Page 31 of The Ruin of Eros

I turn it over in my mind.

“No other mortals have seen this place? At all?”

He sounds irritated.

“I have explained it to you, have I not? No mortal can find this place alone. None may enter unless I myself carry them over the threshold.”

“But you could,” I say. An idea is coming to me slowly. “Youcouldbring any mortal here that you chose, and then return them to their realm. You could, for example, carry my father and sister here. To visit me.”

“No.”

“No?” I repeat. He expects that one word to satisfy me?

“I do not wish to, and besides that, I do not trust them.”

“Trust them?” I stare at him. “What do you mean?”

His voice is taut, prickling with irritation.

“Aphrodite does not know where you are—yet. But if tongues begin to wag…”

“My family,” I say hotly, “would not betray me.”

He is quiet for a moment.

“Psyche, they already have.”

“That’s not fair.” I feel the tears squeezing against my throat, and push them down. “My family had no choice.” But even as I say it, I know it’s not true.

There is always a choice, however poor, however small.

I remember how my father could not meet my eyes that morning, as the king’s men locked me in irons. How he got into the king’s carriage without looking back.

And yet, perhaps he did the best he could.

“If you will not have them visit,” I say, “you must get word to them, at least. You can tell them that I am alive, that I will see them again.”

There’s a pause.

“I cannot,” he says.

I turn angrily.

“I cannot allow you to make such promises…”

“But…”

He cuts me off. “…when it would be a lie.”

Dread pools in my stomach.

“What are you talking about?”

“Psyche.” He says my name as though I am a child, a fool. “What did you think would happen? That you would roam freely between the mortal realm and mine? That you would have a palace as your home, yet keep all the freedom you once had?” His cape seems to shimmer with dark color, as though his emotions are visible there.

“Don’t you understand? We have gone againstAphrodite. The goddess was angry at you before; only think how enraged she would be now, discovering you have thwarted her. Did you think that you would spend a few months here, a year, and then all would be forgotten? You should already know how quick the gods are to anger, and how slow to forget. You think this will simplyblow over?” He scoffs. “Your lifetime—yours, and your father’s, and your father’s father’s—is nothing to her!

The words move through the air like shards of glass. Small, light, deadly.

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