Shattered Circle

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

People say water is crisp and refreshing when they are hot and the liquid is cool. I don’t think I’ve ever been that hot. To me, if a drink has the same adjective as, say, a cracker, something is wrong.

But the water in the goblet Hades gave me hit my tongue like a brittle frost. It was so sweet and so cold at once that it hurt. It seeped through my teeth, infused my tongue. It crackled into my jawbone like magic. And I could feel it moving higher.

“What have you done?”

Hades smiled. “You agreed that I might satisfy myself two ways. You are too suspicious, too wary of me, for me to find that satisfaction easily. This”—he indicated the goblet—“will make the transaction smoother for both of us.”

My mind raced. The river. He told the man to fetch the water from the river. “Lethe.”

He nodded.

“You double-crossing bastard.” It was the river of forgetfulness. “This wasn’t part of the deal.” The magic in the water had risen to my temples. It was reaching its arms—no, its tentacles—of static across my cranium, and fingers of fire curled around my eye sockets. I covered my face with my hands. My knees weakened and buckled.

“Don’t take my mind,” I cried. “Not my memories.”

He crouched beside me and put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “There’s only about a minute left now. It will be all right. I will care for you.”

He was erasing from my mind all the people I knew and cared for, wiping away what little I knew about being the Lustrata. “You’re stealing who I am!”

“I must be paid, dear Persephone. When I am, I will . . . ” He snapped his fingers and the stone of our deal appeared. He read: “ . . . secure the safety of all those you hold dear, without harming others, and without taking anything from others be they innocent or guilty.” He snapped his fingers and the tablet disappeared. “As promised.”

The world swam before me. I felt like I was floating in a river, bobbing on the surface and feeling the current pulling at my feet. I put my hands down to the ground to steady myself. “They’ll be safe, you swear?” I choked on the words.

“I swear.”

I could tell my torso was leaning this way and that. I was trying to tell which way was up, where my balance was, but I kept overcompensating. I widened my arms and dug my fingers into the ground. “What of my destiny?”

His warm hand cupped my chin. It was stabilizing. I was grateful for it and I loathed him for it all at once. “Who am I to interfere in your grand destiny?”

I held on to his promises as parts of my body numbed. Inside my skull, my brain grew cold. Darkness swirled at the edges of my vision. Consciousness, I knew, was leaving me.

“Hecate,” I whispered. Would I remember Her?

“Hecate cannot help you,” he whispered back. “Our deal is struck.” Hades put his lips to mine and I could not fight, could not speak, could not see.

Despair was the last thing I knew as his kiss pushed me under the surface of Lethe’s oblivion.