Persephone (16 page)

I flushed. It wasn’t like I was wearing lingerie or anything, just an oversized Lady and the Tramp T-shirt like the one I had at home. I closed my eyes and pictured a fluffy robe, pajama bottoms, and fuzzy slippers. I was still freezing.

“Come in,” Hades called.

“Did you want me to stay?” Cassandra asked me as she entered, Hypnos trailing behind her.

“For what?” I asked, puzzled. “What’s going on?” I turned to Hades. “Why did you send for Hypnos? No offense.”

“None taken,” Hypnos assured me.

“Cassandra, you may go,” Hades said.

She looked like she wanted to object but shrugged. “I’m right across the hall,” she reminded me.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“Hypnos is here to help you set up a mental barrier while you sleep,” Hades explained after she closed the door.

I raised an eyebrow. “You guys cure nightmares? That’s impressive.”

Hades hesitated. “It’s not nightmares we’re protecting you from. It’s—” He broke off, running his fingers through his hair. “Gods can use dreams to communicate with each other and certain mortals. We all have barriers in place, so another god would have to knock, so to speak.” He looked pained. “I’m sorry.” His voice was so soft, only I could hear him. “It’s been so long since this has happened, I didn’t think about having Hypnos build a barrier for you.”

Comprehension dawned on me, and I stared at Hades wide-eyed. “That was real? Boreas was in my head?” I started shaking again.

“No,” Hypnos replied. “Your consciousness was in a neutral space.”

“Nothing was neutral about that space,” I snapped, and immediately regretted it. Hypnos hadn’t done anything wrong. “I’m sorry.” I cradled my head in my hands. “This is just a little much. Attacking people in dreams? Is there anything else I need to know about?”

Hades shrugged. “You forget this is as natural as breathing to us. I’m not used to having to explain such basic concepts.”

“There is nothing natural or basic about gods invading your nightmares!”

“May I?” Hypnos approached the bed, holding out his hands. I looked at Hades. When he nodded, I let Hypnos take my hands into his, and felt something click into place in my mind. I shook my head at the unfamiliar sensation.

“You’ll need to think of a phrase to say every night before you go to sleep,” Hypnos murmured, his eyes closed.

“Not out loud,” Hades cautioned.

I closed my mouth with a click, and tried to think of a phrase.

“Just think of that phrase before you go to sleep every night. It’s like a lock. If for some reason you want to open yourself to communication, simply think the phrase again. I can teach you more about dreamwalking, if you wish.” Hypnos smiled at me. “You may develop a talent for it.”

“Thanks.” I wasn’t sure I could handle another set of lessons, but maybe I could surprise Boreas next time. My mind filled with dark ideas, like tossing Boreas into an incinerator. “I’d like that.”

“Thank you, Hypnos,” Hades said in dismissal. When Hypnos left, Hades muttered, “I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?”

“Boreas shouldn’t still be after you. He has to know you’re down here with me by now. Coming after you is suicide.” He shook his head. “A few thousand years ago, a stunt like he pulled tonight would be grounds for war.”

“Are you going to do anything about it?”

Hades shook his head. “Something else is going on here. I need to find out what that is before I act.”

With that unsettling thought, he left me to go back to sleep.

Yeah, right.

Chapter XIV

“You have absolutely no talent for dreamwalking,” Hypnos hissed in frustration.

“I’ll say,” Hades muttered from the divan.

“Maybe if my target was actually sleeping,” I snapped.

“I can only sleep so much in a day. If I sleep any longer I’ll be in a coma.”

“Let’s try again.” Hypnos took a deep breath. “Hades, sleep.”

Hades fell mercifully silent, and I sank into the soft leather couch. The room Hypnos had selected to teach me dreamwalking looked like it should belong to a therapist. Aquamarine curtains covered the windows, casting the room in a soft blue glow.

I closed my eyes and felt Hypnos’ powers settle over me, pulling me through layers of sleep.
Hades.
I directed my thoughts. I could sense the energy of other sleeping deities. It was a weird sensation, like catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye only to have it move before you turned your head.

The minds of the gods twinkled in the darkness, reminding me of stars scattered in the vast emptiness. Hypnos had spent the last month getting me to the point where I could sense who was who. It was easier to identify gods I’d met. Thanatos was a guarded cloak of darkness; Hypnos shone like the sun; Hestia smoldered in the night; Charon cast an amicable glow. I found my mother, green and thriving, and Boreas’ frozen fortress.

Despite the name, dreamwalking was nothing like walking around. I couldn’t keep my distance from gods I didn’t like, or get close to another. They all existed, suspended in this disorienting space; the only thing that changed was my awareness of them. If I stopped concentrating on them, they faded into darkness and I could slip into my own dreams without fear of Boreas following me.

Boreas hadn’t tried anything since that last awful dream. Maybe Hades was wrong. Maybe Boreas would back off, now that I was protected on all fronts. I doubted he wanted Hades to come after him, but maybe being unprotected in my sleep had been too much for him to resist.

“Persephone!” Hypnos’ frustrated voice startled me as it flooded my consciousness. Right…I was supposed to be concentrating.

Since it was the middle of the day, there weren’t as many gods to navigate. It was easy to find Hades. He was a bundle of dark energy. I concentrated on sending a small pulse of energy his way. It was a weird feeling, gathering the energy in my mind and aiming it at someone without intention.

To do anything else with my powers, intention was half the battle. I had to keep my mind on exactly what I was doing and what the desired outcome was. It was the difference between planning an arrangement—placing every flower just so to complete my vision—and throwing a flower in the general direction of a vase.

After several tries, I found myself in the library. The bookshelves blurred around me and I rubbed my eyes.

“Thank the gods,” Hades said. He was in hyper focus in the center of the blurry room.

“Okay.” Hypnos clapped his hands. He looked at Hades and then around the library with an eyebrow raised in question.

Hades shrugged, turning his head toward me. “You did it.”

“I did!” I grinned. “Now what can I do?”

“Nothing,” Hades and Hypnos said simultaneously. I frowned at them.

“I can continue to work with you if you like…” Hypnos sounded less than thrilled at the prospect. “But I have to be honest, you have absolutely no natural talent for dreamwalking. It’s not your fault; it’s just not in your bloodline.”

“Oh.” My ego deflated. I’d never been bad at anything before. I always picked up whatever sport or skill I’d been trying to learn like it was second nature. But those were human skills. Divine stuff was different. Even learning to use my own powers was difficult, and dreamwalking was Hypnos’ specialty. I nixed my half-formed plan to leave my mind unguarded and ambush Boreas in a dream. He’d had much more practice at this than I had.

“Thank you, Hypnos,” Hades said.

“My pleasure. You two should be waking in a few minutes. I’ll see you later.”

He vanished and I looked at Hades. “He left! What if I get stuck or something?”

“Getting out is easier than getting in. I think Hypnos needed a break.” Hades snickered, picking up a book. “I’ve never seen him stressed. You’re really terrible at this.”

I sat down on the brown blur of a chair. “Yeah, you told me.” I picked up a simple wooden picture frame that I knew didn’t exist in the library.

“You’ve learned enough to protect yourself and to communicate with other gods. That’s all you should ever need.” His eyes widened when he saw me with the picture frame. “Hey, put that down!”

I stared at the photo in shock. It was me, and yet it wasn’t. I was in the clearing, surrounded by ice and snow. I looked radiant and defiant. The image was so vivid and clear that it took me right back to that terrifying moment when I’d first seen Hades.

“Is this how you see me?” I put the picture frame down. The girl in that photo wasn’t just pretty, she looked ethereal and confident and completely out of sync with the mental image I had of myself.

“I guess.” Hades shrugged at my confused expression. “I don’t know what’s on that frame. Dreams are weird. Remember, this isn’t my mind, it’s a neutral space. My mind just decorated it. That picture could have just as easily come from you.”

“I doubt
that
.”

Hades turned bright red and snatched the frame. His shoulders relaxed when he saw the picture. I tilted my head to the side. What had he thought was on that frame?

“Rule of etiquette,” he explained, setting the frame down. “Never look too closely at anything in the dreamscape if you’re using this as a means of communication. It’s rude.”

My cheeks heated. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. This actually brings up a good point. There’s more to protecting yourself than just creating a neutral space and locking your mind. If you do choose to meet with another god in your dreams, be on guard. You don’t want to reveal too much about yourself.” In a flash the picture frame was gone. “Did Hypnos show you how to create a dreamscape?” When I nodded, Hades asked, “Could you show me?”

I closed my eyes, and the room shifted to a simple meadow filled with wildflowers. The blades of yellow grass were an indistinct blur with splashes of white, yellow, pink, and green dabbed at random. I didn’t have the power to fuel details.

“Good. No personal details to glean here, but not so impersonal it feels like an insult. It makes sense you’d choose a meadow.”

“So why choose the library?” I asked, surprised. The room was his sanctuary. I couldn’t think of a place more personal to him in the entire Underworld.

“That’s not my usual meeting place. I just figured you’d be more comfortable there.”

“I think it may be one of my favorite places.” In truth it wasn’t the library I enjoyed, but my lessons with Hades. They were always the perfect end to a hectic day of breakfast with Cassandra, gardening, dream lessons with Hypnos, history lessons with Hestia, self-defense from Charon, running, and dinner with the group.

Hades and I would banter back and forth for a while, and then he would show me what I was capable of. The worship from the souls gave me just enough of a boost that I could practice. I was still learning the finer aspects of charm, and Hades was showing me things I could only do in the Underworld, like teleporting.

“My library is your favorite place in the Underworld? Not the gardens?”

Hades had given me free rein over the gardens to practice my ability to make the delicate blossoms bloom. I had a blank slate to create living arrangements in any place I wanted.

Working with the soil reminded me of my mother. I could imagine her sitting on the ground, covered in dirt, tending to some precious sapling. It made me feel connected to her.

I wondered what she would think of all the time I was spending with Hades. I was spending just as much time with Cassandra and Helen, and Thanatos had become my constant companion. But it was different with Hades.

He was watching me, waiting for me to respond, and suddenly I wasn’t sure what to say. It wasn’t the library or the lessons that made this my favorite place. It was him.

I felt my body waking and the dream faded around me. I sat up. Across the room Hades did the same. I smiled at his disheveled hair. “Nice look.”

“Yeah, you too.”

My hand went to my hair and my mind flashed to the picture. I couldn’t help but wonder how he saw me at this moment. There was an awkward silence as we made our way out of the room. I found Thanatos and headed to the garden.

I dug into the soil, feeling the energy that pulsed through the packed earth. I focused on bringing new life to this small patch of land and smiled when a dandelion bloomed.