompts Thanatos’ cryptic look this time.

He’s startled but doesn’t deny anything. “You’re different this time. More voracious. Less heartbroken.”

She bristles at his response. He hasn’t spoken directly of her previous lives in the Underworld since he first explained her situation. She pushes such thoughts out of her mind when they crop up, and tries to think of the other Eurydices as different people entirely. She doesn’t appreciate being reminded that she’s only version seven.

“What would I be heartbroken over? Dying? As much as I tried to avoid it, I knew I wasn’t long for the world. It’s frankly a miracle I lived as long as I did. You saw my life.”

“I didn’t, actually.”

She blinks. “You didn’t?”

“No. It felt cruel to watch, even though I understood why it was necessary.” A pause, like he hesitates to speak conflict into existence. “I was talking about Orpheus.”

Another topic she doesn’t like to dwell on for too long, though it’s admittedly Marcus who haunts her more often. There are too many complicated feelings to unravel, and it seems pointless to start trying when she’s already dead. Still, she feels like she owes Thanatos her honesty after everything he’s done for her.

“He’s a good man, maybe one of the best. I cared about him— I still care about him— but I barely knew him. It takes a lot more than that to break my heart.”

He nods to himself, deep in thought. They each watch the other with measured curiosity. Eurydice wonders why he cares about her and Orpheus— if he’s been waiting for some emotional breakdown that’s not going to come. With each day and week that passes, her life on Earth feels more and more like a dream. This— death, magic, godly politics— is her reality now. It has been for longer than she’ll ever fully comprehend. And the magic makes sense to her; it calls to her from within. Though she doesn’t remember any part of her past lives or deaths, she wonders if some part of her soul recognizes that this is her natural state.

“Anyway,” he breaks them both from their reveries, “I think we should take a break. You’re not likely to retain much more if we keep going.”

Her mouth twists in consideration. She doesn’t particularly want to go back to her room now. Though it’s perfectly comfortable, she prefers the god’s company to solitude.

“How about you tell me Persephone’s grand plan then? There must be one.”

He scoffs and runs his hand through his hair. “There must be, right?” He shoots her a pitying smile. “Truthfully, Persephone is convinced you’re the key to winning this war, but none of us are sure about exactly how. It’s likely to involve killing Zeus or Poseidon or both, but there’s a reason it hasn’t been done before. Gods are very hard to kill.”

Eurydice furrows her brow, troubled. She’d figured no one speaks about the plan to her— like she’d been in the dark about everything else until absolutely necessary— not that there is no plan to speak of. It’s somehow more unsettling this way.

“Great. I’m a pawn, and Persephone doesn’t know chess.” Her voice is quieter than she’d like. “Do you think I have a chance?”

He doesn’t meet her eyes. “If you ever had a chance, it’s now.”

He’s not convincing. But he’s honest. And her head aches from the effort of her magic.

“Tell me, is there such a thing as fresh air in Hell?”

He finally meets her eye, surprised. “Almost. Would you like me to take you?”

She nods with easy enthusiasm. Maybe she won’t be the secret weapon Persephone hopes for, but she can enjoy whatever time she still has. She doesn’t realize how much tension she holds until they’re outside the palace and her shoulders drop at least four inches. She trails two steps behind Thanatos in a comfortable silence. In the distance she spots a figure growing ever closer to the gates, the familiar shapes of the harpies diving and swooping like bats. Guilt pricks at the edges of her mind for preventing Thanatos from helping the fresh soul, but she can’t bring herself to care.

Turning her attention away, she sees the familiar outline of the gollum’s cave entrance at the base of the smallest mountain and stiffens.

“We’re not going back there,” he assures her, “There’s a path westward around the mountain.”

She’s not sure how he senses her apprehension, but she’s glad for it. Even with the gollum dead, she has no desire to ever inhale that damp, rotten air again.

“What happened to everyone else in the caves after I killed it?” she wonders aloud.

“Most of them were reassigned to a comparable punishment. Some were unaccounted for, either faded or wandering the deepest recesses of the caverns. Only the gollum was able to navigate the entire system, and without it, we have no way of knowing what happened to those not recovered.”

She gulps, not wanting to argue with the god of death about the nature of eternal punishment but horrified that others fared so much worse than she did. They must have been the same level of “badness” as her to be given the same punishment, and she can’t believe that she was anywhere near the worst of humanity. Maybe her victims would disagree.

They veer to the right, and dark, still water appears in the distance. The solid clay beneath her feet gives way to looser, rocky soil. A weak breeze whispers against her skin and carries with it the smell of salty sea air. Thanatos was right; it’s not exactly fresh air, but it’s the only air that resembles the mortal world. She breathes it in hungrily. As they get closer to the waterline, Eurydice can just make out tall forms stretching out from the water and toward the horizon line.

She squints to get a better look, and Thanatos explains, “Everything lost in your oceans ends up here eventually— driftwood, submarines, sunken ships. It’s something of a graveyard.”

“Cemeteries were always my favorite part of town.” He gives her a curious look, and she explains, “A lot of cities are a mess of rubble and overgrown plants, but cemeteries are always kept in good condition. It’s a good place to go to imagine you’re in a different life, mourning different people.”

Now that she thinks about it, she never saw a graveyard in Elysium. She wonders what they did with her body. She wonders what her gravestone would say.

As they approach the beach, Eurydice gets a better look at the broken relics of the sea. Huge pieces of driftwood— entire trees, really— scatter the rocky sand, and iridescent, crab-like creatures scurry around their nooks and crannies. Just off the shore lie ships that might have housed pirates or the Spanish Armada, twenty-first-century billionaires or Vikings. Some are split into pieces and many aren’t identifiable at all. Even a few airplane cabins can be spotted in the murky waters.

She inhales deeply, enjoying the potent scent of sea salt and splintered wood. It cuts through her sinuses pleasantly. She sits on a felled tree trunk and looks out at the wreckage, the nearly-black water, the grayish-purple sky. It’s both unearthly and painfully human. It’s forgotten. It’s beyond repair. It’s beautiful.

“Where does it lead to— if you went past the horizon?”

“If you know where you’re going, it leads to Tartarus, a deeper level of the Underworld. Otherwise, you’ll end up back at the shore, even if you never change directions.”

“What’s in Tartarus?”

“The most powerful demons. Many of them hibernate, and most don’t care for the affairs of gods or mortals. But when one wakes and decides it’s hungry, the entire mortal world suffers for it. They are older than the oldest gods.”

“Yourself included?” The double meaning is intentional. She hasn’t yet deciphered who or what Thanatos is. He doesn’t look completely human like Hades and Persephone, yet he acts like a god and operates in their world like one.

He laughs once without much heart. “I am older than all of them. In the beginning, there was only Phanes and me— life and death. For a long time, I was much like the demons in Tartarus, but as life on earth evolved, so did I. When the gods arose, it was mutually beneficial to work together. Now, I act more like a god, though I’m closer in kinship to the demons.”

Her hunger for knowledge may never be satisfied. Every time Thanatos pulls back the curtain into the celestial world, she only learns enough to give her a thousand more questions. But she came here to decompress, not study the lineage and evolution of supernatural beings, and she doesn’t want her headache to return. They gaze across the endlessly still water, so different from the vengeful current of the River Lethe and the roaring waters of the Tennessee during a storm.

Eventually she pulls the pocket watch from her pocket and asks a final question, one that’s been brewing in her mind since Blue pointed it out. “Why did you give me your own timepiece?”

He takes the object from her and runs his thumb over the markings, his lips turned up in a soft smile. “It isn’t mine. It’s yours.” Seeing her mouth move to protest, he continues. “You made it yourself, when your name was Kohana. She was tired of having to guess when the day started, so she invented a way to keep time in the Underworld, with a clock that doesn’t need winding and is never reset. She made hundreds to give out to the palace staff. This is the first edition.”

She takes it back when he extends it to her, stunned. “That’s incredible.”

“It was her greatest achievement. She was always a better engineer than sorceress, but she found a way to combine the two.”

The pain in her skull has dwindled, but Thanatos’ pain is clear as day. By the time they return to the palace, it’s gone from them both. They walk slowly, though neither one acknowledges it. She senses that Thanatos has said more than he intended to, and she isn’t sure how to feel about her past selves, especially if they’re all as brilliant as Kohana had apparently been. They go their separate ways at the servants’ wing, and Eurydice turns to the comfortable routine of visiting the baths and studying peacefully in her room.

Except she returns from the baths to find a man in her room, with dark hair and tanned skin and beady eyes. She jumps, pulling her robe tighter across herself.

“Don’t bother, dear. It’s nothing I haven’t seen a hundred times before.” His voice is like sandpaper against her ears. “I figured I should introduce myself while I’m on the bad side of town. I’m Apollo, god of medicine, music, and prophecy.”

Eurydice blinks, unsure of what to do. He sits on the end of her bed, waiting for a reaction. She takes a slow step backward, preparing to retreat, but he raises a finger.

“Ah, ah, ah! Is that any way to greet a comrade?” She pauses, hand still on the doorknob, and he says, “I’m working with Persephone as well. I’m her eyes and ears on the ground, so to speak. The ground being Earth.”

Eurydice takes a breath to compose herself. “I’d introduce myself, but I think we’re past that.”

His lips twist into a gleeful grin. “Oh my, yes. I’m a big fan. Rejecting Orpheus and turning down your chance at freedom? Risky, but genius! I think we’ll have a lot of fun, you and I.”

“It wasn’t about having fun. I was trying to save him.”

“But you did have fun. The dramatic entrance, the shouting, the cursing. It was messy and stupid, and you enjoyed yourself. Plain as day.”

She tries to refute him but finds herself unable to. Because he’s right. The rage, the risk, the adrenaline— it made her feel alive again.

When she doesn’t answer, he continues, “I know all about it. Poseidon thinks I’m on his side, and it is delightful the messes I make in the Pacific Palace. So I’ll say it again: we will have fun together.”

Having said his piece, he rises from her bed, presses a quick kiss to the back of her hand, and slides into the hall. Eurydice doesn’t move from her spot in the doorway for a long time. When she does, it’s only to grab her pillow and curl up on the floor. She falls asleep still trying to decide if Apollo is a friend or foe. In the morning, she takes her sheets to the laundry before reporting to Bryony.

Chapter Text

“I want access to the library.”

Thanatos looks up from the kitchen counter where he chops vegetables and scrapes them into a sizzling pan. “The palace library? There won’t be any books on magic or the Language there.”

“I know. When I’m there to clean, I snoop around the shelves. But I want to know more about this world. Histories, biographies, philosophies, metaphysics— everything. I’m tired of playing catch-up every time you guys decide I need to know something.”

“Did something happen I don’t know about?”

“Apollo came to my room last night to introduce himself.” Saying it out loud makes it feel even more ridiculous. “Any other visits I should be expecting?”

Thanatos pulls his hair back and sighs. “I’m sorry about that. It’s best to ignore him if you can. He’s the most unserious, unhelpful god I know, but he’s less bothersome if he have an eye on him. As for the library,” he raises an eyebrow conspiratorially, “Permission isn’t mine to give, but you won’t find it elsewhere. Be creative. Don’t get caught.”

He slides a bowl of spicy vegetables and noodles down the table, followed by a fork. “For now, eat. We still have work to do tonight.”

She returns to her room, exhausted, and falls asleep thinking of ways to slip in and out of the library unnoticed.

—

Her eyes snap open at the sunlight beaming onto her face. She’s in Marcus’ apartment, lying on the couch with blanket up to her neck. A desperate squawking outside prompts her to look out the window. Two crows swoop and dive and claw at each other, the quarrel evenly matched despite one being larger. One rips out the others’ feathers. One pecks into the others’ eye. It goes on without resolution until a buzzing swarm of flies converge out of the bushes and descend upon the crows. Inky black feathers explode from the hovering mass, and eventually, small bones fall out of the suspension. The crows have been consumed and picked clean. The swarm of flies gets larger, and Eurydice realizes it’s because they’re getting closer. They cover the window, slowly blocking the light until only speckles shine through. Eurydice steps back with a shudder of revulsion. The buzzing is louder now, and she’s sure the flies will burst through the window at any moment. She looks around the room for any form of protection, and sees the bookshelf on the opposite wall. She tries dragging it with all her strength, but it’s not enough. It isn’t until this moment that she remembers she has the Language at her disposal. She commands the bookshelf to slide in front of the window. For a moment the ever-increasing buzzing is muffled. Then the window shatters. The bookshelf begins to tip over, books falling off the top shelf and knocking into her. But she’s frozen, glued to the floor. She tries to shield her head with her arms but it’s like moving through peanut butter. The shelf slams into her, and she falls to the floor, buried under books and the wooden frame.

—

She jerks awake in her room in the Underworld palace, out of breath. It’s almost dawn, so she dresses and goes to find Blue so they can walk together. After work, she goes to the library instead of the workshop, but she doesn’t take a single book off the shelf. She doesn’t even read any titles. Instead, she walks the perimeter and the length of every aisle, learning the arrangement of shelves, the spots hidden from the door, which ladders creak when they slide. Only a few others come in and out, and each time they do, she grabs a rag from her pocket and wipes away imaginary dust on whatever surface she’s closest to. No one pays her any mind, but it won’t be a sufficient disguise when she’s sitting down, nose-deep in a book.

Thanatos isn’t in the workshop when she arrives, so she moves quickly to bundle the necessary herbs, bind and activate them with the Language, and grab a small knife. The next morning, she wears a dress with large hidden pockets and tucks her contraband away. She stalks the corridors around the library before approaching, the wrapped herbs in her mouth, the end burnt and smoking. To anyone passing, she’d appear to be smoking. And then the scent of the smoke would make them stop wondering, all suspicion and curiosity dulled. She takes a few laps, letting the mild sedative smoke disseminate, before daring to enter. She walks carefully to a particular nook in the very back of the library. It can’t be seen from the door or the main aisle between sections. She drops to her knees, the knife primed in her hand, and begins scratching the Language into the wooden floorboard. She carves out the words quickly and cautiously, and when she’s finished, a shimmering illusory curtain drawing in front of her. She steps to the other side of the border, and the nook doesn’t appear to exist at all. Only a smooth continuous wall is visible. She nods and releases a breath of triumph before getting to work.

Hours later, still in her secret room, entrenched in ancient, heavy books, she examines her notes, trying to wrap her head around them.

Day 1: Everything???

1. There’s an Overworld as well as an Underworld, and that’s where Olympus is. The Overworld is the staging ground for souls before life on earth. The Underworld is obviously where souls go after death.
2. The creatures used to inhabit earth and the Overworld, but the gods drove them out to protect the humans. Now they have an arrangement to either reward or punish human soul, but before that, they hunted human souls indiscriminately.
3. All the oldest creatures embody some fundamental element of existence: Death, Life, Blood, Entropy, Reproduction, Energy, etc. Other creatures are their descendants or the result of cross breeding with gods, nature spirits, or humans.
4. Humans, plants, and animals all have souls that are indistinguishable in the Overworld, and invisible on earth.

She feels like a baby just learning how move her body. Nothing she’s read so far has been a completely novel idea, but they’ve always existed in theoretical or philosophical terms, not as basic facts of the universe. The books on her left were written by Clio, muse of history, and on her right are an encyclopedia of nature as told by a disciple of Pan, god of the wilderness. She feels the enormity of the world, her own perception of it so totally incomplete, like a tiny spec of pollen on a bee, carried by inevitable forces of the universe into completely new territory that is only new to her.

She relights the herbs, and nonchalantly returns the books to their shelves, before making her way to the workshop. Thanatos is there, hanging flowers upside down to dry.

“How is the library treating you?” He asks, then adds with a tilt of his head, “Or more importantly, how are you treating the library?”

She explains her methods to remain unseen and unremarkable, and he nods in approval. “Good. But don’t get complacent. The last thing we need is to explain to a high lord why a servant is helping herself to the royal archive.”

She smirks and bats her eyelashes. “Why, Thanatos! Are you worried about me?”

He rolls his eyes. “I do care if you live or die.” She opens her mouth to point out the obvious, but he grumbles, “You know what I mean.”

“That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Just help me get these hung up,” he says, emphasizing the stems in his hands, “And list the magical and medicinal uses of the flower while you’re at it.”

The clothesline is strung too high for her to reach, so she drags over a chair. Thanatos passes her a flower, and she clips it to the line carefully.

“It’s chicory— good for digestion, liver disease, and stress-relief. It can be used in enchantments to make people forget their anxieties or feel full when they haven’t eaten…”

She rattles off the plant’s uses, reaching to hang more flowers as she goes. She stretches to hang the next one, shifting her feet on the chair. Suddenly, the chair tips sideways, and Eurydice can’t correct it in time. She halfway to falling, the world moving in slow motion, when firm hands grab her waist, pulling her upright. Breathless and embarrassed, she looks down at Thanatos steadying her. She places her own hands on his shoulders and steps down from the chair. The chicory is discarded in a loose heap on the floor. It takes them a beat too long to step away from each other. But they do.

Eurydice pushes the chair to the side and gets back on, and by the time she’s turning to reach for another flower, Thanatos is there to supply it.

Chapter Text

Day 2: Thanatos

1. One of the oldest beings, but with imperfect memory. Just because the gods and creatures are old, doesn’t mean they know or remember everything.
2. Limited magical ability, but one of the only magicians still practicing and studying.
3. Contributed to the discovery of ritual method to prevent necromancy. Cutting out a soul’s metaphysical heart makes it impossible for the soul to be brought back to life, either by magical or scientific means. Zombies were apparently a big problem in early civilization??? There is a short window for resuscitation when a soul is crossing the River Lethe and running from the furies.
4. In a contract with Hades and Persephone to manage the intake of souls to the Underworld and support their rule.
5. Has known every previous version of me, some very closely.
6. Kind, warm, a good cook (where did he learn?)

When she looks up, it’s like she had summoned him with her words. Thanatos is stalking through an aisle, approaching her. And then he walks right past her, and she remembers the protective curtain carved into the floor.

After shutting the notebook and sliding it away, she pops her head past the invisible barrier. “Psst.”

He turns on a dime and flinches when he sees her head protruding from a wall that isn’t there. He places a hand against the wall, only for it to glide right through. Closing his eyes and holding his breath, he steps into her alcove and turns to find a clear view of the library.

“You made your own secret room?” he asks incredulously.

“Not exactly. This was already here— I just just added a wall with one-way visibility.”

He rubs his temples. “That’s right. How did I forget?” His hand and face fall together. “That smell. You’re drugging everyone who comes in the library?”

“And anyone walking past. So no one notices me come and go.” At his guffaw, she defends herself, “It’s not like it’s permanent. You said to be creative.”

“I should have known better.”

“Did you come here for something? It can’t just be to scold me.”

His entire aura darkens. “I was going to ask if you wanted to blow off studying and go for a walk.”

It would be impossible for Eurydice to hide her surprise, so she doesn’t try. But she doesn’t ask why, just shrugs and starts stacking books to put away. They make their way toward the beach again, and Thanatos doesn’t offer any explanation until they’re outside the palace.

“A little boy starved to death in Scotland today, trapped alone inside a collapsed building. I hate when they starve.” His words are slow, careful. “There was so much relief at first, he wasn’t even scared of me. He actually thanked me. And then there was the judgment.”

She understands now. She knows the face of a child betrayed.

“Where is he now?” She asks cautiously. A child couldn’t be sentenced to eternal punishment, right?

“He’s on a massive playground with a bunch of other kids.” She breathes a sigh of relief. “He’ll have a happy afterlife there. But that doesn’t make it any easier to sleep.”

“I read today that you figured out that cutting the heart out kept people dead. Is that true?”

He shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t remember a time before.”

She hums in acknowledgment. It must be strange to have lived so long you don’t remember your own life.

“What are other continents like?”

He seems happy to change the subject. “Some of them are a lot like North America— disorganized and dangerous. Scotland is an independent monarchy again, and they’re doing fairly well. The Mediterranean is loosely unified, but it took several wars to get there. Poseidon went through an earthquake phase at the beginning of the war and ended up pushing Africa farther south. It’s colder now, so there was a rough adjustment period, but now there are fewer mosquitoes spreading disease.”

“Well, those are my three questions,” she says, and they both smile, looking out at the water gently lapping at the wrecked ships and felled trees. They stay there for hours, sometimes chatting about nothing, but mostly enjoying each other’s quiet company.

Back in the servants’ quarters, she knocks on Blue’s door and offers her some shells she’d found in the sand. They’re not quite like the seashells on Earth’s beaches, and they not quite like snail shells, but somewhere in between. And they glow bright blue. The girl’s face lights up in excitement and she extinguishes the candles to better see the fluorescence. They’re almost as bright as the candles, but they give the room an otherworldly hue. Blue grabs her notebook and writes, “Did you get these on the beach with Thanatos?”

Eurydice blinks. “How did you know?”

She giggles and pulls open her nightstand drawer. Light erupts from the drawer, and Blue removes a handful of glowing shells, presumably from Thanatos.

I don’t like the dark, and Bryony said I use too many candles, she scribbles out.

“Do you want to stick them to the ceiling?” Blue gasps excitedly and nods with so much enthusiasm Eurydice suspects her head might fly off. “Okay, close your eyes.”

Blue does, and Eurydice whispers a few words in the Language to the shells. They hover through the air and form a trail, piece by piece, from the bottom of the wall, up to the ceiling and winding in a spiral until it looks like a galaxy.

Eurydice taps the girl on the nose, and her eyes open. Blue gawks at the mosaic, slack jawed and teary eyed, and Eurydice places a finger on her own lips. Blue mimes zipping her lips in response, then she crushes Eurydice in a hug. That night, Eurydice falls asleep next to Blue, who stares transfixed at the colored lights all night.

Bryony has them working to the bone the rest of the week, preparing for another banquet or gala or something or other. Eurydice was decidedly not assigned to serve. She barely finds time to visit the library until the evening of the event, when she engrosses herself in an encyclopedia of the creatures of the Underworld. She’s intrigued by a description of Sangrite, the embodiment of blood, until a loud thump catches her attention.

A figure kicks open the door, arms full of books, and shuffles inside, striding right to one section on the far wall. She does a double-take before convincing herself it is indeed Apollo. She observes as he places his stack of books on a table, tosses several books off the shelf and onto the floor, and replaces them with his own. And then he leaves, humming to himself and completely disregarding the books he scattered all around. She waits a few minutes to make sure he’s not returning, then leaves her alcove and inspects the shelf. It is filled with identically bound books, each one a different volume of the same title: The Diaries of Apollo. There are two hundred and sixty-three volumes.

She grabs a ladder and retrieves Volume One. A forward is inscribed on the first page:

Welcome, readers, to the intriguing and scandalous diary of yours truly, Apollo. I have decided that my life is simply too interesting to keep all to myself. It would be stingy, you see, and I am nothing if not generous. In that spirit, I have written three copies of this first volume (to be stored in the Olympus library, the Hades’ palace library, and the dear Library of Alexandria on Earth), and I will continue to triplicate my story so it may be accessible to all. You may find me to be an inspiration, and I encourage you wholeheartedly to emulate me if you are so motivated; I am the sharing type, in more ways than one. I hope you enjoy my life as much as I enjoy living it.

Addendum, 48 B.C. (in human years): There has been a terribly devastating fire in Alexandria, and my diaries have been allowed to burn. Fear not, I have punished every responsible party thoroughly. In the face of such disrespect, I have come to the conclusion that the mortal world is not a worthy home for my life story, and as such, I will no longer gift my diaries to any person or place on Earth.

Eurydice moves next to Volume Two hundred and sixty-three:

This week has been a veritable delight. The girl, Eurydice, is nearing Elysium, perhaps only a year away from making the trek. I’ve made a few journeys into nearby villages to stir up superstition around my prized Orpheus. Their whispers should begin reaching her soon. In the meantime, she continues to entertain and impress me with her destructive tendencies. Just yesterday, she was falsely accused of theft by the woman hosting her and imprisoned. In the night, she picked the prison lock, with ease I might add, and robbed the woman blind before leaving town unnoticed. She left only a note reading, “I wasn’t a thief until you made me one. Your best friend is a klepto.” I’m so proud of her. Never say I can’t share a spotlight.

The fiery daughter of Poseidon has not yet discovered that I am also sleeping with her son, though I anxiously await the glorious fallout that’s sure to follow when she does. She’s the most beautiful when she wants to kill me. I think I may be in love with her cunt, but I’m sure the feeling will pass.

Here at home, Rafael is advancing his skills quite well, though I admit to being an excellent teacher. I have recently discovered a most delectable affair, but I have not yet decided the most interesting course of action, so I will refrain from beginning a story now that is yet unfinished. I will only give you this taste of intrigue to come.

Eurydice can’t bring herself to flip the page. She only stares in horror at the words before her, reading them again and again, her stomach sinking. When she decided to learn more about everything, including Apollo specifically, this is not at all what she’d imagined to find. Be careful what you wish for, Eurydice.

She wishes desperately that she could talk to Thanatos, but he’s tied up with Hades and Persephone and the high lords. So she goes to the workshop, her thoughts too crowded to sleep, and goes though the motions of some concentration exercises Thanatos has taught her until dawn.

Chapter Text

The next day, she returns to the library and doesn’t waste time on anything other than Apollo’s journals. She starts with the first diary, telling herself it’s only logical to read them chronologically. He’d told her that he followed her life very closely; it isn’t much of a stretch to discover he’d been pulling strings to pull her into position for her grand finale. But she doesn’t want to know about the life he had in Elysium that she was deprived of. She isn’t ready to think about her friends.

The first edition details his earliest moments of godhood— unfolding from the universe along with Zeus and Hades the other nine Olympians. They roamed the earth first, each discovering his powers and domains. Then a spirit of the east wind showed them a gate to the Overworld, where the Spinning Wheel twists celestial fibers into yarn and lets it collect on earth. They saw that threads made up human souls. Here, Eurydice has to consult other sources for a full picture. She knows that souls don’t stay here in the Underworld forever, that they eventually dissolve into the universal energy. But it seems that those souls are eventually woven back into the yarn that’s wrapped around earth— a self-sustaining cycle.

The gods saw that moving the threads influences the actions and relationships of the souls on earth. They peel two twisted threads away from each other, and a child decides she must run away and explore the world. And so they spread themselves among earth, which to this point had been populated only by tribes and nomads, and began rearranging the yarns until the first civilizations were born.

Apollo travels to every inhabited corner of the world, healing the sick, sharing his gift of music, and dispersing every cloudy day he encounters. He learns to keep the future to himself though; no one wants to know, no matter how much they claim to, and the recipient of the prophecy always turns against him. The mortals build alters for him, then temples, then monuments. All the while, he makes alterations to the fabric of fate. If he wants the second son to be king, the first will suddenly go mad. If he wants to sway a woman in his direction, her husband will die in a war that no one remembers starting.

It makes Eurydice sick to her stomach to read how he manipulates everyone he crosses path with. The idea wouldn’t be so revolting if Apollo put up even a pretense of benevolence, but everything he does, good or bad, is purely for his own gratification. He even mocks other gods, mostly his counterpart Artemis, for trying to be impartial. The worst thing, though, is when Apollo does something she knows she would have done too. When he waxes poetic about the inconveniences of keeping up with multiples lies to different people and she remembers having a very similar conversation with Everest one winter night.

She only skims through the remainder of the first diary before moving to the second. It begins with Apollo breaking his own rule. An old man in Egypt asks him if he’ll see his daughter again before he dies. Begrudgingly, he takes his hands and looks into the future. He watches the man writing letters to the daughter that go unanswered. He sees a pile of stones in a forest clearing and a young man crying as he places the last rock at the top of the pile. To the left is a smaller arrangement of stones. He sees the old man falling over while trying to light an oil lamp in the window— the man doesn’t stand back up.

“Your daughter will return home before your time comes,” I lied, “Make sure to light the doorstep so she can find her way.”

It is a risk to look to the future at all because there is no stopping it. But the sorrow and fear in this man moved me, and I couldn’t say no. His expression haunts me even now, as I write this. I couldn’t look in his eyes and tell him the truth, so I took pity and told a merciful lie. He’s just a lonely man afraid of death. I think I remember what that’s like.

Eurydice reads on to the next, more sordid story before the realization hits her, and she reads that line again. And again. And again.

I think I remember what that’s like.

Her mind works faster than she could possibly express. She doesn’t attempt to connect her flying thoughts. She pushes them away and locks them in a box. She focuses instead on writing a new spell. A sorting and summoning spell. When she finally gets the Language right, she commands the library to deliver to her every book containing reference to the origin of the gods. The library remains as still as the plains beyond the River Lethe. She tries again, asking instead for the origin of Thanatos, then Sangrite, then Phanes. Each spell returns dozens of results, each with slight variations of the same essential stories. She tries the first spell again, this time placing the two diaries of Apollo on a table a few paces away before speaking. The first volume glides slowly toward her until it’s exactly where it had been moments earlier.

She hastily speaks a few words to return all the books to their proper shelves, and rushes to the workshop, determined to find Thanatos this time. He’s in the apartment behind the workshop, and hardly has time to look up before she barks at him to follow her. He doesn’t question her, just does as she says. When they arrive in the library, they make sure no one else is inside before Thanatos locks the door.

“Are you aware that Apollo writes diaries and stores them here and in the Overworld?”

Thanatos’ eyes widen in disbelief. “He’s still doing that?”

“He delivered his most recent escapades while he was here for the banquet.” She leads them to a table at the center of thee library. “Now watch this.”

She repeats her earlier tests, the Language rolling off her tongue more naturally this time, and books fly off the shelves before neatly stacking themselves on the table. She returns them all before requesting information on godly origins. Thanatos furrows his brow at the single book now resting on the table.

“This library contains records and histories of every supernatural event since the beginning of everything,” says Eurydice. “I’ve read accounts about Underworld and Overworld creatures, nature spirit, demigods, and even some notable humans. But the gods supposedly popped into existence one day and the only person who bothered to write it down was Apollo? Impossible.”

“And,” she continues, retrieving the second diary the old fashioned way and pointing to the one sentence that could change everything. “Look at this.”

Thanatos’ jaw falls open for a moment before he replies, “How could a god have ever feared death?”

Eurydice purses her lips. “I don’t know, but something is missing here. There couldn’t be a less reliable narrator than Apollo, but he’s somehow the only narrator we have to work with. You don’t remember anything?”

He shakes his head in frustration. “I remember that there weren’t gods, and then there were. What he writes at first about simply stepping into existence is how I vaguely remember all the first beings appearing. It feels familiar and right. I wish I could tell you more details.” He sighs, defeated. “This was written so long ago, I doubt even Apollo remembers.”

They go their separate ways, leaving the library with more questions than answers. The small bit of magic hadn’t tired Eurydice very much, but she sleeps anyway. She dreams again that she’s in Marcus’ living room, facing the bookshelf. This time, there are no birds knocking the shelf onto her, suffocating her. It is quiet outside and in, except for a low mumbling that Eurydice realizes is coming from her own lips. She’s reciting the spell from the library again. A book on the bottom shelf tilts to the floor and slides across the carpet, stopping at the tips of her toes. She looks down at the title, and gasps herself awake, heart pounding.

Her pocket watch tells her she still has nearly two hours before dawn, and she practically sprints to Thanatos. She bursts into the bedroom without knocking, and he jumps awake in a panic.

“It’s just me,” she says and waits until he’s caught his breath before continuing, “I had a dream. I was in Elysium, and I saw a book there called “Magic and the Gods.”

Thanatos inhales deeply and stretches his neck, searching himself for more patience. The movement prompts Eurydice to realize he’s not wearing a shirt. “If it’s on earth, that book could be about anything—”

“Thanatos, it was written in the Language.”

Fully awake now, he pushes himself to the edge of the bed. “You’re sure? And you really believe this book is in Elysium?”

“Yes. I noticed some books there with a strange, ancient-looking language on the covers. I obviously couldn’t read them when I was alive, but seeing them in the dream, I understood.” Their eyes meet with a long, pregnant moment of silence before Eurydice shatters it. “Is there a way to visit earth?”

“I can only go to the place and time of a death on earth. And you don’t have a physical form to contain yourself on earth anymore.” He tilts his head in thought. “But I suppose there are ways around that.”

Chapter Text

What Eurydice is going to do has many names: dream-walking, astral projection, remote viewing. For the next two weeks, they pore over page after page of writings on the subjects, compiling their findings and picking out what they need, until a set of instructions is complete. The ritual will be more complex than anything she’s done before, but Thanatos is confident she has the power and training to complete it. Eurydice is confident too. Recently, she’s had to consciously tone down the strength of her magic in simpler, easier exercises.

After a half day of folding clean laundry, Eurydice begs Blue to cover the rest of the day for her, promising to make it up to her. The girl eyes her suspiciously. A staring contest ensues until Eurydice breaks and admits that she’s going to meet Thanatos. Blue’s whole demeanor perks up in delight, and she nods excitedly. Guilt trickles through Eurydice in a slow drip at the manipulation, even though it is technically true.

She hurries to the workshop to find Thanatos placing the ingredients into small golden bowls. He looks up at her entrance, meeting her eyes with intensity. Tension and excitement crackle in the air as they work together in silence. Each of the bowls contains a component of the ritual: reptilian eyeballs ground to a paste to give her awareness beyond herself; the sprig of a yew tree to tether her to the underworld; a creature with flight to allow her ascension; a lotus flower to merge her imagination with reality.

Thanatos clears a space on the floor and begins drawing a circle with a four pointed star in the center and a lining of symbols from the Language. Normally, Thanatos would make her draw the circle herself, but this is a time for precision, not practice. When the circle is complete, she places the bowls at each point of the star and sits cross-legged in the middle. Thanatos evaluates the scene, and her, intently.

“Are you ready?”

She is. She’s ready to challenge herself, to answer a question only she thought to ask. And she can’t deny herself the chance to find out why Marcus killed her, perhaps scaring the shit out of him while she’s at it. She meets Thanatos’ gaze and nods sharply.

“Okay. If you stay up there too long or the spell drains you too much, I’ll break the circle. Promise you won’t overexert yourself?”

“I promise.”

She closes her eyes and allows her shoulders to relax. Takes two deep breaths. She begins speaking the words she’s been memorizing for days. Her fingers dip into the paste and smear it across her eyelids and down her jaw in one smooth motion. Somehow, it’s both slimy and gritty on her skin. She reaches for the sprig of yew and places it gently between her teeth and her cheek so it doesn’t impede her speech. Next, she lifts a sedated bat from it’s golden resting place and, without letting herself think about it, twists its neck hard and fast. It provides no resistance and makes no sound when she pulls its head from its body and dabs its blood on the inside of both wrists. As she speaks the words of the Language, she connects her gaze to Thanatos’, whose nod of encouragement bolsters her to complete the final act. She crushes the lotus flower in both hands and cups them to her face, inhaling the scent deeply and summoning in her mind’s eye a clear picture of her destination.

Though her body doesn’t move, she the sensation of being sucked into a cosmic vacuum gives her vertigo. She’s falling, falling, falling… upwards instead of down. She moves faster and faster until she finally emerges into a blinding, cacophonous reality.

She is outdoors, light searing into her closed eyes and every birdsong and scurrying squirrel ringing in her ears like metal on metal. She hadn’t worn shoes when preparing the circle of enchantment, and now blades of grass stab and scrape into her ankles. Only a moment after she registers that she is indeed on earth again does a thunderous noise drill into her skull, inciting a madness-inducing migraine.

Her eyes fly open at the booming sound, and it’s Marcus falling onto his rear and shouting something indecipherable.

“Shut up,” she mumbles, then finds her voice, “Shut up!”

His mouth snaps closed, but his face has drained of all color. She takes a moment to compose herself. The living world is still abrasive, but the assault on her senses lessens over time. Marcus doesn’t take his eyes off her for even a second. He doesn’t breathe, doesn’t blink, doesn’t twitch.

“Alright,” she says once she feels confident her head won’t explode, “let’s chat.”

He swallows. “I thought— Orpheus said that you—.” He starts again, “Am I dreaming?”

“You’re not dreaming, Marcus. I’m still dead. I’ll just be haunting your ass until I have the answers I want.”

She hadn’t thought of it as a haunting until this very moment, but there’s no doubt that’s what this is. He deserves it, she thinks petulantly.

“What— what answers?”

“I want to know why you killed me, obviously. Among other things” She sits on the grass across from where he’s splayed out. It helps with the vertigo.

Marcus bites his lip as if weighing his options. His eyes are calculating even in the face of a vengeful ghost. He opens and closes his mouth wordlessly several times, his expression oscillating between dread and desperation. Finally, he straightens, his mind made up.

“I have visions. Of the future.” The words tumble out of him haphazardly, like they’re rusty in his mouth. “I saw you and Orpheus getting married, and then I saw you die on your wedding day. It drove Orpheus mad, and he did everything in his power to save you. He went to the Underworld and never came back. I couldn’t let that happen, so I tried to stop the vision from coming true however I could. But I failed. He went anyway. And the only reason he’s still with me is because you saved him. Gods, I’m so sorry, Eurydice.”

Eurydice truly hadn’t known what to expect; there wasn’t a single motive she could think of that would explain her murder. But visions? Prophecies? It feels like a poorly crafted lie until a realization halts her train of thought.

“Is this why you were so cagey about those books on prophecy? Trying to see disasters before they hit? That was all bullshit, wasn’t it?”

He nods sheepishly. “Gaius is the only one who knows the truth about me. He’s been trying to help me dissect the finer details of the visions, but they only come in my dreams, so they’re hard to control.”

Her mind whirls, skeptical yet cognizant that she herself is performing a spell to project her image across planes of existence at this very moment. She had never thought much of the mystical while she was alive (Orpheus’ power being the sole exception), and she was thrown in head-first to the existence of monsters and magic in the Underworld. She had yet to consider that the two worlds overlapped in any meaningful way. That Orpheus was not the exception in being otherworldly but in the visibility of his otherworldliness. But of course, the two are intertwined. The reason she’s on earth is to find and discuss supernatural books. She pauses now to investigate her surroundings, and she’s astonished to spot dryads spying on them from behind their trees and airy wind spirits peering down as they flutter by. She chastises herself for failing to understand the presence of nature spirits like Bryony in the mortal world, just beyond her comprehension.

A child-like wonder overtakes any cynicism left in her. “Can you see them too?”

He nods with a curious smile, and she berates herself for getting distracted. She doesn’t want him to be any less afraid of her. Refocusing on the task before her, she’s glad to hear that Marcus hadn’t wanted to kill her. He was just desperate.

“You don’t know why or how you were given this power? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

“It didn’t start until I was fourteen years old. By then, I was living here with Gaius. He said I should keep it a secret, no matter what I saw, especially from Orpheus. He said that people would either not believe me or demand to know their future and blame me for what I saw.

“He also warned me against meddling. That I should never take what I see in visions at face value. Poisoning you was the first time I didn’t listen.”

“Seems like it worked though— Orpheus did survive. Maybe you ought to intervene more often.”

“Are you endorsing your own murder?” he asks, incredulous, his face red.

She shrugs. “We do messy things to protect the ones we love. I know that as well as anyone.” She narrows her eyes coldly. “That doesn’t mean I’m not still pissed off at you. Now onto business. I need to see the books at the bottom of your bookshelf.”

He blinks in confusion. “The bottom? The ones in a dead language that look like they could fall apart with a light breeze?”

“Yes.”

“Gaius gave them too me. He thought I might be able to decipher the language, but no luck. I gave them to back to Gaius to keep in the library. I think they were being damaged by the sunlight here.”

She goes on to pester him about any other books that Gaius has stored away, but he doesn’t know anything useful about them. He questions her need for such knowledge, but she brushes away his concern, noncommittal. She does, however, demand that he search library for any similar books.

“One more thing. Tell me about the old physician, Apollo.”

“What about him? He was in Elysium when I got here, but I know he wasn’t from here originally.”

“He wasn’t unusual at all? No unexplained absences, no miraculous recoveries?”

“Not that I know of, but Rafe would know better. He was just a good doctor— a normal guy, well-liked.”

She bites the inside of her cheek and nods. “It should go without saying that I’ll drag you back to hell with me if you tell anyone about this meeting.” He opens his mouth to protest— she suspects on behalf of Orpheus— but she silences him. “Let’s not pretend you can’t lie to Orpheus as easily as you breathe. Seeing me again would be torture, and he doesn’t deserve that.”

“But I do?”

“Yes. I’ll be back in a week.”

Without so much as a nod or wave, she releases her concentration from the spell and comes barreling back into her body— soul?— with the force of a trampling buffalo. Her eyes shoot open as her backside falls hard onto the floor. Had she been levitating? She can’t be sure, given that up and down are not discernible at the moment. Thanatos is there in the next breath to stop her from rolling back completely and cracking her head on the stone floor. He’s hot as a furnace, and she realizes now that she’s shivering. She spits the bitter leaves from her mouth. He moves to help her to her feet, but she stops him for fear of retching from the vertigo. So they stay curled together on the floor, Thanatos cupping her icicle hands in his own, until she can move without being sick.

Even after the dizziness dissipates, an exhaustion lingers deep in her bones. She allows Thanatos to carry her into the bathroom of the adjoining apartment. He turns the bathtub faucet all the way until steam rises from the tub and fogs the mirror. She perches on the edge of the tub, propping herself against the wall, and looks down at her blouse, which she had effortlessly buttoned down the back this morning using magic. Now she wouldn’t be able to reach them all by hand even if her arms didn’t weigh two hundred pounds each.

Thanatos shuts off the water and moves to exit, but he halts when she shifts and requests weakly, “Can you…?”

Wordlessly, the god crouches behind her and brings his gloriously warm fingers to her neck. He fumbles with the tiny buttons. Eurydice unconsciously leans into his touch, and her eyes drift closed. When the back of her blouse finally falls open, he brushes the sleeves lightly down her arms, and she shrugs her shoulders to help them drop. He brings his hands to the top of her hips and pauses in a silent question. After her nod, he unfastens her skirt and shifts to kneel before her.

She opens her eyes to find Thanatos watching her face intently, lips parted. He’s seen her bare chest before. His hand has even been inside her before— grasping at her heart. This is different.

“Can you lift your hips at all?” His voice is soft, measured. Not at all like electricity building between his fingertips and the skin of her waist or the fire behind his eyes.

She swallows in anticipation and braces her arms on the edge of the tub. With all her remaining strength, she lifts herself barely an inch and Thanatos lowers her skirt and undergarment together with gentle precision. His touch trails all the way down her legs, and she shivers, but not from the cold. She almost doesn’t notice her elbows and wrists aching from the effort. Almost.

He helps lower her into the water, and she relishes in the warmth that seeps slowly into her muscles. Thanatos twitches his head to the door and back to her, unsure of what to do.

“Stay.” He does. Because her fatigue worn down her discretion, and because it’s on her mind, she asks, “What was it like to cut out my heart and hold it in your hands?”

His eyebrows scrunch in confusion, but he answers candidly. “It was awful. It’s always awful.”

When he doesn’t elaborate, she implores, “Keep talking.” The timbre of his voice soothes her.

He sighs, but acquiesces. “I always recognize you, you know? In different bodies at different times. Something in your essence is always the same, no matter how many lives you live.”

Eurydice hums and curls in on herself, indulgent. Blood is rapidly returning to her chilled extremities, and steamy air coaxes her eyes closed again. She already misses his touch.

“Last time, she hated me. Alexis was only sixteen— just a kid from Scotland— and it was a sudden, instant death. She was head over heels for that Orpheus and refused to believe she was dead. The judgement was the nail in the coffin for her to decide I was evil and standing in the way of true love.”

She giggles. Even if it’s almost herself she’s laughing at, she’s glad Thanatos doesn’t speak of it that way. Addressing her past lives as separate people seems to help both Eurydice and Thanatos cope with the situation.

“Teenagers make terrible soldiers,” she mutters, her words slurred by fatigue.

“They do,” he agrees with a smirk that fades as quickly as it appears, “We never even explained the situation or gave her the chance to test her powers before sending her soul back to earth. It felt both cruel and merciful at the time. I’m still not sure which it was.”

She understands. And she understands why it matters to Thanatos, even if whatever cosmic forces that govern the universe aren’t bothered either way.

“I was surprised this time when you didn’t resist. You even seemed to recognize me— do you remember? And then you trusted me with a knife at your chest, and I had to pretend you were a stranger. Leaving you with the gollum was hell.”

“Yeah, same,” she giggles to herself.

She glaces up to find him watching her with his head tilted, and she’s glad when he doesn’t shift his gaze away. He seems to understand this exchange for what it is— his emotional vulnerability traded for her physical vulnerability— even if Eurydice doesn’t realize yet what she’s doing. While the tension between them has passed, she knows her mind will later return to that moment for further examination.

Now that her shivering has ceased, she focuses her efforts on scrubbing the ceremonial blood and paste from her skin. She wouldn’t mind staying in this bathroom with Thanatos, but she would rather fall asleep in bed. She slowly pulls her feet under herself to test her balance, taking Thanatos’ arm when he offers it, and reaches for a towel. By the time they arrive at the bedside, the aches and exhaustion have returned in full force, and she collapses into the bed. Thanatos murmurs something she doesn’t hear or pay attention to, and in the next breath, she’s asleep.

Chapter Text

Eurydice finds herself wandering the woods surrounding Elysium. A strong wind sends branches and pine needles whipping all around, but this time, Eurydice can see the wind spirits marching together and striking down every tree in their path. They have no weapons, but they slice through the forest with sharp, arcing bursts of air. She can only glimpse their faces for a few seconds before they’re long gone. They look sad. Some look angry, but not at the trees they attack.

When the winds have passed, the forest is still, quiet. And then a small gurgling prompts Eurydice to look behind her. There on the trunk of a old pine is Collette, still alive, but only just. The girls coughs, and blood dribbles from her open lips. Eurydice blinks, and it’s Isaac pinned to the tree instead. He reaches out to her for help, and just like before, she does nothing for him. Tears that had been welling in Eurydice’s eyes finally fall, and now it’s Blue, smiling softly.

She jerks awake to a soft hand on her shoulder.

“It’s just me,” Thanatos assures her, “It’s almost dawn.”

She rolls over and rubs her eyes. “Have you been here the whole time?”

“You were having nightmares. I didn’t want you to wake up alone.”

A strange feeling burns in her stomach, but she brushes it off; the sleep has replenished her, and she has energy to spare. When she reports for duty wearing the same clothes as yesterday, Bryony doesn’t comment. Eurydice attends to the day’s chores as quickly as she can and returns to workshop, eager to share the previous day’s experience with Thanatos now that she’s recovered. She races down the stairs and bursts into the workshop, but finds it empty. Curbing her excitement, she evaluates the space impatiently. There’s nothing wrong with it exactly, besides the decades of dust settled in the unused crevices - she could clean it, of course, but would rather not bring her day job home.

Everything in the room is practical, if disorganized. There’s nothing entertaining or pretty to look at, and Eurydice needs an outlet for her energy. Without thinking, she empties a thin, vertical bookshelf, removes the shelves, and draws up a quick alchemical circle. She drags the wooden frame atop the circle and lays it flat, spreading a half-inch layer of sand inside. Her hands make contact with the circle in the familiar ritual, and in a blinding flash the grains of sand melt into a molten semi-liquid, then solidify into a layer of glass. The scent of burning minerals and searing wood envelope with room, but she’s satisfied with the makeshift window.

While the glass cools, she grabs a roll of parchment and a pen to write out her next spell. It takes a few drafts of wordsmithing the Language, but she returns to the window confident she can produce the desired result. When the words roll off her tongue, her muscles relax, and she pictures herself standing at the peak of a green, Appalachian mountain on a sunny autumn day, overlooking the red and yellow tapestry of leaves. She opens her eyes to find the scene reflected back at her from the glass, light pouring from the frame as if it could truly open up to the outdoors. Breathless, she gazes through the window at the first rays of daylight she’s seen in ages.

“That was risky.” She spins, startled, to find Thanatos lounging in the doorway, watching her. “You could have set the wood on fire or gotten lost in your memory recreating the image.”

He stalks closer to her, stopping just inches away. She has to restrain herself from reaching out to touch him as he examines her work. Now that he’s here they can discuss her encounter with Marcus, but she’d be lying to herself if she denied that she wants to spend time with him.

“But it worked well,” he says, oblivious to the pink tinging her ears, “It’s an astonishing view.”

“I forgot how beautiful home is. What I saw yesterday, I don’t want to forget.” She clears her throat. “It’s not as good as what I learned yesterday.”

She recounts her revelations about Marcus and his gift for the future, and the god listens closely. She can still hardly believe it. When she’s finished, Thanatos considers her words with a concentrated glare at the floor.

“He never could resist mortal lovers.” Thanatos brings his eyes up to her. “It would seem that Apollo has a son.”

She blinks. “A son? No,” she protests, “Marcus knew his father.”

“Does anyone really know their parents?”

She knows he’s right. She tries to find it in herself to disagree, but if she’s honest with herself, Marcus has always had an edge to him that only showed in a certain light. And they have the same black hair, the same straight nose.

“It’s not unheard of,” he continues, “Especially with Apollo. He spends more time among mortals than any other god I know.”

“If that’s true, I don’t think he knows it.” She sighs, chewing on the idea. “Where does that leave us? Can we use his visions to our advantage?”

“I’m wary to. Glimpses of the future are finicky, deceptive. Only the fates can say for certain what will happen. The best use we have for him, for now, is still the knowledge in those books.”

She sighs in resignation. That means the only thing to do is wait, and she hates waiting. The burning sensation in her abdomen returns, and her insides twist and growl. Her mind finally registers what’s happening to her: she’s ravenous. She and Thanatos both look to her stomach, her in awe and him in amusement.

“Let’s get you something to eat,” He says, taking her into the kitchen. She’s content to sit on the bed while he cooks.

She looks down at the bed that she slept naked in last night. Thanatos’ bed.

“Can we, um— I want to be transparent about last night.” She surprises herself with how flustered she feels. She resolves to recollect her blase confidence.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says quickly, not looking up from the cutting board. “You were drained and disoriented, and you needed help. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

His words are clearly meant to be comforting, but they’re also annoyingly dismissive. If she wasn’t watching so closely, she might miss the way his shoulders pull back and his neck straighten just a bit more than would be natural. He’s purposefully misunderstanding her. That won’t do.

“No. I felt something between us. I still do, and I think you do too.”

He turns to face her but drags a hand down his face. His eyes fix themselves on the floor beneath her dangling feet. The bubbling pot is the only sound in the Underworld.

“The feeling cannot be mutual.”

“What does that mean? ‘Cannot’? That’s not an answer.”

“It means I’ve walked this road before. I’m still walking this road, and it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

Eurydice rolls her eyes at his indirectness, but something catches her attention. One of the black paper flower resting on the dresser, which she had stopped noticing shortly after discovering the workshop. They’re elegant, beautiful, and glaringly out of place.

“Who made those?”

He doesn’t have to follow her gaze to understand her meaning. His chin dips, and he turns back to the counter. His voice is quiet when he speaks again.

“Kohana. She was an engineer at heart, but she always said origami is the engineering of art.”

“You loved her.”

“Yes. And now she’s gone several times over, but you’re here.” He scoffs, dejected. “Just like she planned.”

“You don’t have to explain.” She doesn’t want him to explain, truthfully. She doesn’t want to hear that anything he feels for her is the ghost of his love for a different version of her. A better, smarter, more selfless version of her by the sound of it. She can’t help but wonder if Kohana would be satisfied, having traded Thanatos’ love for power, for an undefined greater good. “I’ll get over it.”

And she will, with time. It’s not the first time she’s put aside unreciprocated feelings, though it probably will be the last, given her circumstances. Unreciprocated is fine with her, albeit uncomfortable, but she refuses to let her desires be unrequited. She asks for what she wants and takes what she can get.

“Thank you.” He places a bowl of rice and vegetables in her hands. “Eat.”

The next several days pass slowly as Eurydice waits impatiently for the day she can visit Marcus again. Thanatos had to make a guess as to how long exactly they should wait. She had promised to return in one week, which he estimates to be about twenty days for them. She keeps a distance from Thanatos in that time, physically and emotionally. It’s not fair to either of them to be too close right now. When the time for the next projection spell arrives, she forces herself to sleep the night before in preparation, and she wears a more sensible wrap-around dress that she’ll be able to remove herself.

As she performs a quick spell to sedate another bat, she hopes she doesn’t have to visit the mortal world too many times. She takes no pleasure in killing helpless animals, even if it’s for a worthy cause. Under Thanatos’ watchful eye, she performs the ritual to project herself into Elysium. The transition between realms is smoother this time; it helps that Marcus doesn’t scream again.

He’s in his bedroom this time, caught in the middle of changing clothes, and he flinches when she appears. He wads up his shirt in frustration and throws it onto the bed.

“Gods!” he startles, “I was expecting you yesterday. I was hoping you’d been a vivid hallucination when you didn’t show.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” she says unapologetically, “Time is different for me. What did you find?”

He rolls his eyes and pulls a crate from beneath his bed. “I scoured every book in Gaius’ collection for any more books in that language.” He gestures to the books on the floor and opens one up. “The weird part is that I don’t think this language is even human. Gaius can’t identify it either.”

She peers over his shoulder and recognizes the Language instantly. “Holy shit,” she breathes, “Where did he get these?”

“I wondered that too. He’s always defensive when I ask where he finds this stuff” he confesses, “but I guess he got a lot of them from a book cart run by a husband and wife like thirty years ago before they stopped trading in these kinds of books.”

She schools her face into a passive curiosity and moves to get a better look at the Language. “We’re going to flip through all of these and see if they have what I’m looking for.”

His eyebrows furrow into a scowl and he begins to question her, but she cuts him off, “Don’t ask. I won’t answer.”

“I think I deserve some explanation for what we’re doing here. And how you know some dead language that not even—”

Just then, the sound of the front door swinging closed interrupts him. A voice calls out in greeting, and the stairs creak as feet jog over them. Their eyes meet, both wide in panic, as Orpheus approaches the bedroom door.

Marcus scrambles to intercept the man before he can see Eurydice and the stash of ancient, magical books. Eurydice moves closer to the door behind Marcus to listen.

“Orpheus,” Marcus says, breathless, “Now’s not the best time.”

“Woah, are you okay? You look hot.” The beat of silence between them forces Eurydice to swallow down her snicker. “Feverish, I mean. I’ll grab you a cool washcloth.”

“You can’t!” His voice is closer to the door now. “I’m fine. I promise.”

Orpheus seems to register Marcus’ shallow breath and bare chest and come to a different conclusion. “Are you—? Is there a guy in there?”

“No! No guy. No one at all.”

“Okay,” He draws out the word. “I’ll—um. I’ll come back later.”

Marcus reenters the bedroom with a pointed glare. “This is just perfect. Now he thinks I’m seeing someone and lying about it. You weren’t kidding when you said you screw things up.”

“You choked. Don’t put that on me. I’ll be out of your hair, and you’ll be free to keep pining over each other once we look through these books.”

“‘We’?”

“‘We.’ I don’t have all day.”

“You have a busy schedule being dead, do you?”

“Yes, actually.” She opens a book and finds the markings in the Language that refer to gods, origins, and birth. “Tell me if you see any of these characters in the same line.”

An hour into their research, Eurydice braces herself for the possibility that they won’t find anything. The words swim off the pages, and her eyelids grow heavier with each passing minute. She doesn’t know what would happen if she fell asleep in the middle of a projection, and she doesn’t want to find out. Just when she decides to break for the night, Marcus speaks up.

“Here’s something.” He points to an especially yellowed and dusty page.

When she reads the page, she sucks in a breath through her teeth. It’s not what she’s been searching for; it’s much, much more.

“I’m going to try to take this with me. If it doesn’t work, I’ll be back with pen and paper tomorrow-ish. Give Orpheus a kiss for me.”

With a gratuitous wink, she releases the spell, not giving Marcus a chance to protest. When her consciousness cascades back into the workshop, her knees fall to the floor as expected. Thanatos is there to catch her again, though she’s quick to regain her own balance this time. The book has unfortunately not made the journey with her. It was a long shot, anyway.

Her teeth chatter as she shuffles weakly to the bathroom. The door clicks shut before Thanatos can follow her. She manages to turn the bathtub’s faucet before collapsing in front of the toilet and throwing up the meager contents of her stomach. Once the retching has given way to full-body tremors, she slips out of her clothes and crawls, quite literally, into the tub. She has to replace the hot water twice before her bones stop feeling like they’re made of ice. Wrapping her dress loosely around her frame, she emerges from the bathroom to find Thanatos waiting in the kitchen with a plate of food. He opens his mouth but she speaks up before he can.

“I know. I was under for too long, but it was worth it, and I’m going back as soon as I recharge.” She leans against the counter earnestly. “Thanatos, they have a dozen books in the Language. And one of them could be the key to everything.”

“What did you find?” he asks, his interest piqued.

“The gods aren’t like you. They didn’t just emerge spontaneously. They were humans, made into gods with magic.”

Chapter Text

Eurydice sleeps in her own room that night, though she only has a few hours before work. Throughout the day she pointedly ignores Blue’s teasing glances. She returns to her room and falls back asleep before her head hits the pillow. When she returns to the workshop, her hands practically move themselves as she prepares the ritual for a third time. By the time everything is ready, she can hear Thanatos moving around the kitchen. She calls out that she’s about to start, and he rushes in, pots and pans clanging together in his haste. Hesitation is written all over his face, but he doesn’t protest. Either he trusts her enough to know her limits, or he’s eager enough to learn more that he doesn’t mind the risk.

She appears in Elysium with confidence, a mission, and a notebook. If the notebook hadn’t traveled with her, she had no backup plan, but she figures it will work since her clothes have made the journey just fine. Her confidence is shaken however, when she realizes not only that Marcus is not alone, he is accompanied by Orpheus, Rafael, and Sam. She’s back in Marcus’ apartment.

“Gods, Marcus! What part of ‘tomorrow’ do you not understand? I said time is different for me; you can’t just be hanging out with the whole gang when I could be here any second.”

“‘Tomorrow-ish’,” he corrects, “means literally nothing. You barely been gone eight hours! How is this my fault?”

“You know goddamn well why this whole situation is your fault. Would you like me to share with the class?”

As the words leave her mouth, the reality of the situation smacks her like a tree branch pulled back and let loose. Her friends gape at her. Orpheus looks like he might vomit, and a broken glass lies in front of Rafael that she hadn’t heard drop. Sam recovers first.

“Of course this is happening. Of course you’d crash your own birthday party.”

“My birthday party?” Eurydice doesn’t like how quickly the tables have turned and she’s the one in the dark. “I don’t know my birthday. I only celebrated when…” She trails off, remembering how sad a preteen Samantha had been to find out Eurydice didn’t know her birthday. She made a point for the next two springs they spent together to celebrate in May.

“Is that really you?” Orpheus whispers, “Are you back?”

“It is me, Orpheus, but I’m not really back. I’m still very dead. I just need something from Marcus.” She looks at Marcus and jerks her head toward the stairs as she speaks. “After that, I’ll be out of your hair.”

“Out of our hair?” Rafe pipes up, “We’ve been grieving you for six months, Eurydice, but you don’t seem ‘very dead’ to me. And you’ve been seeing Marcus the whole time? Why?”

“Not the whole time. That part is pretty recent. I wanted to avoid traumatizing all of you by showing up as a ghost, especially after Orpheus— well, you know.”

“They don’t know. Just Marcus” Orpheus’ voice is weaker than she’s ever heard before. Gone is the sure-footed, charismatic leader of Elysium.

Marcus returns wielding the book, out of breath from running up the stairs. She takes it and opens it to the correct page before setting it on the table and grabbing her notebook and pen. She turns back to her friends’ expectant faces.

“It seems that Marcus is the only one among you who knows the whole story. I hate to put all the explanation on him,” she lies, “but I need this book, and I can’t stay long. I get that I seem like the asshole right now, but if you knew everything I know, you’d see that actually Marcus is the asshole.”

Marcus rolls his eyes, but doesn’t disagree. Satisfied for now, she turns back to the table, and starts furiously copying the Language into the notebook. The rest of the group simply stares at her, incredulous and unmoving. An awkward few minutes pass before Sam finally breaks from the reverie and picks up the broken glass with a sigh. She and Rafe share a look of trepidation.

“Are you referring to the fact that Marcus poisoned you?”

Eurydice’s scribbling comes to a halt, and Marcus and Orpheus look to each other in panic for different reasons.

“How long have you known?” Marcus asks, and the blood drains from Orpheus’ face once again.

Rafael answers, “Immediately. I can tell the difference between cyanide and an allergic reaction.”

“It was a pretty weak cover story, Marcus,” Sam adds, “‘She must have been allergic to almonds’? She ate almond pastries from the bakery all the time. We were going to confront you about it today, actually. This is a very strange turn of events.”

At that, Eurydice can’t stop herself from chuckling. Her giggles continue as she returns her attention to the notebook. She double checks every word of the spell to make sure the distraction hasn’t resulted in any mistakes. The room is perfectly still and silent as a portrait save for her shaking laughter. As she shuts the book, something catches her eye in the kitchen— a small birthday cake. She grabs a fork from the drawer and grabs a bite right from the middle of the cake.

“That is divine. Great birthday party, guys. A word of advice from your friend beyond the grave: stop fucking lying to each other. Don’t expect to see me again.”

She lets herself disappear from earth, and once again comes crashing back into the underworld. Before she even sits up, she grabs the notebook to check for her transcription, and breathes a sigh of relief. Thanatos leans questioningly over her supine form, and she nods in confirmation, offering him the notebook as she pushes herself up and grabs the bowl of hot soup waiting on the bench beside her. Once she feels able to stand, she hobbles into the bedroom and retrieves the thick, fluffy duvet to wrap around herself.

“This is incredible,” Thanatos mutters to himself as he studies the spell. “The fact that a book like this has survived for so long is a miracle in itself. I believe it was written by Hecate, the original witch, magic herself. This means that the gods really were just humans, transformed. Made immortal and invulnerable and given power over their realms. Every god born from the original twelve inherited the magic.”

“How could you not already know this? This is huge!”

“I’ve told you. It’s not as simple as that. Just because I existed at the time doesn’t mean I was keeping up with the happenings of earth. Even if I knew at the time, my memory is far from perfect. It’s been hundreds of thousands of years. I doubt any of the gods remember their lives before the transformation, or that there was a transformation at all. That’s why we keep record of these kinds of things in the library.”

“So what do we do with this information? How does this help us?”

“Persephone and Hades won’t like this. It means godhood was given, so it can also be taken away.”

The unfinished statement hangs in the air: if I’m skilled enough, strong enough. This isn’t like any other battle strategy that Zeus and Poseidon have been doling out to each other for over a century. This is the kind of thing that can only be attempted once before the truth is revealed to everyone. If Eurydice can’t do it, she’ll essentially die, replaced by a more powerful version of herself in a few decades. Kohana sacrificed herself for the greater good; she was selfless enough to give future versions of herself a better chance of success, even with no plan of action.

Eurydice is not so generous. She wants what’s left of her life to be her own. She wants to let her soul rest. She wants to stay here, with Blue and Bryony and Thanatos, despite herself.

“I can do it.”

She isn’t certain she believes herself, but the projection spell has been a little easier every time. Her power has not yet reached it peak. She’ll find the strength within her to undo the work of the first and most powerful witch. Because she has to.

He searches her eyes for what feels like a lifetime before he finally says, “Okay.”

She expects more questioning, but when he provides none, she doesn’t complain. Instead she squeezes the blanket more tightly around her and adds casually, “All my friends saw me this time. They were celebrating my birthday and conspiring against Marcus on my behalf. I gave them the scare of their lives, that’s for sure.” She laughs once, without humor.

“It must have been difficult to see them again.”

“It was.” She despises the weakness in her voice. “I feel like I’ve been here for so long; I’m dead and I’ve come to terms with it. But for them, its barely been six months. I hate to cause them more suffering than I already have— Samantha especially. I’m just glad it won’t happen again.”

“I’m not so sure.” She cuts him an icy look, and he continues, “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that your path crossed with a prophetic demigod. Not to mention Orpheus himself is powerful enough to shield an entire city from constant attack from the gods.

“You told me once you felt like a puppet on a stage when you realized you and Orpheus had been set up. You weren’t too far off. Aside from the gods’ meddling in your life specifically, everything happens according to the Fates’ script, and I suspect your friends still have parts to play.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” she grumbles. This is her mess— it always has been— and she’ll do whatever it takes to shield them from the fallout of having known her.

At this moment, however, her resistance is fading as the effects of the projection catch up to her. She struggles to keep her eyelids open. Thanatos, annoyingly, notices her fatigue instantly.

“You can stay here tonight,” he offers, and she nods in agreement.

She awakes with a start and makes her way back to her own room to change clothes before reporting to Bryony. She turns the corner to find Blue standing before her bedroom door. Eurydice calls her name in greeting, but the girl doesn’t shift. She can’t place what it is that feels so wrong until she realizes that Blue’s form flickers slightly, like the flame of a candle. Eurydice rushes to meet her and clutches the girl in her arms. She tries to, at least. Her hands pass right through. Blue sways on her feet, looking like the gentlest puff of wind could topple her. She doesn’t appear to be in distress or pain. It’s like she’s sleepwalking.

A cry buries itself in Eurydice’s throat, and tears prickle behind her eyes. A familiar twiggy figure rounds the corner and Eurydice calls out.

“Bryony!”

The nymph’s shoulders visibly sag, and her face falls. She takes small, slow steps until she’s close enough to touch the girl. She tries to cup Blue’s cheek, but her hand meets no resistance.

She sighs with a sad smile. “I’ll miss you, Blue. It’s a pleasure to have known you.”

“What is happening?” Eurydice demands desperately.

“Her soul is fading away. The last piece of her is returning to the universe. There is nothing to do but comfort her.”

Blue’s eyes finally focus on Bryony, and she smiles. It’s the kind of smile Eurydice has only ever seen on the faces of people drunk or high, on the verge of passing out. It’s hard to look at without feeling some cosmic injustice is at play. Someone so innocent doesn’t deserve this.

The girl crouches down, nearly floating, and sits on her crossed legs, that smile still gracing her features as her eyes flutter shut. Eurydice can now make out the marbled pattern of the floor through Blue’s legs. She and Bryony sit with her, unable to help her, but refusing to let her be alone.

“You should do one of those songs you hum while you work. Blue likes them. I catch her sometimes, dancing along behind your back.”

She doesn’t think she’ll be able to speak, much less sing, right now, but she knows she has to try. For Blue. She clears her throat and starts to sing, her voice hot and raspy. It gets a bit easier after she starts, and Blue sways back and forth gently in time with the song. Eurydice squeezes her eyes shut, unwilling to look at Blue and see through her instead. The song ends, but she repeats it, over and over again.

Bryony’s hand on her shoulder silences her. She knows before she forces her eyes to open. Blue is gone.

Chapter Text

Eurydice volunteers for laundry-duty the whole week. The steaming room of boiling barrels is one of the few places her face can be puffy and red without question. Every time she closes her eyes she sees the translucent face of her only true friend in this palace. In this plane of existence. Sometimes Blue’s image in her mind morphs into that of another she failed to save— too tall for his age, wide, brown eyes, and a mop of curly hair. Each day at dusk, she goes straight to her room and dreams of them both.

She’s not sure how many days have passed when she returns to her room to find Thanatos waiting for her. Instantly, numbness washes over her as she tries to speak, as if she doesn’t believe her own words. But she’s had a lot of time to think.

“Blue died. Or whatever you call it when someone’s already dead.”

It comes off as an accusation because it is.

“I know. I returned her soul to the universe.”

“Why?” She fights to keep her voice from shaking.

“It was her time. There comes a moment in every person’s afterlife when their most basic essence calls out to be released. Blue had been drifting away for a long while.”

“Is it painful?” she asks, needing to be certain, despite Blue’s seemingly peaceful end.

Thanatos shakes his head, but doesn’t say more.

“How long do I have? Before it happens to me?”

“You know we can’t let—”

“How long?”

“I don’t know. A few years, maybe. It’s different for everyone. Humans don’t last as long as the nature spirits.”

“Okay. Fuck.” [come back to this convo - change topics to friends involvement]

“At least we have what we need from Marcus.”

“About that…” Thanatos hesitates.

“I’m not going to like where you’re going with this, am I?”

“It’s doubtful. I think your friends need to be part of our plan. I suspect they already are in ways we haven’t yet seen.”

“No.” It’s too much. She shakes her head violently and crosses her arms over her abdomen. “No. Them being a part of all this is because of Apollo, not the Fates. I’m not dragging them further into this mess.”

“What the Fates have written and Apollo’s interference are not mutually exclusive. And they live in the wreckage of a warring planet. They’re in ‘this mess’ already. They have the potential to help save their world.”

“Fuck the world. The world sucks. It doesn’t deserve their help if it puts them in danger.”

“They’re in danger every day that this war continues. This is the only chance to save them.”

A retort is primed on her tongue, but Thanatos stops her by gently grasping her bicep. “Eurydice. I wish I didn’t have to say this, but I do. Persephone’s prime directive is to find a way to end the war, whatever it takes, and I’m bound to help her. I want this to work— I want you to work. But if you don’t comply, we’ll have to start again.”

Tears prickle behind her eyes, but she fights them back. Despite the fury roiling and bubbling inside her, she steels her face and says, “Understood,” lifting her chin but looking through him more than at him. “You can go.”

The moment the door clicks shut, she buries her face in her pillow and screams until her throat feels hoarse and ragged. She pushes herself out of bed and starts walking the halls of the palace, restless and directionless. The conversation replays in her head over and over and over, the cadence broken only by the intruding memory of Blue’s death. How dare he pull the reincarnation card? Non-consensual reincarnation at that, though she admittedly has no idea if such a concept even exists.

She thinks of her friends. Her family, really— even Marcus if she’s honest with herself. Every family has some dysfunction. She had thought she couldn’t hurt them anymore. Evidently, they can’t escape her curse, even in death. The worst part is that she knows they would agree to help; they are all better people than she is. Orpheus is idealistic and ambitious enough to believe they could succeed. Marcus is loyal enough to follow Orpheus into any storm, despite his better judgement. Sam is fearless enough to take on any god, man, or creature that threatens her, and Rafe is selfless enough heal the world and everyone in it.

It’s Eurydice who may not be enough.

Her legs have taken her to the mouth of the gollum’s cave. She stands at the entrance and breathes in the musty, stale scent that will likely emanate from the caverns for all of time. Deep within her, she finds a nugget of nostalgia for simpler times. She had been tortured mercilessly for months, yes, but she had accepted it as her penance for living an unsavory and immoral life. Her true penance is much harder to come to terms with. She pivots away from the cave’s entrance and makes her way toward the still, dead waters of the sea. The saline air slices through her sinuses and wakes up her senses. Unable to stand still more more than a few seconds, she walks along the beach until the wreckage of an enormous vessel blocks her path. She steps on the cracked and weathered planks and up the slight incline, letting herself wander the skeleton of a bygone time and place. She suspects the ship is Dutch based on the few words distinguishable behind faded paint and rusty metal etchings. Rumor has it, most of northern Europe is underwater now.

A sharp prick on her rib cage snaps her out of her pensive state. Then another on her neck and two more on her legs. There is no visible cause, but an innate feeling of bugs crawling over her skin overcomes her. She hurries out of the ship’s remnants and swipes her hands over her body to rid herself of the feeling. By the time she returns to the palace, the prickling has dampened into a slight tingling, and she goes straight to the baths. Tonight, she dreams of playing card games with Sam and an infinite wave of fire ants crashing over her.

Her skin itches the next day, but she’s able to distract herself well enough. She returns to the workshop for the first time since retrieving Hecate’s spell. It stings a bit to find out Thanatos has been working without her to reverse engineer it. She pushes that feeling aside, along with several others, and steels herself to ask the question she knows signifies surrender.

“What do you have in mind for them?”

Thanatos looks her up and down once, trying and failing to gauge her emotions. “I think you and Orpheus should get married.” If Eurydice had been drinking, she would have spit the water out. As it is, she feels like spitting the bitter taste out of her mouth anyway. Before she can process enough to protest, he continues, “I’ve been studying the spell Hecate used, and I’m almost certain you’ll have to be in the immediate presence of gods you want to… uh, demote? We’ll need as many gods as we can get gathered together and take them all in one fell swoop. Your story is the only neutral ground right now. A big, public wedding would be cause to come together. The last time gods from different sides of the war sat together was to watch Orpheus try to barter your way out of here.”

She shakes her head once. Then again, and again, trying to rack her brain for a rebuttal. She can’t think of one. She doesn’t want to admit it’s a good idea, she doesn’t want to endanger her friends, and she doesn’t like how easily Thanatos suggests she marry another man.

She’s silent, staring at the wall, for so long he gives her a meditation exercise to practice shifting her magic’s focus from one levitating object to another while he considers the Language. They don’t continue the conversation, and when she lets an empty glass vial fall to the floor for the fourth time, neither of them comment.

But the next day follows the same vein, and by the end of the week, she struggles to even lift more than one object in the first place.

“What is going on with you?” He finally asks, “Is this about your friends? Some silent protest?”

“No,” she spits, but he continues.

“If you’re just being stubborn, then—”

“I’m not! I don’t know what’s happening. It feels like I’m doing everything for the first time again.”

She scratches her neck absently, and Thanatos zeros in on the motion with a furrowed brow. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m just itchy.”

“Let me see.”

She shrugs and tilts her head. His fingertips glide over the nape of her neck.

“You’ve been scratching this raw, and it isn’t healing. Have you been working in a different part of the palace?”

“No, it’s the same as always. I just got some bug bites down at the beach. It’s fine.”

His eyes narrow, silently probing for more information.

“Fine,” she concedes and describes her exploration of the ship.

He grabs their most powerful magnifying glass from a wall hook and inspects her neck again.

“You’ve got ghoul mites,” he determines, “They’re sort of like ticks in your world. They burrow into your skin and feed off your energy. You felt four bites?” She nods. “That explains your weakness, then. Just one mite has put my magic entirely out of commission before.”

That statement startles her, though its essence has been apparent for quite some time now: the student has decidedly surpassed the master. The feeling is swiftly overridden, however, by the disgusting knowledge of hell-ticks currently inhabit her body. A shiver courses through her.

“We should find Bryony. Servants sometimes turn up bitten after working in the dingier areas of the palace, so she’s had a lot of practice removing them.”

It’s still early in the evening, and it isn’t difficult to find her. After Eurydice sheepishly explains the situation, Bryony ushers them both into Eurydice’s room and disappears, returning a few moments later with a pair of spectacles and an object somewhere in between a bottle opener and a scalpel.

Glancing between the two of them warily, she asks, “You don’t have any of that nasty wine, do you?” and sighs when they give her sympathetic looks. “Guess I’ll have to get my own.”

She strides to her wardrobe, removes a flask from behind her shoes, and takes a long swig. The effects are immediate, intoxication sweeping over her and coaxing a flush from her cheeks. Thanatos bites his lip to hide a grin; Bryony does nothing to hide her displeasure.

“You’ve been stealing from the royal kitchens? Servants have been drawn and quartered by skeleton horses for less.”

Eurydice rolls her eyes dramatically. “I’m being farmed for my magic against my will, Bryony. I’m taking liberties. Let’s get this over with.”

Thanatos agrees, and Bryony reluctantly directs her to kneel at the foot of the bed with her cheek pressed into the mattress. Thanatos plants one hand on the back of her head and the other on top of her shoulder. It strikes her that he only really touches her before, during, or after physical injury. She wishes that were not the case. She wouldn’t mind him pressing her against the bed in a different scenario. She almost says as much before Bryony saves her from the embarrassment.

The icy metal instrument scrapes over the irritated skin on her neck without warning and pinches hard. It’s over as quickly as it begins, and Thanatos releases the pressure. Maybe it’s the wine, or maybe she just needs a distraction from the pain, but her sole focus as Bryony removes the remaining ghoul mites is the placement of his hands on her body keeping her still. Chest to hip bone. Hip bone to knee. Her clothes bunched between his fingers to give Bryony a clear space to work. When he hikes her skirt all the way up to her hip, she suspects he’s being a bit gratuitous, but tries not to think on it too much. He’s made it clear his only interest is in who she used to be.

Bryony cannot leave the room fast enough once she’s finished, leaving Eurydice and Thanatos alone. Without warning, he flings the still-open flask at her. She raises a hand and stops it from reaching her, the container and droplets of wine hovers midair. The Language had formed in her mind without hesitation, and her magic is called forward with no effort at all.

“That’s better,” Thanatos says cheekily.

She rolls her eyes and directs all the wine back into the flask and seals the cap. Not one drop is spared.

“Yes, thank the gods. Now I can meditate till my heart’s desire.”

“Now you can test the reversal spell I’ve worked out.” Her eyes widen in disbelief and excitement, but he adds, “Tomorrow. When you’re sober.”

Her pout is directed at his back as he leaves the room, and she sighs, wishing she could still talk to Blue. Tears well up in her eyes and she opens her dresser to change out of her clothes. Half of her wardrobe is blue. The tears spill down her face. She grabs every offending piece of clothing and dyes them black with a word.

The following day, she stares into the workshop in disbelief. Everything about it is the same as she left it— stone floors covered by a few mismatched rugs haphazardly placed, work tables scattered with papers and equipment, shelves peppered with books and ingredients, the painted circle for the projection spell still visible. Everything is as it was just this afternoon, except for the man lying atop a table, hogtied.

Thanatos had led her to the dungeons after making sure the wine had worked its way out of her system. After some protest— probably not enough— she had magicked the man unconscious, tied his limbs with the proffered rope, and put a cloaking spell over him. After that, it was a matter of levitating the prisoner through the halls while looking inconspicuous.

Which is how she winds up staring in disbelief at Thanatos as he explains that the man so unceremoniously deposited in the workshop is, in fact, a god.

“A very weak god,” he assures her, “He stole from the palace a few centuries ago, and Hades and Persephone forgot to ever release him.”

“What did he steal that warrants being experimented on?”

He gives her a sidelong glance. “Wine.”

With a sigh she follows Thanatos into the workshop and examines the spell he’s drafted. It’s surprisingly short — only a half page— and not very complex. It relies mostly on a generous dose of creosote leaves and some deliberately crafted Language.

“Could this really be all it takes? Surely you could do this.”

Shaking his head, he replies, “No. It’s always simpler to undo magic than to do it in the first place, but it will require a lot of power to undo Hecate’s work. If I tried, nothing would happen.”

Assured that she can’t get out of this, she grabs a handful of creosote and starts a pot of tea.

Chapter Text

Even before the god, Acratus, gags on the tea, she knows it must taste terrible. It’s much too strong, and her face is locked in a grimace the entire time it brews. He doesn’t struggle or argue when he wakes up. At first, she thinks he must be intimidated by Thanatos, who stands a bit taller and more guarded than usual, but he isn’t looking at Thantos. No, Acratus fears magic. He fears Eurydice.

The first time she reads the spell, nothing happens except Acratus looking slightly constipated. She and Thanatos tweak the Language a few times while the god glares at them silently. On the fifth try, it happens. The aftermath leaves the workshop looking like tornado wreckage. The air changes, whether from the magic itself or the staggering implication she isn’t sure. Thanatos takes a pin to Acratus’ fingertip, and a drop of blood wells to the surface. The three of them glance between each other in awe and apprehension — a witch, a demon, and now, a mortal.

“Now what?”

Thanatos stares at her for a long time before he swallows and answers, “Now we take him back to the dungeon. And we make a plan.”

The moment of elation is replaced with an increasing feeling of dread as they walk the halls. She hasn’t given Thanatos an answer about calling on her friends. Until now, it had been a moot point, purely hypothetical. The magic might not have been possible. She might have been too weak to wield such magic. But now… what she does next could reshape all three worlds.

Back in the workshop, Thanatos waits an appropriate, safe amount of time before speaking up.

“You need to make a decision, Eurydice.” He tucks his hands into his pockets nervously. “I’ve been vague with Persephone, downplaying your progress to give you more time. She’s going to start doubting you soon if we don’t show her the true extent of your power. Once we do, she’ll want to put you to use immediately, and if we don’t have a plan ready for her, there’s no telling what she’ll make you do. Are you willing to go through with my plan?”

Eurydice looks down. “If I don’t, Persephone will most likely recycle me. If I do nothing, Persephone will definitely recycle me. If I do it, they could get hurt.” She finally meets his eyes. “It’s no decision. You know that.”

“I know.”

Her vision loses focus as her attention turns to the window picture of earth, her mind light years away, her heart buckling under the weight of her shame. “Okay,” she chokes out. “I’ll ask them once we have a real plan.”

Thanatos exhales, relieved, and cups her face, brushing away tears she hadn’t realized were flowing. “You’re doing the right thing.”

“There’s no such thing.”

It’s almost dawn, and Eurydice needs to rest and think. That’s what she tells Thanatos anyway. She does go back to her room, but it’s only a pit stop. She retraces the steps to the dungeons until she stands before Acratus once again. He stammers in fear as she magicks the door unlocked. Before either of them can think about what happens next, she unsheathes Thanatos’ dagger and thrusts it into his heart. The life and the blood drain from him quickly, and she waits for Thanatos to appear and scold her. But he doesn’t. The broken form of him remains crumpled on the dusty floor. Had he emerged in some spirit form, her plan had been to sneak him to the southern gate and feed him to the harpies. Relief floods over her with the assurance she won’t have to face the harpies again.

“You didn’t deserve this,” she says over the body, “I’m sorry.”

And she is. Having his godhood ripped away from him only to bleed out in a dungeon is hardly a fitting punishment for a simple theft. But she would do it again. Even locked in the dungeon, he would still talk— to guards, to servants, to other prisoners— and she can’t risk anyone guessing their plan. Not when so many lives hang in the balance.

She goes to the library next, figuring she’ll either find something useful or distract herself trying. Her thoughts are muddy and her heart hurts. The last thing she expects is to swing open the library doors and come face to face with Apollo. He’s startled for only a moment before sprouting a saccharine smile that uncomfortably resembles a sarcastic Marcus.

“Eurydice,” he rolls, “Fancy seeing you here. I was just speaking with Persephone about you. Were your ears burning?”

“Apollo,” she deadpans in response, “Only bad things, I hope?”

“Oh, just terrible.” He winks. She suppresses a gag. “What brings you to this fine library this fine night?”

“You, actually. I’ve been reading your journals. They’re quite interesting.”

His eyes light up. “Really? What a rush! I was sure it was only the mycelium trolls reading them, and they’re entertained by water boiling. Tell me, what do you think?”

“I can’t decide if I hate you or not.”

“Perfect!” He claps. “That’s how you tell a good story. The more I confound you, the more you need to know. Now you’re reading my story and I’m watching yours— another things we have in common.”

Eurydice doesn’t mention that she didn’t choose to share her story with anyone. “Is it true? Or do you just want to write a good story?”

“Oh, it’s all true, of course. But if it won’t make for a good story, I don’t do it, you see? As I once told Shakespeare, ‘all the world is a stage.’”

“That sounds lonely.”

He doesn’t reply right away, and Eurydice dips her chin in acknowledgment before turning back toward the servants’ quarters. She’s stashed a few books under her bed, anyway. The echo of Apollo’s voice might bounce through the stone corridor, but some things are better left unheard.

She spends the rest of the night sitting cross-legged in bed, hunched over books, turning ideas over in her head. They continue turning the next day as she washes widows, and even more in the library. There are so many variables, so many ways this could go wrong. So many ways it could go right, and still come back to bite her. Eurydice joins Thanatos in the workshop prepared to make her case.

“I have conditions.”

Thanatos cocks his head to the side. “I hate to remind you again, but you’re not really in a position to negotiate with Persephone. I’ve told her about Atracus and what you can do, and she wants to move forward.”

“I’m not negotiating with her. I’m negotiating with you. If Persephone knows I can rescind godhood, she can’t let me stay here after she takes power. I’ll always be a threat to her. She might confine me until I fade away, but more likely she’ll reincarnate me forever. An ever-increasingly powerful tabula rasa at her disposal is too good to turn down. Either way, I’m toast. So I want protection. I know you’re bound to serve her and Hades, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help me.”

Thanatos’ mouth hangs open slightly, his eyes wide. He hadn’t thought that far ahead. “I know Persephone seems cold, but she’s not a monster. If all goes well, you’ll be handing her Olympus on a silver platter.”

“And if all doesn’t go well? If you’re wrong, and she does resent or fear me?”

“What are you thinking?” he asks, rubbing his temples.

“A blood contract from Sangrite binding my soul to you.”

He blinks blankly at her several times. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. By nature, you can’t die. If I’m bound to you, neither can I. I won’t dissipate, and I won’t be reincarnated. I will be the last Eurydice, or you can start over right now.”

She holds her breath, waiting for Thanatos to roll his eyes and go tell Persephone his idea was a bust after all. He doesn’t.

He says quietly. “It’s not natural. You’ll never truly rest. What will your existence be like, stuck here forever?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “But rest is overrated. If this plan goes sideways, I’ll help you find a new one. If it works, I’ll have a library and all of the Underworld to explore. There’s still so much to understand. Either way, I’ll be with you.”

Their eyes lock, silent thoughts and questions bouncing between them. Her argument was against Persephone’s intentions, but ultimately, Thanatos needs to decide if he can embrace her, if he can let go of the Eurydices of the past and future. Am I enough?

“Okay.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

She throws her arms around his neck, and he clutches her tightly, which is good because Eurydice thinks all her bones might collapse. She forces her lungs to take a deep breath and exhale slowly. His scent strengthens her and weakens her simultaneously. When they separate, there’s an indentation on her cheekbone in the pattern of his embroidered tunic. He brushes his thumb over it, followed by his lips. She tries not to relish it too visibly.

“I need to visit Elysium then. Ask them to help.” She pulls away, grabbing a cage, “I’ll go catch another bat.”

As she turns to leave, Thanatos’ murmured words follow her. “I’ll do it either way.” She doesn’t trust herself to look at him.

A few bites and scratches later, she returns to the workshop, bat in tow, and scarfs down a plate of noodles Thanatos made to preempt the magic hangover invoked by the projection spell. With the now familiar taste of yew on her tongue and the bat’s blood snaking down her back, she extends herself once again to Elysium, this time seeking out Orpheus.

She stumbles into the door frame of Orpheus’ bedroom. He’s striding into the living room, speaking in earnest to Marcus, and neither of them notice her presence.

“I swear to Zeus, if you keep interrupting me, I’ll change the locks!”

“I swear to all the gods that I’ll never stop trying to protect you from yourself! If you keep up at this pace you’re going to kill yourself! You know there’s another way— why won’t you take it?”

Orpheus steps closer. “I don’t care how many people are trying to kill me! I’m not going to become some blood-bending monster. It’s grotesque, and I’ll already never forgive myself for puppeting around Rafael like that.”

“It was an accident, and Rafael is fine,” retorts Marcus, grabbing Orpheus by the arms, “You won’t be if you keep this up.”

“I need to do this, Marcus! A wall of wind and trees around the mountain is the only way to protect Elysium without hurting anyone.” He shoves a pointed finger into Marcus’ chest. “You might be willing to kill, but I’m not.”

Marcus’s jaw tightens as he pulls at his hair. “You could forgive Eurydice. Why not me?”

“Because I trusted you! I trusted you with everything, and all you did was lie to me.”

They’re both red in the face and out of breath, only a few inches from each other. Marcus seems unable to formulate another argument, perhaps because he’s rightfully ashamed of his actions, or perhaps because he’s realized how close he is to Orpheus, and how tired and sunken his eyes are. Eurydice suspects it’s the latter. Neither of them makes the move to step away or close the gap between them.

“Gods above, just kiss already.”

Orpheus nearly jumps out of his own skin, while Marcus bites his tongue and rolls his eyes dramatically. “I thought you had what you needed, Eurydice.”

“I’m not here for you this time. I’m here to ask Orpheus to marry me and save the world.”

Orpheus looks like he might pass out, but Marcus doesn’t miss a beat. “After he went to hell for you, and you turned him away? You can’t be serious. You can’t be this much of an asshole.”

“What do you mean, ‘save the world’?” Orpheus asks, pointedly ignoring the marriage issue.

“What I’m about to say cannot leave this room.” She doesn’t bother asking Marcus to leave. “I’m working with Thanatos and Persephone to end the war between the gods.” She explains the magic, the herb, the plan, leaving out a lot of details.

She pauses while the men process her words. They seem to be speaking among themselves using only their eyebrows. She’s seen them do this before, and it always freaks her out. She imagines the conversation going something like this:

Marcus: You’re not seriously considering this, right? It’s insane.

Orpheus: I know it is, but if it could keep our people safe, it’s worth a shot.

Marcus: We don’t even know for certain that’s Eurydice. It could be some demon. We can’t trust her.

Orpheus: Just because you’re scared of her doesn’t mean I have to be. You wanted another way? Here’s one dropped in our laps.

“I’ll do it,” Orpheus says out loud before Marcus can argue. “You don’t have to be involved,” he adds, directed at Marcus.

“Like hell, he doesn’t,” snorts Eurydice at the same time that Marcus says, “Like hell, I don’t.”

“Are you actually blind, Orpheus? He killed me for you.”

“He killed you for himself.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. Where you go, he follows. You won’t have to do much at the wedding besides show up, anyway. In the meantime, I need as much creosote as you can get.”

“I’ll have it planted in every greenhouse and garden.”

She crashes back into the workshop with little fanfare. Thanatos gives her an impatient look as she rolls onto her side and wraps a blanket around herself.

“He said yes,” she mumbles, curling into a fetal position. It isn’t fair that this spell takes so much of her energy, when she can change the godly state of a person with so little effort. It’s gotten a bit easier each time, but it’s still no walk in the park.

He hums in approval and scoops her into his arms. He’s warm and solid and painfully gentle as he carries her to the bed and tucks her in.

“Where are you going?” she whines when he turns to the door; she’ll be embarrassed by this later when she’s not on the brink of unconsciousness.

“Persephone will want to hear the news.”

“Excuses, excuses,” she mutters once he’s out of earshot.

She wakes to find a plate of breakfast on the bedside table and takes her time to savor it. She reports to Bryony at least half an hour late and faces laundry duty as punishment. The other servants stare at her as she passes them in the halls, some giving her withering glares and others curious glances.

For the next week, everything is quiet. She lets herself get carried away in the workshop more often and takes long walks around the palace, paying less attention to the timepiece and accepting Bryony’s punishments every time she’s late. She always assigns more chores, but Eurydice doesn’t mind having more to occupy her hands.

Thanatos informs her of the date chosen by Persephone, only three months away. Just enough time to procure enough creosote to spike the food and drink. When she returns to Elysium to tell Orpheus and Marcus, she’s amazed to find they already have a barrel full of the plant dried and ready for her. At her astonished look, he admits he’s done little else this week besides coax the plant to grow, meandering the streets all day so each sprout can hear his music.

When she questions what everyone else in the city thinks of this, he replies sheepishly, “I just asked them to trust me, and they do.”

She laughs once in disbelief, promises to return later with her own barrels, and transports herself back to the Underworld.

Thanatos whistles when he see it, impressed. “I think we’ll have plenty to go around.”

Chapter Text

The trouble comes a few days later, when Bryony directs her to the throne room instead of her regular chores. She picks at her fingernails nervously the whole way there, wondering if she’s been too lax in reporting for work or if it’s something more serious. Thanatos has blessedly been keeping her informed of their progress without needing much from her. She hates to admit it—even to herself— but Persephone intimidates her. They should have gone to Sangrite immediately; she should have insisted. If the goddess pulled their plans out of Thanatos somehow or suspects even the smallest detail is amiss, she can kiss this afterlife goodbye. Before she knows it, Eurydice is bowing low before the queen, relaxing a bit when she sees Thanatos enter the room behind her.

Persephone wastes no time. “There’s been a hitch in our plans. Upon discussing the wedding with Zeus, he agreed wholeheartedly. And graciously offered to host it in Olympus— an offer I couldn’t possible refuse.”

She and Thanatos exchange worried glances. How can the food be drugged without Persephone’s own kitchen preparing it?

The queen continues, “Someone will have to infiltrate the kitchens on the day of the wedding and add creosote to everything without being caught. Someone who won’t be expected to attend the ceremony and, most importantly, won’t get caught. Then there’s the issue of Thanatos, of course.”

Thanatos nods solemnly, and Eurydice asks, confused, “What issue?”

“Thanatos cannot enter the Overworld. His domain is death, and nothing dies there.”

Fuck. She thinks. Then, fuck again. Already her mind is whirring to process the development. Thanatos never had a specific role in their plan aside from being there and making things run smoothly, but the idea of doing this without him makes her queasy. Regrettably, she thinks she has a solution to the first problem, which is how she finds herself once again in Elysium, this time to see Sam.

The girl doesn’t balk when Eurydice appears in her living room. She only crosses her arms, unfazed.

“You said you wouldn’t be back.”

“It’s good to see you too. How about one last job?”

“I always knew you would get me killed,” she huffs. It’s as close to a ‘yes’ Eurydice will get.

They work through the details, which are admittedly sparse given that neither of them know anything about Olympus, and Sam mentions offhandedly that Rafael is planning to attend as well.

“Marcus is petrified that Orpheus is going to get hurt, so he’s dragging Rafe along for first aid.”

“Has he had another vision?”

She shakes her head. “Not in months, which is apparently unusual.”

“Well, I’ll tell Persephone to add him to the headcount.”

“What’s she like?”

Eurydice is taken aback. Sam is usually more skeptical than curious— perpetually unimpressed. “Terrifying. Badass. You’d like her.” She reconsiders. “Or maybe you’d hate her. Honestly, I don’t see much of Persephone and even less of Hades. I’ve been working closely with Thanatos to practice my magic and plan for the attack.”

“How close?” She asks with a knowing glare.

“Too damn close,” Eurydice bemoans. “And how are things with Rafe? Still pretending to be a klutz?”

“Very funny,” she retorts, not answering the question. “Don’t you have a three-headed dog to get back to?”

Unfortunately not. Despite the legends, the king and queen of the Underworld must keep their pet elsewhere. But she’s lingered, and she does need to go. With Marcus and Orpheus, it’s easy to come and go, preferable even. With Sam, there’s history, a sisterhood that’s just out of reach. It’s harder to part ways.

By the time Eurydice blinks awake in the workshop, Thanatos is gone. She trembles on the floor for several minutes longer than usual. She hasn’t slept or eaten in the days since she last visited Elysium, and it shows. Gradually, she crawls and scoots her way to the bathtub and turns the heat on full blast. The steam envelopes her as she lay draped over the tub’s edge, and she breathes it in before wrestling her clothes off and sliding under the water.

It isn’t long before she drifts off. When she wakes to lukewarm water, she drains and refills the bath. This pattern repeats three, four, five times? She loses count, dozing peacefully. Her pocket watch is a distant and unimportant memory. Eventually, the drowsiness isn’t so strong, and she simply enjoys the heat, stretching her legs out and using the bar of soap generously. She lets her hands travel over her body, wandering lower and lower. Too close, she had told Sam. This, in his own room, is too close. But that only makes her crave it more. She tries— she really does— to think about anything and anyone but Thanatos. His black eyes that burn right through her. The way he holds her upright when she’s overexerted herself. His rare but all-encompassing laugh. His warm, sure hands undressing her just inches away. Months away. It isn’t fair to either of them to entertain this fantasy, but she’s always been self-destructive.

A needy groan escapes her lips, and, as if the gollum wasn’t enough torture, Thanatos cracks open the door. Mortifying questions burn through Eurydice’s mind faster than wildfire. When did he return? How long has he been there? Had she made any other incriminating sounds? There’s no hiding the situation. His concerned eyes meet hers, and they both freeze. He blinks. The door clicks shut.

She remains glued in place for a long minute, unsure of what to do and contemplating locking the door and never emerging. She’s not shy about sex; she never has been. She’s even been ‘caught’ touching herself before, but it was always intentional. This is different. Dishes clank in the kitchen, and she steels herself for this monumental walk of shame. When she exits the bathroom, Thanatos pushes a plate of food into her arms but doesn’t meet her eyes. She accepts it with a subdued gratitude but swiftly heads to the door to escape. He starts to say something, but she doesn’t stick around to hear it. When she gets to her room, she screams into her pillow and contemplates throwing herself into the River Lethe.

She stays like that for a long time. Until dawn, presumably, since she can now hear the other servants bustling about. She emerges just in time to hear Bryony call out, “Everyone to the throne room!”

Eurydice had forgotten that this would happen today. When she had spoken with Persephone yesterday, it seemed like an afterthought with the venue change, but now she dreads it. The entire court will be there, including Thanatos.

The servants file into the the throne room, filling in the leftover space on the perimeter. She glances upward at the cavernous, never-ending ceiling. Thanatos had explained how the upper part of the throne room is reserved for visiting gods and goddesses, arranged like a coliseum and obscured from below. This way, they don’t have to lower themselves to interact with the Underworld court and its associated lower life forms. This time she knows who’s up there, but it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach.

“—gathered here today.” Hades is speaking, and Eurydice tunes in a bit late. “As you all know, the latest episode of Orpheus and Eurydice had an unconventional conclusion, and the saga continues. You see, our little lovebirds have continued seeing each other in secret for some months now— Orpheus charming his way into the Underworld and Eurydice stowing away to meet him outside the palace.

“They thought they were being sneaky, but of course we were aware of their trysts all along. Some time ago, they petitioned us to allow them to get married. Begged us, really. It’s been so long since we’ve had cause to celebrate, since we’ve had a proper party, so we obliged. My dear brother Zeus has graciously offered the Coliseum of Olympus as the venue for this grand affair. That is why we have called you all here: to invite all our courts to put aside our differences for a time and celebrate the wedding of everyone’s favorite star-crossed lovers.”

Throughout the speech, all eyes in the room gradually settle on Eurydice, starting with the servants nearest her who openly gape. Even the nobles at the very front of the room, for whom etiquette would dictate they focus on the King, have let their attention drift sidelong in her direction. The moment Hades finishes, murmurs erupt from all directions, and an ominous stirring overhead tells Eurydice that the visiting gods have had a similar reaction, though some of them have surely heard through the grapevine about the upcoming nuptials already. Zeus and Poseidon were consulted before this announcement, and neither are known for their discretion.

Persephone, mercifully, clears her throat, and the crowds attention returns to the center of the room. “The wedding will take place in three months. It will be a day of revelry, not rivalry, and we do hope that everyone will have as much fun as we plan to.” She grins wickedly and raises a glass, and Eurydice shivers at her double meaning. Persephone next addresses the room below her specifically, “You’re all dismissed, formally, but you’re welcome to stay and chat as long as you’d like. Bryony will have instructions for servants at noon.”

That riles up her coworkers even more. As a general practice, servants do not have a day off, ever. Their only respite is completing chores early and slipping away quietly. Soon she’s bombarded by servants and courtiers from all directions.

“How do you manage to sneak away?”; “Where do you go?; “Why get married now? How does that even work?”; “He must be so dreamy!”; “Do you think you’re special?”; “So that’s why she’s always late to work.”; “I saw her leaving the palace once.”

It’s suffocating. The whole palace might as well be collapsing on top of her. She pushes away from the crowd as much as she can, and she has to restrain herself from using magic to escape. The whole celestial pantheon may now have VIP access to her false love life, but her witchcraft is still very much a secret, and she’ll have to be very careful in the time leading up to the wedding not to reveal it prematurely. She’ll be under much more scrutiny now; making a scene now is something she can’t afford.

She manages a tight smile, and attempts to politely ignore the chatter while she inches closer and closer to the exit. Suddenly, the crowd separates just enough to form a narrow pathway to the door. No one seems to notice the invisible force sweeping through them, but Eurydice recognizes it instantly as Thanatos’ handiwork. There’s something about his magic— almost a taste to it— that carries his signature. Taking care not to look the panicked runaway she is, she gradually follows the current until she’s blessedly free from the spectacle.

As soon as she rounds the corner, she takes off at a sprint, unsure of where she’s going but desperate to get there. That is, until she barrels into Thanatos himself. He steadies them both and pulls her by the arm into an alcove.

“Put a glamour over us.” She hides them from perception, and he continues, “We can’t risk being seen together, now that your engagement is public. As far as anyone else knows, we’re nothing to each other. You’re madly in love with Orpheus.”

He speaks in a low, urgent tone only inches from her, and they both realize at the same time that he’s still grasping her arms. He doesn’t let go.

“I’m madly in love with Orpheus,” she repeats. “I am nothing to you. I never spend all night in your quarters. I don’t look forward to those nights. Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“Lie to me.”

“Ah,” he swallows. “I’d rather tell you the truth. You’re one of the best friends I’ve ever had. I’m scared for you to go to Olympus on your own.” He pauses, chewing over his next words, before continuing, “You cry out in your sleep sometimes, and I wish I could take the pain away. Yesterday…”

Oh, gods. Her noises the day before had not been pained, and they both know it. “Let’s go,” she says, jerking her head and scolding herself for being swept up in his gaze. He trails close behind her as they wind through the palace.

Chapter Text

When Marcus, Orpheus, and Sam step back into the townhouse, still on high alert, Rafael is lounging on the sofa, face turned to the ceiling and eyes closed.

“You’re past curfew.”

“Eurydice wasn’t kidding when she said time feels different there,” Marcus defends. “It’s done though.”

“And I, for one, am fucking tired,” Sam adds, pulling Rafe to his feet by his lanky arm. “Let’s go.”

Rafe allows himself to be dragged away. “Those two are close lately,” Marcus comments.

“They’re not the only ones.” Orpheus interlaces their fingers and pulls Marcus close. “Love is in the air. Who knew all it would take is a wedding for us to realize how we feel.”

“Your wedding. To someone else.” Marcus rolls his eyes, knowing full well that he’s been in love with Orpheus for years, and choosing to ignore the fact.

“Yes, I think that’s what did it. I never imagined getting married under such circumstances, but I admit I’m pleased with the outcome so far.”

“Just pleased?”

Orpheus closes the distance between them until they’re pressed together, noses, chests, hips. He lingers, eyes flickering between Marcus’ eyes and his lips, until Marcus captures his mouth in an earnest kiss. The adrenaline of the night’s escapade catches up to them, and Marcus lets out a moan as Orpheus’ hands roam over his chest and back. Marcus tangles his fingers in the other man’s hair and doesn’t ever want to untangle them. He tries to direct them to his bedroom, but Orpheus stumbles backward on the stairs, and Marcus can’t resist kneeling on the steps below, watching Orpheus’ enraptured face as he positions his face at hip level.

Later, when they lay exhausted in bed, Marcus brushes Orpheus’ hair back and studies his peaceful, golden features. He can’t help but envy Orpheus and his easy, trusting nature. While Orpheus dozes, Marcus’ insides open up into a bottomless pit of dread and the feeling— the knowing— that their time together is limited.

Chapter Text

Eurydice doesn’t release her glamour spell until they’ve reached the bottom of the “staircase of death,” as Eurydice has begun calling it in her head.

“We’re going to Sangrite right now.” She doesn’t leave any room for argument, but she’s still relieved when Thanatos doesn’t argue. She refuses to wait another moment for protection. Now that the wedding is public knowledge, anyone could do anything to try to stop it. Even if no one knows it’s all to stage a coup, this god or that could simply decide they don’t like her story’s new ending.

That’s how Eurydice finds herself patching up a defunct canoe on Driftwood Beach, and pushing off toward the horizon line, toward Tartarus. Thanatos eventually edges them closer and closer to the edge of an unfathomable cliff. He stops them right on the precipice, the lack of tides and a short outlining of rocks allowing them to pause, which makes it worse. It would feel less suicidal if an ocean current drew them over the edge instead of their own conscious rowing.

“Have you done this before?” she asks hopefully, peering at the vast nothingness where the water should be.

He shrugs. “Probably.”

It doesn’t inspire confidence, but she rolls her shoulders back anyway and nods in his direction. With a final thrust, they tumble off the cliff. The deeper they fall, the darker it grows, the moons disappearing from sight. The canoe falls apart beneath them, and Eurydice lurches forward to cling to the god. The warmth of his hands encasing her rib cage is the last thing she registers before they crash hard into another body of water. Her entire body seizes at the contact with the frigid waters. The force and the shock knock the air out of her, and she panics before remembering she doesn’t really need it. A hand grabs under her armpit. Thanatos drags her to the surface and they crawl their way onto the nearest solid ground. ‘Solid ground’ is generous, as it turns out; they lay panting and shivering on the surface of a glacier. Their surroundings are now blindingly bright, the snow and ice reflecting light from an indiscernible source. Eurydice comes back to herself and speaks a few words of the Language to dry and warm them both. Snow melts at their feet in response. Glancing around, Eurydice can find no landmarks, no beginning, and no end. The cliff they’ve just descended from and the water that met them are nowhere to be found.

“How are we supposed to find Sangrite? And how are we supposed to get back?”

“‘Ask and you shall receive,’” she quotes, “The books say to think about who we want to find and walk. We’ll reach her eventually.”

An anxious silence hangs over them. Eurydice only knows that this contract exists, not what it entails. She has no idea what expect. Sangrite is supposedly friendlier toward humans than most demons, but she knew the gollum, and the bar is low. She’s known to seal contracts between souls without much discretion— for a price. Unfortunately, in all her research, Eurydice couldn’t find any detail of what that price might be. Thinking of the numerous bats she’s decapitated in her own spells, she expects it will not be pleasant, though it’s hard to imagine anything could be worse than the judgment. Just when she thinks she might collapse from exhaustion, anxiety, or both, a small dwelling comes into view.

It’s cozy, made of mossy stones and a thatch roof, like it was plucked out of a fairy tale forest and dropped into this frozen wasteland. Smoke billows from the chimney, welcoming them. Thanatos takes her hand, gives it an encouraging squeeze, and pulls her along.

When they approach the cottage, he raps on the door three times, and it glides open, inviting them inside. Eurydice wasn’t sure what she had expected from Sangrite, but it certainly wasn’t a teenage girl curled into a fluffy, cushioned seat, needles whirring between her fingers in a complex knitting pattern. A large, spotted cat sits in the corner of the room, taking a break from licking its paw to stare at the newcomers. Sangrite beckons them to sit, and when they do, a teapot in the hearth begins whistling.

“Thanatos,” she says, pleased but not looking up from her work. “It’s been a very, very long time. You’re seeking a contract?”

“Yes,” Thanatos agrees, shifting on his feet, “We want to bind her soul to me. As long as I’m alive, her soul won’t return to the Wheel. Can it be done?”

“What a silly question.” Her lips form a smirk, but still, she doesn’t lift her head. “Anything can be done. The important question is what you’re willing to pay for my services. A contract with each other is a contract with me.”

“What is it you want?” His eyes narrow.

“It is simple. Release.”

“It’s said you have a contract with the king keeping you here in Tartarus in exchange for human souls.” Eurydice speaks for the first time.

“Indeed. It is also said that Hades won’t be king for much longer. I want a new contract with Thanatos allowing me to come and go from the mortal world as I please.”

“What will you do on earth?”

“Entertain myself. Eat my fill. Living mortals serve both purposes rather well. The dead ones become dull quite quickly.”

Eurydice and Thanatos exchange a wary glance, but he wastes no time. “Eurydice will create a doorway from this cottage to one on earth. Is that sufficient?”

She shoots him an incredulous look for giving in so easily, though she’s touched that he’d loose a demon on the world in order to keep her at his side. It’s gruesome and unreasonable and sickeningly romantic. It takes a moment for her to register that she doesn’t have the faintest clue how to make a portal to earth. If that was an option, why has she been using the projection spell to visit Elysium this whole time? Maybe he’s bluffing, she thinks, admittedly disappointed.

Sangrite grins and hums her approval. She gestures to the coffee table and demands, “Kneel here and stack your hands on the table, palms up.”

They comply, lowering to the shaggy rug. Eurydice places her right hand atop Thanatos’ left, and he curls his fingers in a comforting squeeze. They wait while the demon finishes the row and puts aside her knitting. She looks up, and for the first time, her eyes are fully visible. Too large and milky white, with deep red blood vessels winding all around themselves. It’s the disconcerting inverse to Thanatos’ black eyes.

Eurydice has barely registered the demon’s face when she takes raises the free needle and plunges it right through their open palms, wedging into the table. The pain is delayed by the surprise, and it isn’t until the blood blooms from their wound that she realizes Thanatos’ other arm is wrapped around her, keeping her upright. She clenches her jaw tight and breathes heavily through her nose, trying to keep her bearings.

“I am Sangrite, who harnesses the power of blood. I am Sangrite, who binds and breaks. I am Sangrite, who devours. As these bloods mingle in mine vines, so shall the souls mingle in mine body.”

She speaks in the Language with all the authority of Zeus himself. She ends her mantra by licking the knitting needle clean until there is no trace of their blood at all. The blood vessels in her eyes surge in what Eurydice assumes must be pleasure.

He vision becomes fuzzy, and the cavity in her chest where her heart used to be fills with molten lava, burning her from the inside out. That’s what it feels like, at least. When she comes to—which feels like it could only be a few seconds later— Thanatos is sitting beside her clutching his chest. He must have felt the same fire inside. Sangrite stands comfortably by the fire, removing the pot with her bare hands and pouring the boiling water into a kettle. The cat circles the demon’s feet, scratching the its head against her calves. Eurydice takes stock of herself. The wound in her hand is already healing, leaving only some pink skin a soreness that will be a memory within the hour. She doesn’t feel any different, though she’s never been aware of her soul feeling any particular way.

“Is it done?” Thanatos asks the demon, but he looks at Eurydice, searching.

“Yes.”

Eurydice shrugs, and they unfold from their positions on the floor, heading for the door. When Thanatos twists the handle, it’s locked in place. He tries to jiggle the door, but it doesn’t budge.

“Not so fast.” They pivot to face Sangrite. “I said I want release. You’re not leaving here until I get it.”

“I don’t understand,” Thanatos counters, “I agreed to let you go.”

The creature snaps her fingers, and their clothing vanishes, the three of them now standing naked in the cottage that feels like it’s shrinking.

“If my age is off-putting, I can change it.” She snaps again, and now she looks just a around Eurydice’s age— six inches taller, with small breasts and wide hips. She fixes her gaze on Thanatos with a tilted head. “Perhaps you’d prefer someone else entirely.”

This time, she morphs into a more petite woman with hooded eyes and sleek black hair. Tucked above her ear is a black origami flower. Thanatos makes a strangled noise like he’s been punched in the gut, and Eurydice feels similarly. They’re looking at Kohana.

“Or maybe this could be fun.”

Eurydice blinks in confusion before realizing that a mirror did not suddenly appear in the middle of the room. She’s looking at herself, albeit a version of herself that looks at her and Thanatos like she’s starving and they’re a feast fit for kings.

Eurydice lifts a hand to her mouth to cover her dropping jaw, a giggle bubbling up involuntarily inside her. She and Thanatos lock eyes in disbelief, both looking away from her clone. Sangrite wants them to make her come. It’s absurd. They stand frozen like that, fighting a silent battle with each other—or themselves, who can say?

Of all the things that could have happened on this excursion, Eurydice could not have possibly predicted this. It certainly had not been in the book, and she fully intends to remedy that when she returns to the library. But it’s also surprisingly benign. She’s grown so used to pain and torment being the currency of the underworld that payment in sex is almost a pleasant surprise. Almost. Thanatos is more alarmed by the prospect, his breaths quick and every muscle of his body clenched—paralyzed.

Turning back to Sangrite, she decides for them. “We’ll do it.”

Thanatos yanks back on her bicep and hisses into her ear, “What are you doing?”

“Getting us out of here!” she whisper-shouts back, “Let’s just fuck her and go!”

He snarls in disapproval but acquiesces. “Not while she looks like that.”

Eurydice rolls her eyes and decides to think later about whether she finds that insulting or chivalrous. The demon, having heard every word, fixes her lips into a hungry smile and melts back into her second body. Eurydice doesn’t like Sangrite’s controlled expression. She’ll need to take charge if they don’t want to linger here, catering to her every whim.

Eurydice saunters to face Sangrite and kisses her squarely on the lips, one hand planted on her collarbone and the other low on her waist. The demon kisses back eagerly, opening her mouth under Eurydice’s without hesitation. Eurydice snakes one hand around her body and squeezes her backside while she lowers her head to Sangrite’s neck. A needy whimper escapes from her throat. Eurydice’s lips replace her hand on the other woman’s collar, and she lets her finger drift lightly—so, so lightly— across Sangrite’s chest, brushing over her nipples with just the whisper of a touch.

Thanatos stands stiffly, glued to his spot, so Eurydice leads Sangrite to him and lays her down on the soft rug. Eurydice glances through her lashes, in what she hopes is a look equal parts seductive and challenging. It seems to work because he snaps out of his reverie and moves to the demon’s legs, spreading them apart and kneeling in the new space between them. His fingers trace her legs, starting at her ankles and gliding in a slow, tantalizing ascent until fans them out over her hipbones.

Eurydice, until now, hadn’t allowed her eyes to wander away from his face. He’s never been anything less than completely covered in her presence before, and it feels wrong to see him for the first time like this. Now, though, with his naked body knelt across from her and his attention occupied by the demon’s thighs, her gaze drifts southward. His shoulders are broad, and a smattering of black curls accent his strong chest. His muscular—though not well-defined— torso tapers into prominent hipbones. In his regular tunic, he’s the picture-perfect attendant and advisor to the queen, her mentor and teacher. Nude, he’s a being forged by creation itself and molded in the image of a man, the ever-present, unrelenting, and unstoppable creature of death.

Eurydice’s trance is broken by Sangrite tugging at her hand with an annoyed grunt and placing it on her breast once more. Thanatos is watching her too, his expression inscrutable as ever, and her mouth dries in embarrassment. She quickly moves both hands to brush in tiny circles over Sangrite’s breasts, and Thanatos mimics the motion on her inner thighs, climbing upward with each circle. Eurydice and Thanatos watch each other’s movements carefully. At the same moment that Thanatos finally reaches the apex of her thighs, Eurydice palms her breasts and squeezes gently.

Eurydice had successfully prevented herself from processing the presence of Thanatos’ full nakedness until Sangrite’s head tilts back, and she releases a heavy, satisfied sigh. He hardens at the sound. Eurydice’s mouth falls open, blood rushing to her face. He ducks his head, refusing to acknowledge her, and works his fingers into Sangrite until she’s bucking into his touch. Eurydice wets her own fingers with her mouth and performs a cooling spell until they feel like ice. She drags the backs of her hands all over the demon’s chest, and when Thanatos connects his other hand to the top of her mound, she presses her cold fingers to her nipples and pinches. Sangrite convulses and cries out. Without warning, the demon snatches Eurydice’s arm and sinks her teeth deep into her flesh, then suckles on the blood that follows.

The moment Sangrite settles down with a satisfied sigh, Eurydice flies from the floor, grabbing Thanatos by the bicep and dragging him out of the now unlocked hut. As soon as they pass the threshold, their clothes reappear. Outside, where there was a never ending glacier, is an ocean. A narrow dock extends from the doorway, with a single rowboat tied to the end of it. They row as quickly as they can, putting more and more distance between them and that cottage, until they hit sand.

Chapter Text

Back at driftwood beach, they sit in the canoe for a very long time. Staring at each other and through each other and everywhere else except each other. Every time one of them start to speak, their mouths just close again without a word. She wishes she could hear his thoughts. Her own are a confused, jumbled mess, but his expression is graver, more desperate than she feels. If she’s honest with herself, Eurydice isn’t so much affected by the day’s events as she is embarrassed that it doesn’t affect her more. What does it say about her, that she can be coerced into a threesome with two demons— one of whom she’s falling in love with— and it’s just another Tuesday to her? She won’t lose sleep over this. It won’t haunt her. Thanatos, on the other hand, looks to be coming apart at the seams. Shadows seep from the edges of his body, and his back is straight as a rod. Every inch of him oozes distress. She decides he should speak first, and she waits a very long time.

“I never thought I’d see her again,” he says finally.

Eurydice scrunches her brows before realizing he’s talking about Kohana. Sangrite had only taken her form for a few seconds, but to him, it must have felt like seeing a ghost (proverbially, of course, since he does see ghosts daily).

“I’d almost forgotten what she looked like.” His voice is broken, defeated, and she dredges some pity out from under the jealousy. “I’ve never hated anyone or anything more than I hate Sangrite right now. I’m disgusted, with her and with myself.”

“Why yourself? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

He lowers his head and nearly chokes on the words, unsure if he should let them escape. “It was—. I—. My body. . . responded.”

Oh. This won’t do. “Thanatos, that doesn’t mean anything. It was an involuntary reaction, nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes our bodies don’t cooperate with our minds.”

He huffs. “Maybe for you mortals, but I’ve always had perfect control. My body serves me and only me. Until now, apparently.”

Eurydice is prickled by those two words: you mortals. How dare he, after everything they’ve been though together? He’s never separated them like that before, and she does not care for it. He’s not above arousal. He’s not above her. Would he be disgusted to know that she was aroused too?

“I don’t know what to tell you then. Maybe you’re kinkier than you thought.” She gets out of the boat then, finally, and he follows just behind her.

“Of course., You’re being crude to make me uncomfortable. I’m getting tired of the same old defense mechanism.”

“You’re tired of that, huh? Well, I’m tired of your limerence for a dead girl! Do you actually still love her? Or is it just easier to cling to her memory like a safety blanket? Because for all your endless devotion to her, she still left.”

She regrets the words as soon as they leave her mouth, but a flash of orange covers her field of vision before she can take them back. Her stomach stings, and she glances down, perplexed to find a scorched section of her shirt, uncovering a blistering mess of skin and bone.

“Zeus’ tits,” she mutters before giggling at Rafael’s turn of phrase. Rafe would be interested to see this, she thinks, He probably doesn’t see too many burn victims in picture-perfect Elysium. As the shock resides, she falls into the sand, and Thanatos rushes to her side.

Her head swims, and her speech is slurred. “How did you you do that?”

“I don’t know!” he defends, fussing over her wound.

She hisses as he peels fabric away from the marred skin of her belly, wondering why she even bothers wearing clothes. “Have you been massively holding out on me?”

For all his study and knowledge and mentorship, Thanatos doesn’t have much magic at his disposal. Glowing lights, flipping pages, basic potions. He’s never displayed such raw power, and never without the use of the Language.

“No. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I was so angry, and I—. I’m sorry. I can’t seem to stop hurting you.”

“Let’s just get back.”

Her vision falters as he lifts her up, but by the time they’re at the base of the stairs, she’s healed enough to walk without her organs falling out. They reenter the palace separately to avoid unwanted attention, and she slips into her room as carefully as she can. After the assembly that morning, the servants, nobles, and walls all seem to have eyes for her, waiting to spot her doing something, anything. There’s not much in the way of entertainment in the Underworld.

Eurydice misses Blue. She wishes she could talk to her. Of course, she wouldn’t share the day’s details with someone so young, but she misses her nonetheless. Alone with her thoughts, Eurydice can’t help but replay every moment in her mind, wishing she could unsay her jab at Thanatos and unsee Kohana’s naked body. Thanatos’ too— nothing good can come of that image. Before today, she’d thought, hoped, that he was warming up to her. The fact that he agreed to the blood contract at all had seemed a sign that he believes in her, that he trusts her, that he likes her enough to keep her around. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe the long glances and lingering touches didn’t mean the same thing to him. He’s not like her after all, as he’d made so clear. But she doesn’t think she’s wrong, and she’s not going anywhere now.

She hasn’t done enough magic today to tire herself out, and she’ll lose her mind if she stays in this room thinking all night. Once the hallway’s late-night bustle has quieted, she sneaks to the library. Already in a bad mood, she gravitates toward Apollo’s diaries, grabbing one randomly from one of the more recent stacks. Settled into her secret corner, she opens the diary to find it starts before Apollo reached Elysium. He was in the town just east, a few days’ hike away. ‘Town’ is a generous word for it, by his account, as most people were living in tents or dug-out shelters, and cholera ran rampant after a hurricane contaminated their only fresh water source. Technically they were searching for a new town to take them in, but they were several years into that quest, and it was taking everything they had to survive.

Apollo was only passing through, but he was stricken by a young woman. A young, newlywed woman who wanted nothing to do with him. He writes at length about her beauty and strength and grace. Her devotion to her husband. Her tears and begging for him to stop.

She forces herself to finish reading, despite the growing urge to set the book on fire. She feels like she owes it to Marcus’ mother to learn what happened to her before dying in childbirth. Eurydice might be the only person who knows. After a moment’s consideration, she rips the pages from their binding and tucks them into her shirt.

He goes on to write about his journey to Elysium, his mission to bless Orpheus. This night of egocentric violence is no more remarkable to Apollo than any other night. But it changed the course of her life, maybe even the world. She thinks of his life philosophy, that he only acts in service of a good story. She’ll only ever admit to herself that she understands it somewhat. While not her preferred method of dissociation, it’s a very effective way to stay separated from your external circumstances. Morality doesn’t matter if the goal is entertainment, not goodness. There are few avenues to goodness, but many to a good story. One person can be a hero, villain, love interest, or all three. As a god, he’ll never face the consequences. He only plays at life like it’s a game.

All the gods do, really, even if they’re not as archetypal as Apollo. Eurydice is fighting and risking her friends’ lives to help Persephone… do what, exactly? End the war, and then what? Manipulate earth just like the rest of them, with Apollo at her side? Keep finding ways to use her as live entertainment? She fought it initially, but now she’s playing her part like a good little Eurydice. What for? She trusts Thanatos, but would he be helping Hades and Persephone if he weren’t bound to serve them?

She’s so lost in thought, she doesn’t notice the door open, and all of a sudden Persephone is just a few paces away, looking at Eurydice without seeing her. When Eurydice crosses the Language threshold, Persephone’s ears twitch, but she loses no composure. She waits for Eurydice to remember to bow before speaking.

“Thanatos said I might find you here. He also said you can exclude gods and goddesses from your spell.”

She nods. It is something they discussed weeks ago— how to avoid turning Persephone and her cohort into mortals along with the rest of the gods. It wouldn’t do for them to simply not eat or drink anything at the party. It will already be a precarious balance of three celestial courts, and the host refusing to partake would be immediate cause for suspicion. So she’ll add a clause to the spell, listing those who are exempt from it. She’s tested it extensively, even giving arbitrary labels to the tables in the workshop and commanding all tables to spin except for “Table Pierre” and “Table Elephant”.

“Good,” Persephone affirms, placing a sheet of parchment on the bench nearest her. “Thanatos has full faith in your abilities. He trusts you entirely.” Her voice is buttery smooth, but an undercurrent of electricity sizzles inside it. Eurydice stands up a bit straighter, bracing. “I’d like to trust you that much, child, but I simply cannot afford to. Thanatos’ dagger you carry? I have its twin. It can send a soul straight back to the Wheel. I suspect you know that already, given Atracus’ fate. If I don’t hear these names at the beginning of your spell, you won’t live to speak the end of it.”

She hadn’t known how Thanatos’ dagger worked, but she bows again. “I understand completely, Your Majesty.”

Persephone tilts her chin up, the only acknowledgment Eurydice is going to get, and turns on her heel, the glimmering train of her dress disappearing from view.