My Life From Hell (The Blooming Goddess #3)

Incriminating Evidence (Part 2)

I held my breath, sliding behind Oizys as if she could shield me from discovery. But at the last second, the voices faded off again.

I peeked around the corner. Thanatos and the minion must have gone into the hallway that branched off the one we needed.

We scurried around the corner, and stopped at a thick stone door with a brass handle. I pushed down on the latch, shouldered the door open, and stepped into the last rays of evening sun. It was still weird to see sunsets that pretty much consisted of black streaking the sky in bigger and bigger swatches until all the daytime color was gone. But I had to say, they kind of grew on me.

The air held the last vestiges of heat, with just a slight nip. Hopefully, we wouldn't be out here too long, because the flimsy dress I wore did nothing for warmth.

Oizys led us into an overgrown garden. It was mostly thorny vines and weeds, all tangled together, with a narrow path in the middle. She crept to the far end, at which point she stepped off the path and through a gap in a scruffy hedge.

I followed, and found myself in a tiny clearing.

She set the jug down and arched her back, stretching. "Now we doctor it, so the giants have a nice long nap."

I looked around. "You going to use some plant to make a sleeping potion?"

"Yes. The bulb of the poppy, plucked by moonlight as its petals close. Ground by the stone of the dragon and set into the waters of the Styx." She unscrewed the cap.

"Really?"

"No." She pulled a small bottle of of white powder from the pocket of her pants. "Sleeping pills. Pre-crushed." She uncapped the bottle, and dumped the powder into the nectar.

I watched it dissolve. "You just carry that around, do you?"

She smiled, enigmatic. "I carry all kinds of interesting things around. Hope that you never find out what."

This chick was worse than Hannah. That was worrisome.

At the thought of Hannah, my shoulders sagged. There was nothing more I wanted in than to fling myself down on my bestie's bed and talk about the inanities of our day. Make our stupid jokes and bitch about homework and be living the most staggeringly normal Sophie existence imaginable.

I ached with missing her. But I couldn't deny that I was still upset. What was so massively infuriating was that, as long as I was stuck here, there was no way we could even try and resolve our issues.

More than ready to be done with this stupid enchantment now. I blew a lock of hair out of my face. Reliving the past was pointless, especially when there was so much on the line in my future. Trouble was, before I could solve any of those problems, I had to extricate myself from this one.

Oizys capped the nectar and brushed her hands on her pants. "We're done. This is safe here until the ball." She pushed past me. "I need to eat."

Since the throne room was being decorated for the ball, dinner was waiting in the breakfast room. I was expecting Greek, Greek, and a side of Greek on the menu. Or some more vaguely identifiable roasted meats. But I guess Hades liked to mix things up, because it turned out that Tuesdays meant Chinese food.

Spicy green beans, chicken with cashews, ginger beef, green onion pancakes, chow mein—I'm not ashamed to say that I loaded up two plates. Feeding a body this size required serious amounts of food. And everyone was already judging me anyway.

Balancing one plate in each hand, I looked around for somewhere to sit. Oizys had gotten her food and was busy ignoring me. Even if there had been space beside her, I wouldn't have taken it. Sadly, there were no empty tables either. This was a billion times worse than any high school cafeteria nightmare. Sitting next to the wrong being didn't mean plain old verbal humiliation. They weren't just going to glare at me, or suddenly spread way out to make sure I couldn't slide in next to them.

These beings could kill me without taking their eyes from their plates. My only comfort was that, as far as I knew, Kai's edict was still in place. No harm could come to Persephone.

Suddenly, keeping up appearances seemed a very good idea.

I scanned the room for my darling boyfriend, ignoring the pain in my wrists from holding the plates. Maybe two trips would have made more sense.

Bingo. Kai was sitting with Hades in a semi-private alcove. Hades wore a red satin bathrobe, straight out of the Hugh Hefner collection. That made sense given the nymphs he surrounded himself with.

Thinking of Hades that way, was kind of amusing. But what wasn't as funny was how chatty Kai seemed to be with his father. They sat close together in a plush, burgundy, velvet banquette, talking insistently.

Time to find out what that was all about.