"Poor baby," I say, meaning the cat, not him.

"I just hope she doesn't get out of my room. She might follow us all the way to Vegas."

"She could do that?"

"She and I are bonded in a way. She can find me anywhere."

"Who's Simon?" I ask. "The person you're hiding her from?"

"My guardian, I guess you could say, and my father's emissary. As in, the person I'm going to be in deep kopros with if he gets wind of this trip before we get out of here."

"Let's get this over with, then," I say, gathering thatkopros is the Underlord slang for stuff that starts with an sh and ends with an it.

I'm in the process of buckling my seat belt and Haden is pulling out of the garage when he suddenly slams on the brakes. I look up and see that Haden's younger cousin-Garrick, I think-is standing in the driveway, blocking our exit.

Haden honks the horn and waves at him to get out of the way. Garrick doesn't move.

Haden puts the car in park and gets out. "What are you doing, Lesser? Get out of my way."

"I can't let you do this," Garrick says.

"And how do you intend to stop me?"

"I'll tell Simon. I'll call him right now. You're not allowed to leave town. I heard Simon tell you so."

"Simon doesn't need to know. He's gone to LA on business. He won't even be back until Monday."

"So what, you're just going to run away the first chance you get? What about the rest of us? What about me? What happens when Simon finds out you're gone? What happens when I go back through the gate without you?"

"I'm not running away, Lesser. You think I'm a coward?"

"I don't believe you. I'm going inside to call Simon! I'm telling him you're going to this Vegas place."

Haden grabs his cousin. Garrick tries to pull away. I get out of the car, thinking I can intervene. Talk some sense into Garrick, but I don't get the chance. Haden places his thumbs behind the boy's ears and his index fingers on his temples and presses until the Garrick's eyes roll into the back of his head and he crumples like a rag doll. Haden catches him up in his arms before he hits the ground. I cover my mouth, holding in a shriek.

"Open the door," Haden says, dragging his cousin's limp body toward the car.

"What did you do?"

"I put him in a black sleep. It's an old Underlord negotiation technique."

"Negotiation?"

"If a man refuses to negotiate, you render him unconscious."

"That's crazy."

"He would have told Simon. There was no other way to stop him without resorting to violence. Now open the door."

I pull open the back door and Haden shoves Garrick into the backseat. The boy lies motionless on his side.

"Will he be okay?"

"He'll have a raging headache when he wakes up in a couple of hours, but by then we'll be halfway there." Haden slams the door. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and tosses it into a bucket of rags in the garage. "Simon is eventually going to figure out I'm gone, especially if I'm not back by Monday, but I want to make sure he can't track us. Give me yours." He gestures for me to give him my phone.

"Mine, too?"

"I wouldn't put it past him."

"How would he . . . ?"

"Trust me. He has his ways."

I surrender my phone and watch Haden drop it into the bucket. He gets back in the car. "You coming?"

I sit in the pa.s.senger seat again.

As we sail out of the driveway, I glance back at his unconscious cousin in the third row, and I wonder if I've made a grave mistake.

chapter forty-seven.

haden

Daphne is silent the whole first hour of our trip. She keeps glancing at Garrick, who still lies unconscious in the back row. Sometimes, I catch her gaze darting to me. Her eyes linger on my upper arm. The sleeve of my T-shirt covers my scars, but I know that's what she's thinking about. No wonder so much tension fills the s.p.a.ce between us.

"I didn't do that," I say, breaking the silence.

She startles at the sound of my voice.

"I didn't cut those scars into my arm. My father did. So I wouldn't forget my quest. It was the most painful thing I've ever had to endure. And I've endured a lot. . . ."

"Oh," she says. The tension in her relaxes ever so slightly.

Another half hour pa.s.ses.

"So what did you do?" she asks. "To p.i.s.s your dad off so much? I got the gist a few weeks ago that you're kind of on the outs with him."

"That's putting it lightly. My father disowned me." I'm not sure I want to talk about it, but Daphne shifts in her seat, turning her body toward me. Maybe talking is the best thing for getting her to open up to me again. "I cried," I say. "When my mother died, I cried."

"What? Your father disowned you over that?"

"No. It's what I did after he punished me for crying. . . ." I realize I need to back up the story more for her to understand. "I have a twin brother. His name is Rowan. But you have to understand that twins are very rare in my world. The first two sons of the Underrealm were created by our G.o.d, Hades.

They were the first twins-the eldest of whom became the father of our race, while the younger twin became the progenitor of our greatest enemies, the Skylords.

"Because of this, firstborn sons are treated with great respect- made Lords and trained as warriors and Champions-while younger sons are deemed Lesser, and treated with suspicion and disdain."

"Like your cousin Garrick?" Daphne asks. "You called him Lesser." I nod, but don't tell her that Garrick is actually my half brother and not my cousin. "When my mother learned from the healers that she was carrying twins, she was overcome with dismay that one of her sons would be forced to live as a Lesser. So when Rowan and I were born, she allowed no one to be present with her. That way, no one other than she would know which one of her children was the eldest. Before she would allow my father to see us, she made him swear an unbreakable oath that neither of her children would ever be cast out of the ranks of the Underlords."

"Smart," Daphne says.

I sigh. "Some say that my mother granted us the greatest favor of our lifetimes-but unfortunately, her actions caused Rowan and I to become rivals from the moment we drew our first breaths. Everyone speculated as to which one of us was the true Lord, and which one of us was undeserving of our status. Everything we did was considered to be a compet.i.tion. In the beginning, I was my father's favorite. I was bigger and stronger than Rowan and resembled him with my dark hair and olive skin, while Rowan was slighter and fairer like our mother.

"But as we grew older, it became apparent that Rowan had inherited more of my father's cunning and cold temperament, while I was called nursling well past my second year because-as I am told-I clung to my mother's skirts and threw emotional tantrums when my father tried to pit me in fights with the other boys my age. That is when the Court started to whisper that perhaps I was too human for my own good-that I had inherited too many of my mother's human traits. My father's favor had already started to shift toward Rowan before my mother's death."

I pause, changing lanes so I can pa.s.s a slow van and pick up speed. "Rowan is the one the Court wanted to send here instead of me." I shiver at the idea of that sociopath sitting here with Daphne instead of me. What tactics would he have used to coerce her into agreeing to be his Boon? The thought of her saying yes to him . . . "Be happy he isn't here."

"Noted," she says, like she's realizing there could be worse things than being stuck in this car with me.

"It wasn't until my mother's death that I fully realized my father's disdain for me. For her . . . When she collapsed, I sent a serving boy-Garrick-to fetch my father. My father took so long to come, and when he finally arrived with a couple of members of the Court . . . it was like he didn't care at all.

"I begged him to help her. I screamed at him to do something. To save her. We have these places called healing chambers, and I thought if he brought her there, she would get better. But he wouldn't listen to me.

"One of his servants grabbed me and pulled me away from my mother's body I screamed and kicked, trying to escape. And then I started to cry. . . ."

I stop speaking when I remember the stinging sensation that p.r.i.c.ked behind my eyes and the warm liquid that welled up in them and then escaped from the corners. At the time, I didn't have a word for the water that made tracks down my face and tasted salty as it ran over my lips and down my chin.

Tears, I found out later, when I heard the Heirs hiss the word to each other whenever I neared, like I'd done the vilest of things.

"Crying is forbidden past the age of two, and once an Underlord reaches the age of six, he is supposed to be a man. At seven years of age, crying like that is considered disgusting. My father told me to shut up and be still, but instead, I wailed terribly at him, the tears coming faster and harder. The servant who held me was shocked by my tantrum; he let me go; and I fell to my knees.

"I remember looking up at my father just in time to see the back of his ringed hand come sailing at the side of my face. He hit me so hard, I thought my teeth were going to shatter. 'No son of Hades cries,'

he said to me.

"That was when I retaliated. I told my father that he wasn't Hades, that he wasn't my king, and that I didn't want to be his son anymore. I was so angry, I could feel a burst of lightning forming in my chest. I'd only been in training for a few months and I didn't know how to use it properly yet. But I stood in front of my father and demanded that he help my mother. I told him that if he didn't, I would blast him.

"Speaking to the king like that, even if you are his child, is considered to be a sin akin to heresy. I had questioned his authority in front of the Court. Threatened to harm him. I expected him to hit me again -part of me wanted him to. But instead he laughed at me. Laughed at my tears. And that's when I lost control. I attacked him. With a great, raging scream, I lunged at him and threw a lightning bolt at my father, the king of the Underrealm."

"Whoa," Daphne says under her breath.

"He deflected it easily, and sent his own bolt at my feet. It ripped the ground right out from under me and I went flying. I hit the floor and crumpled into a ball. When the ringing in my ears ceased, I realized that the room had fallen completely silent. The servants and the members of the Court who were there looked at me like I had just committed the most unforgivable act in our realm. And that's when I realized I had. I'd dishonored my father, blasphemed against his t.i.tle-the name of Hades- physically attacked the king, and brought shame upon myself.

"I tried wiping the tears from my face and begged for his forgiveness. I groveled and laid myself down in front of him in supplication, hoping he would show me mercy.

"But it was too late. I saw it in his eyes. His disdainful glare made me feel hollow all the way down to my bones. He said, 'You are no son of mine.'

"And that was it. My life as I knew it was over. I was removed from the royal living quarters, dropped to the bottom of my rank, stripped of my honor, and forced to carry this shame for the rest of my life. The only reason I wasn't thrown out of the Underlords and made a Lesser is because of the oath my father made to my mother when I was born. Rowan gladly stepped into the role as favorite son, and I've been trying to win it back-along with my honor-ever since. I didn't think I'd really get the chance until the Oracle of Elysium chose me for this quest."

"I'm sorry," Daphne says after a few long, quiet minutes. "Sounds like you've got even worse daddy issues than I do."

I can tell she's trying to lighten the mood, but mine grows darker. I am the one who had encouraged her to open herself up to her father-only to be the one who is supposed to take her away from him again.

"They call me the boy who cried," I say. "They equate my showing that kind of emotion to the ultimate sign of my weakness. They act like it's the crying that was my undoing-but that is only because it would be dishonorable for them to speak of someone physically attacking the king."

"Sounds like a great place to live. Can't wait to get there!" Daphne says sarcastically.

"Well, when you put it that way . . ." I try to grin sheepishly, but it comes out more like a grimace. I am quiet for a few minutes, staring down the long stretch of highway in front of us. "I think I'd do things differently, if I were king. I'd bring music back to the Underrealm, for one thing. And I wouldn't treat you like a prize. You'd be my queen. My real queen, not just a figurehead like my mother and the others who fill the role. I think that's one way the Underlords have gone wrong- what's missing from my world. I've heard that things were different when Persephone and Hades reigned together. Things changed after she left. . . ."

"She left? Like, for good? I thought she was bound to the Underworld."

"She was bound to Hades. After he died, she left. She stayed for a while, but then she was so overcome with grief that she went through her gate to the mortal world one spring, and never came back. Or at least that's how the old stories go."

"How did Hades die?"

"The Sky G.o.d killed him."

"You mean Zeus?"

"That's what humans call him."

"But weren't they brothers?"

"They were. But they had been at war for nearly a thousand years."

"Why?"

"Because of us. The Underlords." I check the map on the car's GPS and see that we're halfway to our destination. Then I glance in the rearview mirror. We've pa.s.sed through thicker patches of traffic, but now we're alone on the road, except for a green BMW a few hundred yards behind us.

"I don't know which version of the Persephone story is the correct one," I say. "Whether she was stolen into the Underrealm by Hades or if she chose to go with him to be his queen, but I do know that he was devoted to her, and we Underlords are the proof. Persephone's mother, the Terra Lady, or Demeter, as your book calls her, wasn't too happy about Persephone and Hades' union. As G.o.ddess of the Overrealm, the mortal world, she was the one who gifted the harvest to the fields and fertility to the womb. She cursed her own daughter, so Hades and Persephone would never be able to have children. Hades couldn't stand the sadness that overtook his wife, and so he decided to create children for her. His first attempt went horribly wrong. You've seen the results of that." Her mouth pops open. "You mean that thing that attacked Joe? That was supposed to be a child?" I nod. "It's called a Keres. They're an experiment gone very wrong, and certainly not the bouncing little baby Persephone had wanted."

"I'm sure that came as quite the surprise."

"Have you ever heard the story of Pandora's Box?"

"Yeah. A woman was given a box and told not to open it. But her curiosity got the better of her, and she opened the box only to accidentally release horrible evils on the world."

"Close," I say. "But in the real version, the box is actually a prison, and the things inside are the Keres. We call it the Pits. Short for Pithos."

"So Hades imprisoned his first creations?"

"He had no choice. They were monsters. There are different kinds of Keres. Some of them are reapers-like the one we destroyed-and he used to use them to help collect the souls of the dead on the battlefield. But even those proved to be too bloodthirsty-instead of going after only the dead, they started to attack the wounded also. There's one thing everyone who was attacked in Olympus Hills had in common. They were bleeding. Wounded, I guess you could say. Even if it was only a paper cut. Eventually, the reapers were locked up, too. You can probably imagine why." She nods. "So then Hades, having botched it the first time, still decided to try again?"

"He was more careful this time. He created the Underlords after his own image, out of mud from the river Styx, fire from the heart of the Underrealm, and shadows from the shades of the dead.

Persephone herself breathed life into the first two. Twin sons named Life and Death. They were gifted with the Helm of Hades-the ability to be nearly invisible in the dark-and the fire that burns in their eyes. The twins were the light of their lives."