Series: Willow Winters
Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74198 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
No one. Not even Persephone.
And still, I go across to the mirror.
Its surface is dark and opaque. For a minute, I stand a short distance away. The closeness of it is almost enough. I can endure this separation if I am in sight of the mirror. It’s not a connection with Persephone, but it makes such a connection possible.
The possibility is all I need. Would I beg Zeus to allow her access to his andron? Could I bribe or blackmail a servant to cast a spell upon the still waters of Persephone’s garden so I may steal glimpses of her in Olympus like I did before?
With Demeter’s rage and Zeus’s knowledge of my betrayal, I know not what my next steps should be. I’ve already broken many laws of the gods and gotten away with it. To risk anything is to risk losing Persephone.
But I cannot leave it alone. I cannot stand here, staring at a black mirror, then go back to my rooms. So perhaps the possibility is not all I need. My heart beats higher into my throat, practically suffocating me. What would it hurt? I will not let the ache of Persephone’s absence send me into another rage. I will not.
I’m only going to see.
With one hand reaching out to the mirror, I take two decisive steps toward it. After a moment, the black begins to clear, fading toward the edges until the glass reflects my andron and my face.
That is what I expected to see. The Underworld and me in it. There was no reason to hope for anything else.
I’m about to step back when the reflection shivers. My blood heats and thrums with anticipation. I can barely breathe as firelight appears first on the edge of the mirror. Firelight on white walls.
And then a chair. And then Persephone’s face, close to the mirror, leaning in with a wrap around her shoulders.
I cannot help the pull to my lips that brings an asymmetric smile.
“You are here, my queen.” My voice is low and holds a tone of reverence.
Persephone whispers, “I did not think I could be so lucky as to wish my pull to you would bring you here.”
I lean closer, gripping the frame, wishing it were larger. Wishing I could simply walk through it. “Do you not sleep?”
“Do you not sleep?” she questions back coyly, with a beautiful blush moving to her cheeks.
“I do not,” I answer. “Not when you are away.”
“You cannot stay awake until I return, my king.”
“I can do whatever I please in my realms,” I answer her, the hollowness of her absence once again growing in my chest.
Persephone offers me a soft laugh at my response, but then her expression turns serious. “Not anything you please.”
My throat goes tight at the memory of what happened before. “Yes. Anything.” That is what it means to rule the Underworld. My authority here is absolute. “But I will not do anything, my queen. The souls here will be well while you are gone.”
She arches an eyebrow at me. “Will they?”
“Yes.” As long as you return. Return now, and I will swear whatever you ask. Anything.
I will promise her anything she wants now. The urge to bargain is strong, but I force it down. Persephone is not the person I want to bargain with. Zeus? Demeter? I will negotiate with them. Fight with them, if I must.
Not my queen. I will give her anything and everything.
Persephone looks over her shoulder. “I cannot stay.”
“Don’t go.”
“Think of me, my love?” she requests with a hand to the mirror. My own hand meets hers although there’s nothing but a slick cold beneath my palm.
“Every moment.”
She stares into the mirror, her eyes darting everywhere, as if she cannot stand to stop looking at my face.
“I wish I could touch you,” she whispers. “Scrying is better than nothing, but—”
Persephone does not finish the sentence, but the look in her eyes is exactly what I feel. It is far, far better than nothing to be able to scry and see her face. But it is far less than having her here with me. It is nothing compared with the feeling of her skin under my palms or her mouth on mine.
“My queen,” I say, just as she ends the connection between us.
Persephone in Olympus disappears, and I am left looking into my own face in the mirror.
And what I find there is not the man I thought I’d see.
The man looking back at me is desperate. Lovesick. Gripping the mirror as if it will keep him alive or pull him out of hundreds of years’ worth of imprisonment. He looks like he would fall to his knees at the feet of his goddess if it meant he could spend five more minutes in her presence.
I straighten, but it does not change anything. I look just as I did before.