“But there is.”
She takes a deep breath. “Go home, Kathra. Mourn, and be done with it.”
“Mom,” I say. “Please.” I take a deep breath. Then I swallow. Hard. “I’m asking you to give me permission to make the journey through the Hells so I can bring Hunter back.”
She laughs, but the laugh is far from a happy sound. It’s a disbelieving, what the fuck is wrong with you sound. When I don’t laugh with her, her expression curdles. “… You can’t be serious.”
“I can.”
“You cannot just go waltzing into the Hells, Kathra!”
“I know. Which is why I’m here, asking you to give me permission.” Tears threaten my eyes and sting in my throat again. I need to keep control of myself. Mom doesn’t respect weakness. I’m fine for five minutes, and then I’ve never been worse. I hold my breath until the feeling passes.
Mom looks at me. There’s a beast of a silence, pulled tight as a guitar string. Each word comes out clipped. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, I haven’t.”
I definitely have. I wouldn’t be here if I were thinking straight, some part of me knows that.
“The Nine Hells are forbidden.”
“To you. Not to me. I’m not a goddess.”
“No, but you are half goddess… a demigoddess and furthermore, you are also a human, who is utterly unprepared for such a journey.”
“Mom, I have to do something,” I say. “Wouldn’t you have gone back for dad if you could?”
And it’s the wrong thing to say. Mom’s eyes change again, but this time the change is real, physical—they go dark, lilac changing to black. I’ve struck a nerve. I’ve found the worst possible thing I could have said.
“You should go,” she says. She and the garden blur, as though I’m looking at her through an unfocused camera lens.
But I can’t look at her. If I linger too long in her gaze, I’ll wake myself up, and the conversation will be over. Probably forever. I can’t let her send me back now. I’m losing time as it is.
So I look at the ocean instead. Vast and blue, shining in moonlight that has no business being as bright as it is. There’s the making of a storm on the horizon, thick black clouds swelling and rolling, swallowing the sky.
Mom grabs my face and makes me look at her. Her eyes are totally black.
“Go home,” she says, voice like thunder.
I can’t look away, her grip is like iron. I grab her wrist and try to rip it away, but I can’t. I close my eyes, but I feel myself slipping and have to open them again.
So I stare back.
“I’m going to the Hells,” I say. “If I can’t get your blessing, I’ll go to someone else.”
Which is only the first of many hitches in my flawless plan to throw myself at the mercy of the many toothy monsters of the Hells—it’s an old rule, and a strict one: one does not simply walk into the Hells. You want to go on a vacation to the underworld? You’re gonna need a recommendation.
In theory, I could go to anyone—Uncle Ares springs to mind, he’d jump at the chance to spite my mother—but blessings aren’t given freely. Whoever I go to, if it’s not my mom—and maybe even if it is—they’re going to want something from me in exchange. And given who I am and what I look like, it’s not going to be anything pleasant. My family has a long history of literally fucking each other just to be petty. And that’s the last thing I want.
And mom knows that. With any luck, she’ll care.
Please let me be lucky today.
“You will do no such thing,” she says, voice rising.
The garden is really getting hazy now. “I’ll do…” The words slide off my tongue like Jell-O. “… whatever… I fucking have to…” Okay, the color’s gone now, that’s bad. “… to get him back.”
Mom’s image flickers. “He is just a human. Find another one.”
“No.”
“Kathra, please. Find someone else, or no one at all, I don’t care. But forget him.”
I dig my nails into her wrist, but there’s no way she feels it. “I can’t.”
“You will. You have to. Forget this human thing, and move on with your life.”
“What life?” I ask.
I don’t know why that’s what gets her—but she lets me go.
I stumble back, feeling like I’ve been holding my breath. I lean over, hands on my knees, and try to steady myself. The world spins back into focus. It takes a second for all the colors to settle back in.
I can feel her staring at me. She crosses her arms and turns partly away, but she’s glaring at me like it’s her job.
The wind is cold. Really cold.
I push myself upright. I wipe my mouth on my sleeve—I’m drooling, don’t know when that happened. “What the fuck kind of life can I live without him, mom?”
“Don’t be so melodramatic.”
“Who the hell else am I going to be able to meet who doesn’t just see my tits and literally nothing else ever?”
“You shouldn’t call them that… they are breasts,” she says and arches one brow haughtily. “It’s uncouth.”
“Fine! Who is going to look at me and not just see my boobs and my ass?” I demand. “Who is going to love me for the person inside? Not the person outside? Hunter did. He loved me for all the things that make me me. He didn’t just love the two dimensional parts of me.”
She gets quiet. “If that’s your only concern, then just change the way you
