The gate clicked and swung open with an ominous groan. Orion turned his head to look at Helen, his jaw dropping open in shock.
“If you say what you want, you can make it happen.”
Helen nodded in agreement, still trying to figure out how she’d done it. She thought back to the beginning of the conversation and how she had said jokingly to Orion that she “didn’t want to get attacked” that night. They had walked for a very long time without encountering any monsters. Then she asked for Persephone’s Garden to magically appear, and it had.
“But I have to know exactly what I want, and then I have to ask for it out loud,” she said.
Her face twisted up in a rueful grimace and a pained groan erupted out of her as she remembered her tortures. Hanging from the ledge. Imprisoned in the tree. Trapped inside the hell house. Worst—drowning in the pit. The strength swept out of her legs, but she would not fall. Not now.
“So many times I’ve suffered down here and I could have ended it whenever I wanted,” she continued in a bitter monotone, needing to say it to believe it. “All I had to do was say what I wanted to happen out loud and it would have. It’s almost too easy.”
“How young you are!” A musical but melancholic voice came to them from somewhere inside the giant, gilded cage. “Knowing what you really want and having the confidence to say it are two of the hardest things to do in life, young princess.”
Helen thought that over for a moment, and grudgingly admitted to herself that she agreed. If she asked for Lucas, and got him, she’d be guilty of something that would make her feel far worse than any cut or broken bone.
“Come in and visit with me. I promise, you won’t be harmed,” the voice continued, gently inviting them.
Helen and Orion shared a look and walked together through the open gate and into Persephone’s Garden.
Dappled light stretched from floor to ceiling in lacy rays. The dim light that filtered through the cage and the upper canopy of strange vegetation hit on dark green leaves that sparkled and glinted all around, and the dancing light gave the illusion of a gentle breeze.
Helen brushed close to a cluster of what she thought were lilacs, and caught her breath in shock when she felt them. Leaning in close to inspect the cluster, Helen saw that they were actually purple jewels, delicately carved and threaded together to create near-perfect replicas of real flowers. On closer inspection, Helen saw that the leaves were not real either, but spun out of silken threads. Nothing was real. Nothing grew here.
“So beautiful,” Orion said under his breath.
At first, Helen thought he was talking about the flower-shaped jewels, but when she glanced over at him she saw that he was looking down the path at the most elegant woman Helen had ever seen.
She was almost six feet tall, graceful as a swan, with skin such a deep shade of black it was nearly blue. She didn’t look that much older than Helen, but there was something about the way she moved, patient and precise, that made her seem much older. Her long neck was wrapped in ropes of huge, sparkling diamonds that were, quite frankly, put to shame by the size and luster of her eyes. On top of her glossy, knee-length hair was a tiered crown made of every type of gem that Helen could name, and quite a few she couldn’t. She wore a gown of fragrant, living rose petals that glistened with dew. The petals were white at the top and then deepened in shade to blushing pink and then darker still, until her feet seemed surrounded in a cloud of rich, red roses.
Under her bare feet, which twinkled with many toe-rings, a never-ending carpet of wildflowers budded, bloomed, and then withered. Every step she took caused a flood of flowers to spring to life, only to shrivel and die as soon as they touched the barren soil of the Underworld. It was like watching hundreds of gorgeous flowers throwing themselves off a cliff like lemmings, and Helen wanted it to stop.
“Awful, isn’t it?” Persephone said in her musical voice as she looked down at the dying flowers beneath her feet. “My essence creates them, but in the Underworld I don’t have the power to sustain them. No flower can survive down here for long.”
She looked directly at Helen as she spoke, her eyes communicating more meaning than her words. She knows I’m dying, Helen thought.
Helen glanced quickly over to Orion, who seemed oblivious to the silent girl-talk. Helen smiled at the queen, conveying her gratitude. She didn’t want Orion to know that she didn’t have much longer. If he knew she was dying, he might change the way he acted toward her.
As if obeying a time-honored protocol, Orion stepped forward and inclined his head and shoulders in a respectful bow.
“Lady Persephone, Queen of Hades, we come to beg a favor,” he said in a formal voice. It sounded strange, but right for the situation. Helen was surprised to realize that, like the Delos kids, Orion had been raised as a Scion, and he could easily switch between modern slang and old-world manners.
“May we join you?” he asked.
“Come, sit, and be welcome,” she said, gesturing to an onyx bench by the side of the path. “For you are welcome here in my garden if nowhere else, young Heir of two enemy Houses.” She performed such a smooth curtsy that it would have put a prima ballerina to shame.
Orion’s mouth tightened. At first, Helen thought it was in anger for bringing up his less-than-ideal childhood, but as she looked closer she realized that it was because he was overwhelmed with emotion.
Helen finally understood something about Orion that she hadn’t fully grasped before. Orion had never been accepted by anyone. Half of his family hated him because he hadn’t been left to die on a mountainside, and the other half hated him because the Furies compelled them to. His mother was dead, and the mere sight of him sent his father into a Fury-induced rage. Apart from Daphne, who had an ulterior motive for everything she did, had any Scion ever invited Orion to actually sit next to them with such kindness?
Studying Orion’s serious expression, Helen sensed that the only place he had ever been formally welcomed into a Scion’s presence was right here, right now, by Persephone.
He’s only welcome in hell, Helen thought. It made her chest ache to even consider the notion.
Realizing that Helen was standing there gawking, Persephone extended a hand, generously inviting her to join them on the bench.
Helen blushed and bobbed her head in an awkward way. She’d been caught spacing out like a crazy person again, and she couldn’t remember when she’d felt like a bigger hick. She dearly wished she’d paid attention to all those stanzas on courtesy that she’d skipped over in the Iliad. Persephone seemed to sense Helen’s discomfort and gave her a warm, welcoming smile.
“No need to stand on ceremony. Come to think of it, maybe I should be the one to bow to you,” Persephone said with the barest hint of a tease in her tone.