Page 155 of The Games Gods Play
Not to end up in the forest. Not to go wherever the others who have finished or are waiting for loved ones to finish have been taken. Not to return to the third floor to start all over like I semi-expect, given the cheat to get to the top. Not even to Hades’ house in Olympus.
When we reappear, I’m standing in the circle of Hades’ arms, my back against the warmth of his body. We’re in a library. Columns, not fluted or Greek but inlaid with turquoise and gold, bracket a divided staircase winding on both sides up three stories to a glass dome showing a velvety sky that’s not a sky outside. And books everywhere.
I’m standing with him in the Underworld.
In his home.
I’m sure of it.
He drops his forehead to the back of my head. “Lyra.” His voice is a quiet murmur. Hesitant. Not like Hades at all.
And that’s what finally punctures the numb bubble I wrapped around myself in order to get up that fucking tower. It’s when the image of Boone’s face as he fell, the twisted sight of his broken body on those spikes, finally hits with the reality that, unlike the last Labor, I can’t wake him up this time. There is no magic. He’s really gone.
I crumple.
And Hades catches me.
part 6
dead loss
What could have been will now never be.
That’s what hurts the most.
76
What Have I Done?
Hades scoops me up and sits on a huge leather chair, pulling me onto his lap, curving his body around mine as though to offer shelter. A stillness has taken me over.
Not numbness.
The pain is right here, eating at me. But I don’t want to move or speak, and I definitely won’t let myself cry. I know, somehow, it will get worse if I do.
“Lyra,” Hades murmurs. He strokes my hair softly.
I breathe. I try to breathe through it.
“Don’t hold it in, love.”
If anything, I clamp down tighter. I don’t want to feel this. I don’t want to let it in. But the one thing I can’t stop are the memories.
Moments of Boone over twelve years. Moments I’m seeing through different eyes.
That cocky grin taunting me from around every corner. The way he used to sidle up next to me in the food line, usually to snatch something off my tray. “Whachya working on today?” he’d say.
He had a particular craving for pancakes. I’ve never seen someone smother anything in that much syrup. And he’d laugh when he got in trouble for using too much—our den wasn’t big on condiments—so he’d just go steal some more.
The time he stole that damned painting from under Lakshmi’s nose is there, too, fresh in my mind after he brought it up the other day.
New memories as well. I’d like to be your friend, he said.
Even this morning, just having breakfast together.
He was with me this morning.
My throat clogs.
