Neon Gods (Dark Olympus #1)(54)

“I don’t brood.”

“You are the very definition of brooding.”

He snorts. “Surely I don’t care more than your mother. She’s the one who ensures the entire city is fed and supplied with necessities.”

“Yes, she is.” Impossible to keep the bitterness out of my tone. “She’s very good at her job, but she isn’t doing it out of the charity of her soul. She’s chasing power and prestige. The feeling of enough is always over the next horizon. She was going to sell me to Zeus. She won’t see it that way, but it’s what that engagement was—a transaction. She loves me, but it’s secondary to everything else.”

Hades doesn’t immediately respond, and I look up to find him with a strange expression on his face. He looks almost…conflicted. I tense. “What do you know that I don’t?”

“A number of things.”

I refuse to be distracted by that half-assed joke. “Hades, please. We’re in this together, one way or another, for the rest of the winter. Tell me.”

The longer he hesitates, the more anxiety starts to creep in around the edges. He waits until we reach his bedroom and the door is closed between us and the rest of the house to finally answer. “Your mother passed along an ultimatum of sorts.”

I don’t know why I’m surprised. Of course she did. She’s no more happy with me fleeing than Zeus is. All her careful plans wasted because of a disobedient daughter. She wouldn’t be able to let that stand, not if she knows where I am. I wiggle until Hades carefully sets me on my feet. It doesn’t leave me any steadier. “Tell me,” I repeat.

“If I don’t return you, she’ll cut off supplies to the lower city.”

I blink, waiting for the words to rearrange themselves into an order that makes sense. “But that’s… There are thousands and thousands of people in the lower city. People who have nothing to do with you or me or the Thirteen.”

“Yes,” he says simply.

“She’s threatening to starve them.”

“Yes.” He doesn’t look away, doesn’t do anything but give me the honesty I demand.

I wait, but he doesn’t continue. Surely this is the end of it. Surely we can’t move forward with this plan when so many people will be harmed. The barrier keeping Olympus separate from the rest of the world is too strong for people to leave for supplies, not to mention that part of Demeter’s role is to negotiate favorable prices to ensure everyone has access to resources for well-balanced nutrition, regardless of their income. Without those supplies coming in, people will go hungry.

I can’t believe she’d do this, but my mother doesn’t bluff.

I take a slow breath. “I have to go back.”

“Do you want to go back?”

I give a helpless little laugh. “The irony, if it can be called that, is that the one thing my mother and I have in common is the eye-on-the-horizon thing. All I want is to be free of this place and figure out who I am if I’m not Demeter’s middle daughter. If I don’t have to play a particular role to survive, what kind of person might I turn into?”

“Persephone—”

But I’m not listening. “I guess that makes me as selfish as her, doesn’t it? We both want what we want, and we don’t care who else has to bear the cost.” I shake my head. “No. I won’t do it. I won’t let your people be hurt for my freedom.”

“Persephone.” Hades reclaims the space between us and gently but firmly takes my shoulders. “Do you want to go back?”

I can’t lie to him. “No, but I don’t see how that—”

He nods as if I’ve answered more than that single question. “Then you won’t.”

“What? You just said—”

“Do you think I’m naive enough to trust the Thirteen with my people’s health and well-being? We were always one step away from pissing one of them off and causing a disruption like this.” His lips quirk, though his eyes remain cold. “My people won’t starve. We have plenty of resources in the lower city. Things might get uncomfortable for a little while, but no one will be irreparably harmed.”

What?

“Where are you getting supplies from?”

“Triton and I have an under-the-table arrangement.” He’s not surprised or angry or any of the emotions coursing through me right now. He’s not even worried.

The shocks just keep coming. “You…you negotiated with Poseidon’s right-hand man to get around the Thirteen. How long has this been going on?”

“Since I took over at seventeen.” He holds my gaze. “I know better than most that you can’t afford to trust the goodwill of the Thirteen. It was only a matter of time before one of them tried to use my people to hurt me.”

I look at him with new eyes. This man… Gods, he’s even more complex than I suspected. A true leader. “You knew this might happen when you agreed to help me.”

“I knew it was a distinct possibility.” He shifts his hands up to cup my face and drags his thumbs along my cheekbones. “A long time ago, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let those assholes in the upper city harm anything of mine ever again. There’s little they can do, short of war, that will overly affect things here.”