Page 65 of A Touch of Chaos

She could not remember the first time she’d heard about the son of Poseidon, but she remembered the first time she’d met him. She’d hated the way he looked at her and refused to shake his hand, which had only amused him. Despite those initial feelings, she had not perceived him as the threat he would later become when he stood in her office with Sybil’s severed finger in hand.

“A while,” Ariadne said. Her foot slipped and she stumbled, catching herself before she fell.

“Why is he doing this?” Persephone asked, following Ariadne down a set of steps that led into what was now a large, square courtyard, though it was clear that ithad once been the foundation for a much larger palace. “What does he want?”

“He wants to be important,” Ariadne said. “He does not want anyone to look beyond him for anything they need in life. That’s what he wanted from me, but when I could not be swayed, he chose my sister. He treats the world the same, only he usually executes those who do not follow where he leads.”

Ariadne took a sharp turn as she passed through a narrow crack in a ruined wall and made her way down another set of steps to a darkened stone passage that was flanked with two broken columns. The air coming from inside was cold and stale. Persephone could feel it, even from where she stood at the top of the stairs, watching as Ariadne dropped the bag to the ground.

“But you have survived,” Persephone said. She wasn’t sure if she was asking a question or making a statement, but it didn’t seem to matter to Ariadne, who paused to look up at her from where she stood, wreathed in the threatening darkness of the labyrinth.

“Because I am still useful to him,” Ariadne said, her lip curling as she spoke, hinting at her disgust. She returned to her bag and withdrew something that looked like a spool, but that was not what intrigued Persephone—it was the wave of familiar magic that struck her. It made her heart drop into the pit of her stomach.

“What is that?” Persephone asked, descending the steps.

“Thread,” Ariadne said as she tied an end around one of the broken columns.

“Where did you get it?” Persephone asked as she set Galanthis on the ground. The cat meowed and brushed her legs.

“I spun it,” Ariadne said, holding the spool out to Persephone.

“You spun it?” Persephone echoed, staring at the silvery cord, hesitating to take it.

She had known Demeter’s magic would cling to things in the Upperworld even after her death, but she had not expected to feel it so soon. She could not quite come to terms with how it was making her feel, though she knew there was really no time to process her layered feelings.

Finally, she took the spool, letting out a shuddering breath at the feel of warm sunshine resting in her palms.

“This is my mother’s magic,” Persephone said, her voice quiet. It even smelled like her—like golden wheat baking in the summer heat. She met Ariadne’s gaze and saw she had paled. “How?”

Ariadne hesitated. “I assumed it was something Theseus had bargained for to curse me.”

“You mean you did not know you had this ability?”

“One day, Theseus locked me in a room and told me to spin wool into thread,” she said. “It was days before I tried—days without water or food—and when I could stand it no longer, I tried. It was…intuitive. As if I had done it my whole life.”

Galanthis was purring loudly, rubbing against Persephone’s legs.

“It’s why he withholds my sister,” Ariadne said. “He is hoping I will come back. Without me, he has no way to make the nets he has been using to capture gods.”

Hades suspected that both Harmonia and Tyche had been subdued by a net like the one Hephaestus had made in ancient times. It was light and thin, almostimperceptible, much like the thread Ariadne had wound around this spool, but they hadn’t had confirmation until now.

“Why you and not Phaedra?” Persephone asked.

“Theseus probably would have preferred her, but at the time, I think he thought he would break me. That’s why I am glad it was me. I was able to leave when I saw what he was doing…but I haven’t seen my sister since.”

“I’m sorry,” Persephone said.

“Me too,” Ariadne said, looking away as if she could not handle the sympathy.

Persephone understood.

Ariadne tied a thread from a second spool around the column.

“Hold this,” she said.

Persephone took the other spool in hand while Ariadne pulled on a pair of leather gloves from her bag. When she was finished, she took the thread back and looked at Persephone. “Do not let go no matter how lost you become. This is our only way out of the labyrinth.”

Persephone nodded. She did not need to inquire as to the strength of the thread—it had brought down the gods. It was unbreakable.

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