Page 104 of Aïdes the Unseen
“Where?” Irina and I both demanded in the same breath.
“I don’t know,” Hecate said. “Butyouwill.”
The air shifted and the shadows began to unravel. The light in the room returned to normal as the torches flickered out.
“But remember this,” Hecate said, nearly gone but her voice drifted through like fog. “When you find that first memory, don’t look away from it. Don’t let anything distract you. Love let you be taken, but it was for love that you left.”
Then she was gone, leaving me, a shaken Irina, a shivering dog, and the echo of a beginning too old for language.
We would make this right.
Then I wouldendDemeter.
Chapter
Twenty
IRINA
The robe clung to me like fog—soft, slate gray, open at the collar. Graven had offered it without a word after I stepped from the shower. No silks. No jewelry. Just cloth and breath and a silence I hadn’t wanted to fill yet.
He was barefoot. Wearing jeans. A soft black shirt that clung to his chest like it belonged there. It felt like this was the first time I’d seen him so utterly himself.
Not the Death-King. Not the dark-eyed immortal with a thousand secrets. It felt right, those titles, and at the same time, the one I wanted was the one with me.
Just… him.
We hadn’t spoken much. The puppy—if you could still call him that—trailed us through the echoing chamber. His limbs were too long now, joints loose like a teenager still growing into his own body. He yawned with a sound like velvet tearing and pressed his warm flank against my leg as we moved.
“Something’s changed in him,” I said, breaking the silence. “The dog.”
Graven nodded. “He’s a part of you. He’ll grow with you. Defend you.”
I ran my fingers through the thick fur behind the creature’s ears. He leaned into it like he needed that more than breath. So did I.
Graven guided us across his living room into a second. I hesitated to label it aroombecause it was almost beyond description. It looked more like some ancient chamber yet kitted out with modern features and comforts. It was extraordinary.
Once we were inside, he crossed to the wide hearth in the center of the room. It wasn’t lit. He didn’t need flame. He whispered something in a language I didn’t recognize but understood anyway.
The shadows along the mantle twisted. A ripple through air and memory. Then?—
Mara appeared.
Not like Hecate had, fully formed and sovereign, but flickering first. Her presence seemed more like frost, creeping before it truly arrived.
Her gaze snapped to me, then to the dog, and finally to Graven, whose back was ramrod straight.
“You summoned me,” she said, already wary. So weird. I hadn’t seen her since discovering her “research.” The anger and violation I experienced then paled in comparison to what Hecate had revealed.
Graven didn’t look at her at first. He looked at me.
“I’m not hiding anything from her,” he said simply. Then: “You shouldn’t either.”
Mara’s silence was long as Graven laid out Hecate’struth. Even when he finished, she didn’t respond immediately though her gaze trailed back to me again and again.
“Go on,” I said, more a command than a plea. Okay, so maybe I wasn’t as over herresearchas I thought I was. “Tell him. Tellmewhy he didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know either.” Mara relented finally and spoke. “Not thefirstpart. That Demeter wasn’t her mother.” She turned to me fully. “But I did suspect something wasn’t right with your pattern. The way you bloomed and broke—it was always tooclean. Too deliberate. As if the story you believed you were living had been edited already.”
