The moment my feet land on solid ground, I open my eyes to see the familiar layout of the library. I barely have time to collect my thoughts before a black blur comes barreling towards me, bowling me over as soon as it collides with me. My squeal of surprise is suppressed by a mountain of dark fur and sinewy muscle.

A sharp whistle pierces the air, and the mountain lifts off me to reveal a large, grinning feline face. My jaw drops.

"Pluto! Is that really you?!"

The young lion chuffs, sounding suspiciously like he's laughing at me. I laugh as I scratch his chin, shock rendering me speechless for a moment. He's twice the size he was when I left, and taller than a Clydesdale horse.

"He has missed you desperately." Hades chuckles, helping me back up to my feet. He smiles at me. "Welcome back, Evie."

I grin and tilt my head back. A feeling of peace washes over me. "Would it be crazy to say that I actually missed this place?"

"It depends on whom you are talking to." Hades replies wryly. He touches my closed fist, uncurling my fingers from around the pendant. "May I?"

I nod, turning around and pulling my hair out of the way. His fingers graze the back of my neck for a moment, sending shivers skittering down my spine. My heart starts thudding in my chest. When the pendant clicks into place, I turn back around to face him, not missing the look that crosses his face.

"Thank you Hades. It's beautiful."

His smile grows. "I am glad you like it."

"I love it, Hades. Truly." I turn around and grin when I spot my favourite green couch. I fall back onto the couch and sigh happily, snuggling down into the luxurious cushions. I turn my face towards the crackling fire and close my eyes in content. "I missed this."

A shadow passes over me. When I peel open one eye, Hades is standing in front of the fire, concern decorating his handsome features.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Hades." I reassure. I'm then interrupted by an ear-splitting yawn. He raises an eyebrow and I smile guiltily. "I guess almost dying took a lot more out of me than I thought."

Hades stiffens. His features smooth out into that impassive mask I've grown to despise. "Do not joke about that, Evie."

"Sorry." I frown when he sighs, pushing myself up to a sitting position. "Hey, what's going on? Why are you so worried? I'm okay, I promise."

"I cannot tell you." I start to protest, but he holds his hand up. "Not because I want to keep you in the dark, Evie. I promised that I would not do that anymore, and I meant it. The issue that is worrying me is too big of a burden to tell you when it is only based on a nagging worry. I do not want to tell you, and scare you, only to find out that there was nothing to worry about. I want resounding proof before I burden you with the truth."

I don't respond for a beat, before standing up. I look him in the eye and nod lightly.

"Okay."

My reply seems to surprise him . "'Okay?' You aren't going to fight me about it?"

"Did you seriously just say aren't? Are you finally learning to use conjunctions?!" I clap my hands gleefully. He just raises an eyebrow at me. I sober up. "Okay, I'm sorry. Time and place, Evie. No, I'm not going to fight you about it. I did a lot of thinking when I was in Greece, and I realised that I made a mistake. I know I hurt you when I left, and I hate that I caused you that pain. I'm preaching that you need to learn to trust me, when I need to do the same myself. So, here's me learning." I pause, and hesitantly glance up at him. "I'm sorry, Hades. I trust that you'll tell me when you think it's best. I know you're just trying to look out for me."

Hades shakes his head with a wry smile. Something unfamiliar flickers through his gaze. "You truly are unique, Evie."

"Thank you." I grin. Then my mind flashes back to the events of the hotel room, and the grin slips from my face. Hades doesn't miss the change in my expression.

"What's wrong?"

I sigh, my shoulders slumping. "Why was Spencer so against me coming back down here? He's never ignored me like that."

"Spencer is... a complicated person." Hades replies slowly, almost like he's not sure what to say. "Due to his nature, Spencer has never had many people he can conclusively call a 'close friend'. Most of the people he's close to only befriend him so that they can get the, full experience, let us say. But you decided to be his friend without knowing who he truly was, and you did not treat him any different when you found out. That kind of friendship is very alien to him, so he will struggle when it comes to letting you go. You are quite possibly the first real friend he has had."

"Wow." I glance down at my fingers, my heart sinking. "Now I feel really bad."

"You should not. It is not your fault." His fingers ghost across mine, sending shivers down my spine. He squeezes them softly. "At the end of the day, you cannot control Spencer's reactions. He needs to learn to process his emotions appropriately, and not let them cloud his logicality. I am sure that, with time, he will come to understand the folly of his actions today."

"I guess there's some truth to your words." I reply, albeit begrudgingly. "God, why can't you gods be normal with your feelings for once? I'm getting emotional whiplash trying to keep up with them all."

"Because we are gods, Evie." He responds bemusedly, his eyes twinkling. "We do not exactly have the emotional restraint that humans have."

"You don't say." I retort dryly. "Remind me, Hades, do you even know what emotions are?"

"I do not understand the need for sarcasm, Evie. You are a goddess too. In time, you will be just as bad as the rest of us." Hades replies seriously, though I can detect a hint of teasing in his tone.

"Well, excuse me Mr I-Suddenly-Have-A-Sense-Of-Humour, but I was still human up until a month ago. I'm pretty sure I've got a lot more going for me than you twats do!" I protest indignantly, crossing my arms over my chest. He laughs, and I give him the stink eye. "Oh, shut up."

"Alright." He chuckles, holding his hands up in defeat. "I apologise, Evie."

"That's okay." I smile sweetly. "I'll forgive you, but only on one term."

"Which is?"

"You tell me all about these abilities I apparently have."

"I was going to tell you anyway." He replies bemusedly. "That is not much of a bargain."

I shove him. "Oh, shut up. Let me feel like I won something."

Hades shakes his head, watching me with a smile. "Unique doesn't even begin to cover it."

"Aha! You did it again! You used another conjunction!" I shout, pointing at him. "I'm slowly modernising you! And you say I'll be just as bad as you."

"Evie."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry." I hold my hands up, plastering a sincere expression on my face. "Being serious now, I promise. I truly do want to know now. I mean, the sooner I know, the quicker I can help you, right?"

Hades doesn't respond straight away, a troubled look flickering through his eyes. My smile flips.

"What's wrong?"

"It does not matter." He leans forward, his features growing serious. "You have three main abilities, Evie, aside from the ability to know when one is lying. Two of those abilities will aid you in governing the Underworld, similar to those that Persephone possessed when she ruled down here. The third will be unique to you, both as a goddess and as an individual. Even I do not know what I will be; all I know is that it will echo who you truly are as a person.

"The first is not dissimilar to one that I possess: the ability to manipulate the energy around you. I assume you have seen me do this before?"

I nod. "That's when black tendrils appear around you when you're angry, isn't it?"

Hades grimaces.

"Among other things, yes. This, I will teach you in due course, but I have a suspicion that it will not be something you will struggle with." He smiles a little. "The second will be your ability to project your thoughts into another's mind."

"Wait, what?!" I gape. "I can talk to people in their minds? As in, in their minds?"

"Not exactly." Hades seems to find my shock amusing. "You can project certain sentences in their minds, say, for example, a warning, or a thought of particular importance. They can hear you, but only other deities of great power can reply to you."

"What—how—what?" I babble incoherently, my eyes wide. His eyes twinkle.

"It will be difficult at first, but, with training, you will have the full capability to project both thoughts and images to another's mind briefly."

"How briefly is briefly?" I ask incredulously.

"That depends on your concentration at the time. It could last seconds or minutes. It will be entirely up to you."

"Okay. Wow. This is just— wow." I let out a long breath, falling back heavily against the sofa. Hades stays silent as I digest all the new information. "I mean, under any normal circumstance, I'd probably jump up, tell you that you're crazy and then leave very dramatically, but this isn't any normal circumstance is it? Up until a month ago I was still normal, but now I'm a goddess who apparently can talk to people in their minds?" I raise my eyebrows at him sceptically. "Are you sure I can do that?"

"Of course I am. Evie, we would not have made you my consort if we were not certain you would be a good queen, nor would we have made you a goddess without any abilities to aid you. This is an immense responsibility, and I am not so cruel as to leave you defenceless. But that is a discussion for another day. " He stands up with a smile, and offers me his hand. "Here, give me your hand. I expect you will be growing tired; you have experienced a very taxing few hours."

I laugh and push myself up to my feet. Grabbing my duffel bag from next to the couch, I sling it loosely over my shoulder and place my hand in his. "That's one way to put it."

This time, I expect it when the library metamorphoses into my bedroom, and my stomach doesn't nearly roil as much as it had in the past at the unexpected movement.

Internally, I grin at that small victory. Slowly, but surely, I'm getting used to it all.

I toss my bag in the direction of my wardrobe before turning back to Hades. "So, taxing evening aside, when are you going to start teaching me how to use these abilities of mine? I could have a lot of fun with that mind projection thing — totally not for malicious or devilish purposes, of course."

Hades chuckles and steps back, his hands disappearing into the pockets of his trenchcoat. "As entertaining as I am sure that will be, we will not have time today. I am sorry, but there are things I must attend to first. Rhadamanthos and Minos will be wondering where I have been."

"Oh." My face falls slightly. I quickly cover up my disappointment with a smile. "That's okay. I understand."

"Thank you, Evie." He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear and smiles at me. "Please, do rest. I will see you later."

Then he disappears from my view, the ghost of his lips still kissing my forehead.

— — —

Much to my surprise, I sleep for close to twenty-four hours, but wake up feeling much less achy and much more well-rested. After stretching out every kink in my body, I roll over with a yawn, blindly reaching for the lamp on the bedside table. The small light bursts to life, revealing a small, white slip of parchment sitting neatly on my bedside table. I blearily rub my eyes and pick it up to inspect. Scrawled, in an all-too-familiar handwriting that has my heart skipping a beat, is a small note.

Evie,

As much as I wish to be at your side when you wake, I fear that my duties have devoured what spare time I have remaining. I shall find you the moment I have finished resolving this matter.

H.

I sigh and fall back on my bed with a beaming smile on my face. As much as I want to say I felt sickened by how happy I felt knowing that he didn't begrudge me for leaving, I couldn't. I felt like a lovestruck teenager living it up in a cheesy romance, and I couldn't help but cherish that heart-warming feeling.

I quickly get myself dressed before heading out into the palace, set on a determined mission to find Calla and Kezia. If anything, I wanted to see them after missing their company for the last few weeks, but a small part of me also hoped that I would be able to trick one of them into telling me what had been happening in the Underworld while I was gone, and why that had taken up so much of Hades' time. I hadn't been lying when I had told him I trusted him, but I couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't quite right, and the note he had left me hadn't helped assuage that gut feeling. As vague as it had been, I could still tell something was wrong. Something had happened while I was gone, and I was determined to find out what it was so I could help him.

It doesn't take me long to locate the kitchen, but when I push the familiar wooden door open, I walk into a completely unfamiliar scene. I pause in the doorway, my brow furrowing as my gaze drinks in the new scenery. What was once a bustling, old-fashioned industrial kitchen was now a much smaller room, cloaked in darkness and clouded by pungent aromas. Where there had been a large stone-oven was now a large, rotund black pot, with a crackling fire licking the bottom of it and boiling the thick, maroon liquid roiling inside the pot. Tendrils of different herbs hang from the ceiling, some still beaming green and others a shrivelled brown husk of their counterparts. Hundreds of glistening glass jars decorate the shelves lining the walls, some filled and others waiting with their mouths wide open. And set into the back wall of the room is a huge stone fire, with what looks like a large black hound curled up in front of it.

Kezia, now clad in an all-black ensemble, stands in the middle of the room, her gaze narrowed as she engages in a heated discussion with a person with their back turned. Their voices are hushed, but one word is muttered loud enough that it strays all the way over to the doorway.

Kronos.

I push the door open wider, the loud squeal of the hinges alerting Kezia and her companion to my presence. Their conversation halts immediately, and they both turn to stare at me. I immediately recognise Kezia's companion.

It's Minos.

I clear my throat and wiggle my fingers in an awkward wave. "Uh, hi? I'm back?"

Kezia and Minos exchange a look. Kezia mutters a few terse words. Minos nods once before bowing to her and brusquely pushing past me, not even bothering to acknowledge my presence. I throw a scowl at his retreating back.

"It's nice to see you too, Minos!"

"Well, well, well." Kezia drawls, dragging my attention back to her. She smirks at me. "Aren't you a sight for sore eyes?"

"Hello to you too, you witch." I grin, folding my arms as I lean against the doorway.

Kezia mockingly clutches at her chest. "Ouch. I haven't seen you in a month, and this is how you greet me?"

I gesture to the room. "Have you looked at the room you're standing in?"

Shrugging, Kezia walks over to the wooden island that's standing proudly in the middle of the room. She picks up a long, silver knife and twirls it between her fingers. "I don't know what you're insinuating. My room has always looked like this; it's not my fault you're no longer looking at it through a human-tinted lens."

"A human-tinted lens?"

"Yes. No longer human, no longer need to be protected from the scariness of reality. Hence, the lens has fallen away." Kezia raises her eyebrows. "Now, are you going to continue standing there awkwardly, or are you going to come in and say hello to your saving grace?"

"Saving grace?" I repeat bemusedly, obediently walking forward and plonking myself onto the counter. "What exactly have you done to save me?"

"Get the hell off my counter before I chop your legs off." Kezia narrows her eyes at me, raising the knife threateningly. I gulp, sliding off it uneasily. "And I, for your information, re-modernised your wardrobe while you were gone. Consider it a crowning gift from myself to you."

I glance down at the red tunic dress I had thrown on this morning. I'm barely able to contain my glee when I look back up at her. "You convinced Calla to stop forcing me into those death-dresses? She never listened to me; how the hell did you manage to do it?"

"I threatened her with my best friends." Kezia smirks, stroking the knife. She rolls her eyes when she sees my expression. "Oh come on Evie, I'm not that psychotic. I just told her that seeing as you were going to stick around for good, she might as well give you the wardrobe you wanted, or you'd make her life pretty miserable. So, technically, I threatened her through you."

"I don't know whether to hit you or hug you." I retort dryly. "You've corrupted my poor maid."

"I never corrupted her. I've just turned down her naivety dial." She flashes me an innocent beam when I glare at her. "Oh don't give me that look. I enjoy her company; why can't she benefit from mine?"

"You're a devil."

"No, that's just your new boyfriend." She cackles when I shove her. "Now now, be nice. I have got the knife, you know."

"For now."

"Darling, it's endearing that you think you can out-manoeuvre me." Kezia drawls, ignoring the way my scowl deepens. She pulls a bunch of herbs from the roof and starts chopping them. "Do tell me, though: how's your new life in Hell treating you?"

"Well, for starters, I made the stupid mistake of being friends with demons like you." I tease, and she snorts. "I have only officially been down here for a day though, Kezia, so it's been fairly tame so far."

"Oh, I sincerely apologise your majesty." She mocks, her eyes twinkling impishly. "Are we too 'fairly tame'? Is your supernatural boy-toy not entertaining you enough? I will have words with him at once!"

"Kezia!" My face reddens. "He is not my boy-toy! I don't even know what he is."

"Well, for starters..." She smirks mockingly, holding her hands up when I scowl at her. "Okay, okay, I'll stop being hilarious. In all seriousness though, what's bothering you? It's usually a good thing when it's fairly tame down here, but you don't seem to think that. Why?"

I sigh. "I don't know. I don't know how to explain it. I just have this feeling in my gut. That something really wrong is going to happen really soon."

"Is that it? A gut feeling?" She raises an eyebrow.

"No." I hesitate, leaning against the bench with my elbows. "There's another thing."

"What is it?"

"I almost died when I was up on the surface. Someone tried to drown me. That's why I'm back so early." I tell her. Her eyes widen. "And even though they all tried really hard to hide it, that really scared Hades and the twins — and I mean really scared them. But nobody is telling me why."

Kezia freezes mid-chop. She slowly looks up at me. "Are you asking me if I know? Because I don't, Evie."

"Really?" I ask sceptically, folding my arms tightly over my chest. "Why do I not believe you?"

"Yes, really. I'm sorry to hear what happened, Evie — truly, I am — but I can't help you. I don't know anything. Hades hasn't told me anything." Kezia picks her words carefully, like she's trying to navigate a particularly dangerous river. My gaze narrows even more.