Page 18 of A Deal For a Kiss

She senses what I’m doing, of course.

Finally, Athena has had enough of waiting. She is not one known for patience.

She clears her throat, drawing a few steps closer, the hem of her long white dress dangerously close to the edge of the water. I do not know who the other presence was. Or—I can’t be sure of who the other presence was. I have an idea, but I don’t want to believe the evidence of my senses.

I will have to try again another time, when I can be certain I won’t be interrupted.

“It is against all laws, what you are considering,” Athena says, and Persephone floats away, her presence obscured from me, though I still feel the echoes.

I draw my fingers from the water and let the droplets fall from my fingertips back to the basin, allowing Athena to see that I have heard her words. I turn them over in my mind with thesame kind of patience I hope to demonstrate for her. When I’m finished thinking, I fold my hands in front of me.

“Of whom are you referring?” I ask as if I don't know.

“Ivy. And her demon mate. It is unbecoming of you to meddle in the laws of the realm.”

“She had thoughts of harm,” I say. “I’ve done what I can to help her.” They know me for beauty and selfishness, but it is the thoughts where I wish to dwell the most. “No one should ever wish for such things and the two of them together fixes that. It did not occur when she had her lover.”

Athena scoffs. “A woman has thoughts of harm, and you gift her to a demon?”

I turn to my sister and stare her in the eyes. There is skepticism. We have spent many lifetimes being skeptical of each other’s decisions. We see everything differently, but when I look at her, I try to see that she is my sister first and foremost.

“She has had thoughts of harming herself. You know I cannot allow that.”

Athena narrows her eyes but a twinkle remains on the surface. “Since when are mortal lives so precious to you? Sparta did not know such grace from you.”

I hold her gaze for a few more long moments, then turn back to the basin.

The water is cold against my fingertips as I dip them back in and allow my consciousness to sink into it once again. It allows me to feel the woman’s pain.

It’s sharp and unrelenting, a sorrow that goes so deep it’s almost as if she herself grew out of it. Almost as if she’s always had this lump in her throat and this ache in her chest and an all-consuming sense of doom without him there. As if her soul knew he was missing.

My mind wanders with a reflection in the water once again. Persephone. A connection lies between them, and I cannot place it.

I do not know what it is, exactly, that pains her, because it is hidden in her mind, but it does not matter.

I’m not the only one who notices when things aren’t balanced the way they should be.

“What plagues you now?” Athena asks, concern etched into her question.

“Persephone,” I answer easily.

“You know she is changeable,” Athena tries again. “The Fates cannot be sure of anything.” My sister refers to the foretelling of Persephone losing her powers and living alone as a garden nymph…but that is not what lingers here.

“There is something else.” I try to see it in the flames, but once again I am disturbed.

Athena lets out as sigh, shifting her weight from foot to foot to show me how unnecessary she thinks this is.

“She could’ve fallen for a mortal,” Athena points out, bringing the conversation back to the deal I made with the demon. Her words cut through my thoughts, placed directly into my mind without her having to speak aloud. There are no vibrations in the air to disturb the water in the basin.

Athena sounds sure of herself. She always does. It’s always right and wrong, black and white with my sister. “Sheshouldhave fallen for a mortal. How were the gates opened between the realms?”

It’s always rules with her.

The gates between realms are not to be opened. I merely allowed it for a moment.

I do not admit that to Athena, of course.

I choose to respond to the heart of what Athena has said, not the words themselves.

---