“Hecate!”
The Goddess of Magic appeared beside Hades, her robes whipping in the wind, and she brought her hand up to shield her eyes against the debris.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I felt her anguish and came as soon as possible.”
Persephone seemed to grow stronger. The roots that she had summoned from the sky grew larger and tunneled into the ground, curling around trees and mountains, squeezing until they were rubble. Hades attempted to counter that, his magic spiraling like matching vines to tangle with Persephone’s, while Hecate’s power joined the miasma. Only she did not attack Persephone. She kept her spells defensive, casting a shield over them in an attempt to contain the damage Persephone was doing to the Underworld. At the same time, though, Hecate’s magic had a weight. Even Hades could feel it bearing down on him. It made his shoulders shake and his concentration wane. He ground his teeth against the intrusion and knew that Persephone did too. There was an interruption in the power of her magic—a give, a break—and he watched as tears began to track down her face, her eyes locked with Hecate’s.
“What are you doing?” he demanded.
But Hecate did not respond, focused on Persephone. Then, all of a sudden, her magic was gone and a horrible silence followed, as if she really had sucked the life out of everything within his world.
Persephone swayed, and Hecate teleported to catch her just as she vomited at her feet.
“It wasn’t real,” Hecate whispered, brushing Persephone’s hair from her face. “It wasn’t real, my dear, my love, my sweet.”
Hades watched as Persephone buried her face in Hecate’s chest.
“I cannot unsee it. I cannot live with it.”
“Shh,” Hecate soothed, and as she did, she looked at him, and for the first time since this had all begun, he could see what had sent Persephone into her rage.
Him.
Hades wanted to vomit.
Even now, his stomach twisted into hard knots, and his throat felt tight as the vision Persephone had seen played through Hades’s mind—Leuce locked in his embrace, pressed against a tree, their mouths colliding in a passionate kiss.
He knew how the forest worked because he had created it as a weapon for torture. The souls who were sentenced there constantly lived a reality of their greatest fears. They felt and looked real because, in a way, they were.
When she had stumbled on them, she would have had no reason to believe what she was seeing wasn’t real. It would not have occurred to her, such was the way of the forest.
He watched Hecate rise with Persephone in her arms.
“I will take her to the palace,” she said, “while you restore order.”
He did not argue. He would have preferred to be the one to take Persephone, but he also knew that she would not want him right now, so he let Hecate leave and focused on restoring order to his realm.
While it was something he could do within seconds, he took his time, turning the roots Persephone had brought into the Underworld to ash, leveling the ground she had disturbed, before calling up his magic to create lush, rolling hills, thick forests, and extensive gardens full of blooming flowers.
When he was finished, he returned to the palace and found Hecate in his bedroom. She sat beside the bed while Persephone slept.
“How is she?” he asked.
“Exhausted,” she replied. “She just stopped shaking.”
Hades’s frown deepened.
“I don’t understand how she managed to wander into the forest.”
“Enchantment,” Hecate said.
“Enchantment,” Hades repeated.
“I have been thinking, the fear is all wrong too.”
Hades’s brows knit together. “What do you mean?”
Hecate kept her gaze on Persephone as she spoke.
“Persephone has no fear of you cheating with Leuce. She trusts you. Her greatest fear is losing Lexa. Which leads me to believe this was meant to tear you apart.”
Hades considered her words and, after a moment, asked, “Was Leuce at last night’s celebration?”
“I believe so,” Hecate said. “Which is why the fear seems off. Even after that picture surfaced in the Delphi Divine, she was unbothered enough to bring Leuce to celebrate.”
“You said it was an enchantment?” Hades asked.
The goddess nodded.
“A potion, if I had to guess,” Hecate said. “Likely from a Magi.”
Hades had no doubt that Leuce was involved somehow. Her deception was about to end. He left the bedroom and headed outside, where his realm had been restored to order, and called for Hermes, who appeared almost immediately, as if he had been waiting for Hades’s summons.