Page 4 of Seph

“No. Oh, no. Not at all! You mean you want to—” Words failed. A whisper of realization, “With me?”

She answered with the complacency he so admired. His Seph looked delicate, but she was so brave.

“My mother will have to know about our wedding. If I’m going to be your queen and live here with you, I want a wedding first. Preferably a summer one, but...”

He swept her into his arms and onto the ferry, head buried in her neck so Charon couldn’t see his happy weeping.

Not that he fooled anyone.

Of course, the earth had changed without Demeter’s care. Everything was red and orange, fading, instead of springing to life.

“I like it.” Hades complimented his sister, hands behind his back, voice full of admiration (and a little bit of panic). “I like the muted palette, and the shades of fire.”

“You would.”

He faced her, hands spread in pleading. “Demi, listen, I swear to you—”

Demeter put her elbow into his windpipe and her knee in his stomach. He stopped talking. His fierce sibling, full of maternal rage, shoved her lips next to his ear, presumably to threaten him.

“Thank you,” Demeter breathed against his ear.

“What?!”

“Shh, idiot. You saved her. You know exactly what I mean. I will always be in your debt.”

“And I in yours.” He sagged in relief. Demeter shoved a spade into his solar plexus. “Perhaps slightly less so?”

Her voice was hard. “Zeus fancies himself the chief negotiator here. I know what Persephone wants. She loves this world, and she loves you. You and I willbothdemand her time, exclusively. Zeus will split it down the middle, without expecting an argument. Look meek and humble, and nod your boney head. Clear?”

“Yes, Demi. So... to be clear... are you upset with me or not?”

She kissed his cheek, right before she cursed him and punched him in the nose.

“Love is confusing,” Hades reflected aloud, staring up at the clear blue sky from where he’d been knocked onto his back.

Persephone pulled him up, smiling as she brushed him off. “Maybe a little.”

Demeter’s creation of a new season was ideal. The upstart Romans even had a feast in time for their wedding, to celebrate the dying of the growing season and a thinning of the veil between mortal and immortal worlds. They called it Lemuria.

Hades and Seph called it “Our anniversary.”

She always came home by Lemuria...

1024 A.D.

Hades snapped his fingers and summoned Lilith back to his side just as she passed through the ornate doors of his throne room. “You have until Lemuria, a thousand years to the day, to bring my wife back. I will give you that date as a reminder.”

“I... Uh... When’s that?”

Hades thought. Mortal time was slippery and moved fast, like a silvery fish in a running stream. “I know it was once held in summer, but it is now associated with fall, Demeter’s harvest, and the dying of the growing season.”The beginning ofourseason, home and hearth, Seph and I...

“Don’t some feast days switch around, based on the moon and stars, that sort of thing?”

“In time, they will celebrate another feast to honor the sacred dead, the hallowed ones. You have until that night, but the day after, you must return her to me. Do you understand? Without fail, you must bring her back to me.” Another snap, and the demon was gone. Hades went back to their bedroom, so long simply his room, and slept.

Chapter Two

London, October,1881

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