Chapter Fifteen
The Weed and the Rose

I spent the afternoon searching the entire wing for Henry, but no one had seen him. Several of the doors were locked, and I made a point of avoiding the one Calliope was behind, but unless he was in there or had purposely locked the door behind him, he wasn’t in the part of the palace I was familiar with.

By the time I returned to the bedroom, I half expected to see him on the bed, waiting for me. Instead it was Pogo who greeted me with an excited yip and wagging tail. As terrible as I felt, I scooped my puppy up and cuddled him, and he licked my cheek. It wasn’t enough to completely chase away my fears and worries, but it was good enough to hold them at bay for now.

“I missed you,” I said, giving him a good scratch behind the ears. My mother wasn’t there anymore, undoubtedly having joined the others, and I sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed I was supposed to share with Henry. “Wait until you hear about the month I’ve had.”

But before I could get another word in, a familiar sensation washed over me, and I once again plunged into darkness. This time, instead of reappearing in the cavern where Cronus worked to escape his prison, I found myself standing in the middle of a dimly lit room that stretched for twenty feet in either direction.

One side of the room was nothing but a continuous window that looked out across the vast cavern, and a fire crackled in a marble fireplace opposite the view. There were no curtains, and the sole piece of furniture was a white armchair. Henry sat in it, clutching the armrests so hard I feared they would break.

“Henry?” I whispered, unsure if he could hear me or not. For a moment at the entrance to Tartarus, I’d thought he could, but now when I tried to brush my ghostly fingers against his, he didn’t so much as blink.

The door on the far side of the room opened and shut. Persephone padded across the marble floor, barefoot and wearing a simple cotton dress. In the soft light, she looked breathtakingly beautiful, and I bit my lip. With the possible exception of Ava, I’d never met anyone in my life who had the power to make me feel like a weed beside a rose.

“I thought I’d find you in here,” said Persephone.

“I come here to think,” said Henry distantly. “I thought you were on your way back.”

“I decided to stick around for a little while. You lot need all the help you can get. Especially you.” She took Henry’s hand, the same one I’d tried to touch moments before. “Mother told me what happened. Kate is looking all over for you.”

Henry shrugged, and he didn’t pull away. “I would rather not face her yet.”

“Why’s that?” said Persephone, perching on the armrest. Exactly the question I’d been dying to know.

For a long moment, he didn’t answer. “She could have died because I was foolish enough to put her in harm’s way,” he finally said, his words heavy as they fell from his lips. “I have done nothing but put her in danger since the moment we met. I cannot do it anymore.”

That was why he’d run? Because he thought he was a danger to me? Something inside of me uncoiled. That was ridiculous, and now that I knew, we could talk about it. I could set things right.

Persephone rolled her eyes, and for once I agreed with her. “What Calliope tried to do isn’t your fault, and Theo said the tests were clear. Nothing happened to her.”

The cords in Henry’s neck stood out from the tension in his body. “We don’t know for certain. Even if everything turns out all right, I agreed to put her in that position.”

And I’d agreed to go. I wasn’t completely helpless; didn’t Henry understand that? I wasn’t mortal anymore. Calliope couldn’t kill me, and eventually he had to acknowledge that I wasn’t going to break if someone breathed wrong around me.

Persephone ran her fingers through Henry’s dark hair, and a lump formed in my throat. I didn’t want to be there watching this, but I couldn’t look away, and I had no idea how to get back to my body. Seeing them act so close despite being separated for a thousand years—I ached. It was as if Persephone had never left, and Henry was simply confiding in his wife about something that had happened during the day.

That was supposed to be my job, but I couldn’t do it when he was hiding from me. My sister knew him well enough not to need to search for hours in the wrong places though.

“She’s been through much worse over the past few weeks,” said Persephone. “Your new girl’s tough, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Henry. “When she decides to do something, it is impossible to change her mind, consequences be damned.”

Persephone snorted. “Sounds like someone else I know. She loves you, you know. More than I ever did.”

Pain flickered across Henry’s face, but it was gone as soon as it came. “She does not know me. When she learns who I really am, she will go.”

“Just like me?”

He stared silently out the window.

Persephone slid off the armrest and into his lap, and she looped her arms around his neck as if she’d never left him. My throat tightened, and I dug my nails into my palms. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to see this. I didn’t care how little Persephone loved him, and it didn’t matter what my mother or James or Ava said. Henry was still in love with her, and he would always choose her over me.

When he embraced her in return, a sob bubbled up inside of me, and I turned toward the window. Even then I could see their reflection, and try as I might, I couldn’t look away. This was it. Our relationship—our marriage—was dying before he’d so much as given it a chance.

“Sometimes I wonder what things would have been like if I’d stayed,” she said. “How our life together would have been different if we’d taken our time instead of jumping into things.”

“Happier,” said Henry quietly. “Full.”

“Maybe,” she whispered. “Maybe not.”

They were both silent for the space of several heartbeats, and when Persephone spoke again, she leaned in toward him until her lips were inches from his. I closed my eyes.

“You deserve someone who matches you,” she said. “What happened between us wasn’t your fault. We’re two different people, and no matter how strongly you’ve convinced yourself that I’m your one and only, it means nothing when you’re not mine.”

I held my breath. She was doing this on purpose. She was ripping him apart so— Why? So he wouldn’t be hung up on her anymore? To make room for me? His heart was broken enough as it was. How was I supposed to find all the pieces and put them back together if she shattered it?

“Stop,” I begged, knowing it was useless. Didn’t she know what she was doing to him? Of course she did. I’d known Henry for a year, and it was excruciatingly obvious to me. She’d known him for eons.

“Are you truly happy with Adonis?” said Henry at last.

Persephone smiled faintly. “When I wake up and the first thing I see is his face, I know it’s going to be a great day. That isn’t going to change no matter how much time passes.”

Henry threaded his fingers through her hair, and Persephone made no move to stop him. “Do you ever regret leaving?”

She didn’t answer right away. Instead she found his free hand and laced her fingers in his. “Sometimes. I miss the sun—the real thing, not the one in my afterlife. I miss my mother. I miss our family. I miss the seasons. I miss change.” She pressed her lips to his knuckles. “Sometimes I even miss you. Adonis is lucky. He’s like every other soul—he doesn’t fully realize what’s going on or that the world around him is fake. I do, and sometimes that’s enough to make a difference.”

Henry stroked her cheek with the back of his hand, and his eyes shifted from the window to her. He looked at her the way he’d looked at me the night we’d slept together, and my chest ached. Why couldn’t I wake up? “You could come back.”

Persephone gave him a sad smile. “What about Kate? You wouldn’t do that to her. I know you better than that. You might have her fooled, but I can tell how you feel about her.”

Henry was silent, and my heart beat so hard that I thought it might explode. Would he? Was he asking her to return as his queen or as his wife? Could she even do that?

Dizzy, I leaned against the window and wished with every fiber of my being that the glass would disappear and let me fall. At least then I wouldn’t have to hear this. I thought about leaving through the door, but if I couldn’t go through the window, I wouldn’t be able to walk through that, either.

“Kate is many things to me,” said Henry finally. “But she is not you.”

I sank to the floor and hugged my knees. I’d done so well fooling myself that this might work, that with time and a little effort, everything would be okay. But it couldn’t be. Would he have said those things if he’d known there was a chance I might be listening? Of course not. He wasn’t cruel, but I’d heard them anyway.

“Hades…” Persephone leaned forward and closed the gap between them, touching her lips to his.

My stomach lurched, and I hid my face in my hands. This couldn’t be happening. This was a nightmare, not the real thing. I’d fallen asleep without remembering, that was all. I would wake up soon, and when I did, Henry would be watching me sleep, and he would apologize for storming off. We would talk, he would kiss me, and everything would be all right again.

I didn’t know how long it lasted. I didn’t want to know, and by the time Persephone spoke again, I was all but tearing my hair out. Why couldn’t I go back? What part of me wanted to see this so badly that I was willing to put myself through this kind of agony?

“The thing is, I’m not me, either,” she said softly. “I’m not the person you love. That person never existed, and turning me into her in your mind—it’s destroying you. We had one good day together, and the rest of it was awful. I was miserable, and by the time I knew I didn’t want to be married to you anymore, you’d convinced yourself that you were in love with me. But you never were. You fell in love with a person who never existed.”

Tears splashed on the knees of my jeans. In a fit of desperation, I pinched the inside of my elbow hard, but I felt no pain. I was stuck.

“Tell me,” said Persephone. “Was that the kind of kiss you’ve spent the past thousand years imagining? Did your heart stop? Did the room spin and did everything else fade away?”

In the time it took for Henry to respond, I stopped breathing and lifted my head. Persephone was still in his lap, and they watched each other with such intensity that I expected him to kiss her again, but then I saw it. There was a distance between them now, as if she were pulling away. As if he were holding her at arm’s length.

As the seconds ticked by, a sliver of hope lodged itself inside of me, and I stood shakily to move closer so there would be no chance of me missing what he would say.

Except as I stepped forward, he leaned toward her again, and she didn’t stop him. My breath caught in my throat as the world dissolved around me once more, and Henry and Persephone disappeared.

* * *

I spent the rest of the night crying in bed with Pogo curled up at my side. Every half an hour or so, he would wake up long enough to lick my cheeks before falling back asleep. I wasn’t so lucky.

Whatever lesson Persephone had tried to teach Henry backfired, and even if she left the palace tomorrow, that wouldn’t change the fact that Henry would always love her more. I wanted to hate her for what she’d done, but she hadn’t been the one to burst into our marriage. I was the one who’d sought her out, and I’d convinced her to reenter her old life, despite knowing full well what the consequences of Henry seeing her again might be. All she’d done was try to discourage his feelings—in a twisted way that had failed miserably, but she had tried.

And now I’d lost him completely.

The sound of the bedroom door opening woke me up from a light doze. Pogo stretched, and when I sat up, he flopped down in my lap belly-up, apparently unwilling to let me go anywhere without him again.

Henry stood in the doorway, and for a long moment, we simply stared at each other. His ageless face was drawn and his lips turned down in a frown, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks.

Finally he stepped inside the room and shut the door. Without coming to greet me, he headed to his closet and began to sort through his clothes. I wiped my cheeks to make sure no evidence of my crying session remained, but they’d been dry for hours.

Once he’d picked out a fresh shirt that was indistinguishable from the one he wore, I expected him to say something, but he wordlessly disappeared into the bathroom as if I weren’t even there. Did he think so little of me that I wasn’t worth a hello?

While he was gone, I debated whether or not to continue pretending everything was all right. The coward in me wanted to, but I knew that if I tried, I would be as miserable as Persephone had been, and I didn’t want to be miserable anymore. I couldn’t spend my life waiting for him to set Persephone aside and focus on me instead.

By the time he came out, I knew what I had to say. Everything inside of me fought against the words that spilled from my mouth, but I needed to say it, and Henry needed to hear it.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

My voice was barely a whisper, but Henry stopped halfway between the bathroom and the door. He didn’t look at me, but his hands formed fists, and the cords in his neck stood out like they had in the room with the windows. Self-loathing washed over me. I was doing the same thing Persephone had done to him; I was giving up. Before we’d even had a chance, I was declaring it over.

No. Henry was the one who’d given up. He was the one who’d declared it over the moment he refused to touch me or treat me like his wife. He was the one who’d lost us somewhere; I was only giving up the search, as well. There was nothing I could do, no magical words I could say to fix everything if he’d already abandoned us.

“Cannot do what, exactly?” said Henry, and I heard the strain in each word he spoke, as if it took monumental effort for him to form them. My palms were sweaty, and more than anything I wanted to take it back and apologize and beg for him to talk to me so we could figure this out, but he wasn’t going to do that. And even if he did, tomorrow things would go back to this, and neither of us would ever be happy again. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn’t do that to me.

“This,” I said softly. “Us. Last year, when we were—before we were married, I thought now would be perfect, and that I would be happier than I’ve ever been in my life, getting to be with you. Getting to love you for the rest of eternity. But no matter how much I want to love you, you won’t let me, and I can’t do this anymore.”

Henry didn’t move. I wanted him to come over to the bed, to take my hand and tell me he was sorry, that he’d try harder, but he didn’t. He stared at the door instead. “May I ask what precipitated this decision?”

There it was, the elephant in the room. The thing I wasn’t supposed to see. The thing that changed everything. “You kissed Persephone.”

At once, several emotions passed over his face. Shock, shame, humiliation, anger, pain—relief? Yes, relief, as well. “I did not expect her to tell you. I am sorry.”

Dead silence. Out of all the things I thought he might say, that had never crossed my mind. “That’s your response?” I blurted. “That you’re sorry I found out? Persephone didn’t tell me, Henry. It was this so-called gift. I was in the room with you. I saw every damn second of it. I heard every single word you said to her. I watched you do it.”

I blinked rapidly to stop myself from tearing up again, but I was fighting a losing battle. He didn’t care. He wasn’t even going to pretend he’d done something wrong. “You know what James told me at the end of the summer? He said I had a choice, and he was the only one who was going to tell me about it, because everyone else was so concerned with your happiness that they didn’t give a damn about mine. I told him I’d already made my choice when I’d married you, but he kept insisting I wait. I didn’t understand what he meant, but now I do.”

“James.” His name was twisted and ugly on Henry’s lips. “Yes, of course he would fool you into second-guessing yourself. For purely selfless reasons, I am certain.”

“I’m not second-guessing myself,” I snapped. “I’m second-guessing you. I’ve given you every chance in the world to show me that you want me here, and you’ve given me nothing. You run off whenever you think you’re going to have to be in a room alone with me for more than two minutes at a time. You don’t touch me, you barely talk to me, you haven’t so much as kissed me since I got here, let alone treat me like your wife. Like your equal. James warned me you’d do something like this, and I was stupid enough to insist he was wrong.”

Throwing James in his face again and again was cruel, but I couldn’t stop myself. Out of all the people in my life besides my mother, Henry was the one who was supposed to understand and know me best, not James.

“Then perhaps I should leave you and James be,” said Henry, and the thunder in his voice gave me goose bumps. “Is that what you want, Kate? My permission to be with him? You have it. For spring and summer, you may do whatever you wish with whomever you wish.”

“And what about fall and winter? Am I supposed to sit pretty and wait for the day you decide you love me?”

“I do love you.”

“Then show me.”

“I am trying,” he said sharply. “My apologies if it is not good enough for you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Doing nothing is never going to be good enough, Henry. Right now, from where I’m sitting, it looks like the last thing you want to be is my husband. You can say you love me all you want, but if you only ever act like the opposite’s true, then I can’t trust your words anymore.” My voice cracked. “Dammit—is this what it’s going to be like forever? Tell me now. Save me the misery if you’re never going to look at me the way you look at Persephone.”

“I cannot simply stop feeling something for her,” said Henry through clenched teeth. “She was part of my life for a very long time.”

“I know. I know you love her. I’m not asking you to forget she ever existed—I’m asking you to put her in the past, where she belongs, and live your future with me, not a ghost.”

Henry’s throat constricted. “That is what I am trying to do.”

“But you’re not.” I ran my fingers through my hair, frustration building up inside of me. “Henry, you kissed her.”

“She kissed me.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I slammed my hand down on the mattress, and Pogo scurried underneath my pillow. “Don’t you get that? You wanted it. You enjoyed it. You wanted more once it was over. And everything she was trying to show you—she doesn’t love you anymore, don’t you get that? I do. I love you, and you’re going to lose me because you’re too afraid or too—too uninterested or—I don’t know. I don’t know why you won’t let me love you the way I want to.”

I waited for Henry to say something, anything to help me understand, but he was silent. Wildly I searched through every excuse I’d made for him since arriving, every possibility that had occurred to me. Anything that would explain the man I loved turning into a stranger.

The thing he’d said to Persephone, the reason why he’d bolted from the throne room that afternoon. “Is it because you think Calliope’s going to kill me the moment you let yourself feel something real for me? Because I’m immortal now, Henry. She can’t kill me anymore.”

“Cronus can.” The words came out so choked that I hardly understood them, but there it was. His excuse. I softened.

“Cronus didn’t.” I slid to the edge of the bed, close enough for him to reach me in two steps, but he stayed put. “He hunted us down, and when he had the chance to kill me, he didn’t.”

Finally Henry looked at me, his eyes glittering with confusion, but I kept going. If I let him change the subject, I would never be able to finish this.

“You don’t need to spend every waking moment protecting me now. I’m supposed to be your partner, not your burden, and if that’s all I’m ever going to be to you, then I don’t want to be here anymore. I want you to love me. I want to look forward to coming here every fall. I want winter to be my favorite season because I get to spend it with you. So tell me that’s going to happen, Henry. Tell me things are going to be better, that you’re not going to think of Persephone every time you touch me. Tell me that you’re going to love me as much as you love her, and that I won’t spend the rest of eternity paling in comparison to your memories of my sister.”

Silence.

“Please,” I whispered. “I’m begging you. If you don’t…if you don’t, I’m going to leave. And I don’t mean for the summer. I’m going to leave the Underworld, and I won’t come back.”

He flinched, and I instantly knew I’d said the wrong words, but I couldn’t take them back now. “Perhaps that is best,” he said. “You will be safer on the surface, and the others can protect you.”

“I don’t need protecting.” I was crying in earnest now, and my throat was thick and my voice strangled, but I kept going. “I need to know I’m not going to be miserable for the rest of my life.”

“I should not be your only source of happiness,” said Henry stiffly. “If that is so—”

“It isn’t. You’re not. I have my mother and Ava and—”

“James,” he finished for me, and I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but I didn’t want to lie to him. James was my best friend. “Yes, I am aware. I will not give you an excuse to leave. If you wish to do so, then there is the door. I am sure James will be happy to have you all to himself. Now, if you will excuse me, I have preparations to make.”

I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove his assumptions, but his last words caught me off-guard. “Preparations for what? What’s so important that you have to leave when we’re in the middle of this?”

“My apologies,” he said coolly. “I thought you had already made your decision to abandon me.”

I snatched a pillow from behind me and hurled it at him. Without moving an inch, he deflected it before it was halfway to him. “You’re a jerk,” I snapped. “If this is how you treated Persephone, then you know what? I don’t blame her for leaving you. In fact, she was an idiot for waiting so long.”

Unspeakable agony flashed across Henry’s face, and I clapped my hand over my mouth the moment I realized what I’d said. “Oh, god, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” he said. “You meant every word.”

I buried my face in my hands and stifled a hiccupping sob. My lungs burned, and all I wanted to do was curl up on the bed and cry, but I couldn’t. Not when Henry was here. Not when he was finally talking to me. “I hate this,” I whispered. “I hate fighting with you. I’m not asking for the moon and the stars, I promise. I just want you to love me, to want me, to spend time with me, to talk to me.”

“And you expect to achieve that by behaving like this?” he said. “You believe that saying such things to me will somehow make me forget the eons I have already lived?”

“As opposed to what? Not saying anything at all? I’ve tried giving you time. I’ve tried risking my life to save yours. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but when you won’t even talk to me—”

“Henry.”

I looked up at the sound of Walter’s voice. He stuck his head in the door, and as he focused on Henry, he pointedly ignored me. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or offended.

“We are about to begin,” he said, and Henry nodded tersely. As soon as the door shut, Henry released a breath as if he’d been holding it for centuries.

“We may continue this later, if you wish, but I must go now. We are planning for the battle.” He hesitated. “Titans are strongest on the solstices, and we expect Cronus will escape completely sometime in late December, so there is not much time.”

I closed my eyes. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to sneak into the cavern, Persephone would have handled things, and none of this would be happening. “Would you mind if I took a day or two before I left? I want to say goodbye to everyone.”

At first Henry said nothing, but finally he nodded. “Take as long as you need.”

He was halfway out the door when I blurted, “Can I visit you sometime?”

In the moment it took him to turn to face me again, I thought I saw a hint of a smile, but it was gone before I could be sure. “Whatever happens between us, Kate, I will always want to be your friend. It—” He paused. “It is more than I have had before.”

More than what Persephone had given him. That brought me a small amount of comfort, though the distance in his voice kept me from smiling. “I’ll come see you sometime.”

“Then I will do what I can to ensure that you will not come back to an empty palace.”

“I— What?” He thought he wasn’t coming back? Or was he going to fade? Die in battle with Cronus? Did it even matter? “Henry, what do you—”

Before I could finish, thunder rumbled in the room, and Henry blinked out of sight, leaving me alone with fear and questions with no answers. I hurried to the door and threw it open, hoping in vain he’d be there, but I was alone.

It was over.