Page 8 of Patron of Mercy

Thanatos let his gaze slide to Lach. “He thinks he has a way to fix this and needs Cronus’s scythe.”

“That... could work,” she said, her voice distant and thoughtful. “But no, no one has ever managed to have a civil conversation with him that I know of.” She stepped out of the doorway. “Come in, sit down. Tea? I’m going to make myself some.”

“That would be lovely, thank you,” he agreed.

“Got any coffee?” Lach asked. Of course.

She didn’t seem bothered, just waved an absent hand at the single-serving coffee maker on her counter. “The kids got me that last year, if you can figure out how to work it.”

He jumped up and started toying with the machine, plugging it in and looking through the controls. Thanatos could see the precise moment he turned on his old charm, when he looked at Persephone with a wide smile and sparkling eyes. “You don’t have any idea where the scythe would be, do you?”

She laughed, bright and bubbly, and the sound filled the room. “I’d be the last person Cronus would give information to. And I’ve never tried to have a chat with him.”

Lach tilted his head to one side and then the other, and sighed melodramatically. “I guess, if you want to be all logical about it. But it’s a magical item, right? Like, really, really magical. And related to your personal specialty: growing things.”

“Clever,” she agreed. She had no idea. The man was always full of clever ideas, alongside the ridiculous ones. It was why people always listened to him. You never knew whether his next suggestion was going to be genius or suicide.

“Why does Gaia care?” Thanatos asked, and his voice came out waspish. He wasn’t entirely sure why, but he wasn’t going to second-guess himself. He’d given himself permission to react to Lach with his instincts, and he was allowed to be angry. “She’ll be fine if all the people starve to death. Their continued existence has actually proven detrimental to her.”

Lach turned that bright grin on him and nodded. “You know, I asked her the same thing. What she said amounted to... I guess she thinks of us like fried food. Sure, we’re super unhealthy and make her miserable sometimes, but she likes us? As a whole, not individually. She thinks we’re interesting.”

Persephone leaned against the counter as she let the electric kettle heat up, and looked at Lach. “So you’re saying she thinks of you as a resident in an ant farm, basically, and you’re fine with that?”

“She wants the ant farm to survive, so yeah,” he agreed.

She leaned over and looked at the takeout box Lach had left on the counter next to the coffee machine. “Smells good. That place near Hysteria?”

Lach nodded enthusiastically. “Best pizza in the city.”

She drifted forward a step and looked at the box speculatively. “Would you mind? I mean, I don’t need—”

“No, it’s all good.” He picked up the box and whipped it open for her.

Persephone took out the slice of veggie pizza and took a dainty bite. She hummed. “It’s even good cold,” she mumbled after chewing and swallowing.

Lach looked at Thanatos from the corner of his eye, and Thanatos struggled not to react. He’d left it, after all. He didn’t have the right to complain that Lach had given someone else his food. He told himself he didn’t care, but it didn’t fool him for a minute.

Something about that damned pirate made him care about pointless things every time. He looked away.

Eventually, Persephone made her way back over, munching on one of Lach’s slices of pizza as he ate the other. She handed Thanatos a mug of tea and sat down in an overstuffed chair across from the sofa where Thanatos had planted himself.

Lach looked at the sofa, and Thanatos, for a long while before gingerly setting himself on the opposite corner, huddled against the arm. Persephone noticed, of course, but thankfully she didn’t say anything. Never let it be said that the queen of the underworld couldn’t be the soul of discretion when necessary.

When she finished her second slice of pizza and curled up with her tea, she sighed with a strange combination of sated pleasure and frustration. “She’s breaking the deal, of course. We’re all trying to pretend she’s not, but it’s not subtle.”

“And not answering your calls,” Thanatos added.

She nodded and sighed. For a second, she looked very much like the ancient goddess she was, instead of the eternally youthful harbinger of spring. “And not answering my calls, Hermes or telephone. My first thought was that if she’s not going to follow through, it means I can go home.” Her eyes went haunted, expression bleak and near to tears. “How selfish can I be?”

“It’s hardly your fault that your first thought was about how her actions affect you,” Thanatos pointed out. He’d known a lot of people during his years. Humans were just like gods, and almost without deviation, they thought of how every situation affected them, first and foremost. It wasn’t a failing; it was their nature. The good ones were the ones who immediately followed up by considering everyone else. Like staying on the surface and continuing to fulfill her half of the promise. Like trying desperately to get something to grow to mitigate the disaster.

“How bad is it going to be?” he asked, finally.

She stared at her mug and didn’t answer, which he supposed was an answer in and of itself.

Finally, she looked up at them. “What about Prometheus?”

Alone with Friends

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