Page 91 of Seph

“Mnemosyne’s power couldn’t last more than a week or two, Mom, not in the mortal realm. People could live the same weeks over and over again, but what they would recall, what they would remember... Well, you probably only remembered a week or two at a time until Dad saved you.”

“I didn’t save you, Seph. I tried, but... I couldn’t do it alone. It was these two who finally tracked you down, and I was only here at the end.” Hades pushed past Emily and Simeon to go and kneel before his wife.

It was an odd sight, the dark, pale Lord of the Dead in long robes, black cloak, and abbreviated armor of chest plate and greeves, kneeling in front of Seph, who was wearing a soft white shirt with flowing sleeves and pale pink lounge pants.

“I understand if you no longer wish to be my wife. Or queen. I couldn’t save you. I should have hunted Zeus down and beaten it out of him. He was always one I suspected, but he covered his tracks too well, and I chased so many false leads. There were the children to raise, and the dead... The dead never stopped coming. I loved you more than anything—I love you now, more than anything, but I didn’t... I don’t know.” Hades’ eyes overflowed as he looked up at her. “I made so many mistakes. So brokenhearted and helpless. So stupid!” he pounded his hand onto his knee, and flames spurted from his fist.

“Dad! That’s not true! Mom, don’t listen to him. He never slept, he barely ate, no one could have tried harder—” Milly protested.

Zag took up the cry, “Armies of the dead, ghosts, mortals, demons—all of them were looking for you, reporting back every hour on the hour for centuries! And now we know why none could find you. Even if they had seen you, Mnemosyne wouldn’t have allowed them to keep the memory of it. It’s not his fault!”

“A human of twenty-odd years and a cursed vampire, the last of Lilith’s spawn... They did it in a week.”

“With help from dozens of others, including you!” Emily spoke up.

“I should have known Mnemosyne was behind this. I should have known!”

“You thought she was in Tartarus with the rest. You checked, and sometimes she was, and sometimes she wasn’t—or at least that’s what you were told, what you saw. Aren’t there beasties down there who have ties to Zeus?” Simeon suggested.

“Pretty much the entire population of Tartarus,” Zag muttered.

“Who’s to say that you won’t find more deceptions were in place, more tricks and traps than you could imagine to fool you?”

“Yes! And the only reason we were successful after so long is because you exhausted so many possibilities, and we pulled together resources that a god wouldn’t think of. Seph was hidden in the mortal world. That’s somewhere we know well, and you don’t,” Emily crossed her arms across her chest. “Not to mention, you threatened to take away the man I love and a bunch of innocent people I care about. You’re a nice guy—you don’t like to make threats like that, but when you do—well, they work!”

“If you were the kind of guy who was always threatening people, Mom wouldn’t have fallen in love with you,” Milly pointed out in a gentle voice.

Hades swallowed once and nodded at his children and his accomplices. “All of you are so kind. But the only words that matter are Seph’s. She’s the one I failed to protect or find fast enough.”

Seph slowly stood. Hades bolted to his feet, too, stepping back with anxiousness shining in his eyes.

“Want to see something?” the rescued queen whispered.

“Of course. Anything.”

Seph reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. She unfolded it and smoothed it out. “Read it,” she whispered.

Hades nodded, taking the paper and clearing his throat several times.

“What is it, Dad? What’s it say?” Zag demanded.

“It says... It says, ‘His name starts with an H. He calls me Seph.’”

Hades burst into tears and held open his arms. Seph flew into them, leaping up enough that her legs locked around his waist. “You remembered?”

“I remembered that. I remembered something, no matter what they tried to take away. I remembered the sound of your name on my lips, and my name on yours,” she said, voicemuffled by her face, buried in his neck. “I never stopped writing it down. They clean the rooms and take the trash, but I would find these notes everywhere. Look.” Seph sprang down and pulled her husband behind her, leading him behind the bar and pulling him to his knees.

Emily craned her neck to see.

“You wrote on the underside of the shelves,” Hades whispered in awe.

“They never cleaned there. I did. This is where the glasses and bottle were kept... I wrote it a hundred times. I would ask people about my past, and I remember they told me a lot of lies. But I knew this much was true.” She clutched the paper in one hand and Hades’ arm in the other. “You kept me safe from Zeus when I was Milly’s age. You kept me safe all this time with that perfect vow on the River Styx. And I knew you’d keep me safe again. That’s what love is. When you know they’ll come for you.”

“You never gave up.” He kissed her cheek.

“I never needed to. Here you are,” she beamed, eyes leaking soft trails down her cheeks. “You never stopped looking.”

“Not until you were found.”

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