Page 47 of Postpartum Spells & Infant Hells

His power rolled up through the floorboards a full breath ahead of him. A second later, he appeared, standing in the middle of our wrecked kitchen with the smell of the Underworld coming off him in sheets. There was nothing like brimstone.

All three babies startled awake at once. For the first time since they'd been born, he didn't soften for them. His head was already cocked, those black eyes pinned on the broken window like he was straining to hear something the rest of us couldn't.

"What happened in this house last night?" Hades demanded. There was an edge riding under the question I hadn’t caught from him since I’d become pregnant.

"We killed its servant. Kaltherax." I shifted Thaniel higher so he could see his grandfather. "It came apart right there on the rug.”

"I felt a realm shift from below. Not long after, I realized I was picking up more than usual. When I focused on what it was, I realized I could sense Orenthiel. He’s hurt. Weakened is probably a better description."

Aidon’s gaze moved from me to his father. His surprise matched mine. No one had been able to sense Orenthiel.

“Orenthiel reached through and grabbed the pieces of Kaltherax,” Aidon added. “He must have done that because Kaltherax was hiding him somehow.”

“What exactly happened?” Hades prodded.

I lifted a shoulder and explained, “There isn’t much more than what we told you. We fought and killed Kaltherax. Orenthiel came and got his minion’s remains, then swore the babies were already his. He left right after. We've been sitting here waiting for him to come back ever since."

"He hasn’t gone far." Hades crossed to the window and pressed two fingers to the cracked glass. "I can feel exactly where he’s hiding. As I said, he’s wounded and unable to move from the pocket he dragged himself to."

"Because Kaltherax was his shield." Aidon's shadows stirred under his skin as the pieces clicked behind his eyes. "It wasn't only the master's hand in our world. He was the thing standing between Orenthiel and us this whole time. As long as Kaltherax existed, he kept his master tucked out of reach, even from you.”

“We burned that shield to ash on that rug last night," Nana boasted.

"Kaltherax being a shield tracks with everything we dug up." Jean-Marc stood up, grabbed Hades’s favorite protein soda from the fridge, and handed it to him. "Every record said Kaltherax played an important role. Orenthiel never touched our world because he never had to. He had his servant doing his dirty work and hiding it at the same time.”

Nina nodded in agreement. “Take the cover away, and last night Orenthiel had to do his own work for the first time. That's how he got hurt. I bet he didn’t have the energy to hide anymore."

Hades accepted the drink absently and popped the top. Something crossed that ancient face I'd never seen on it before. It wasn’t fear of Orenthiel, but the bare unease of a being who'd spent eternity certain that nothing in any realm outranked him. Suddenly, he was facing proof that wasn’t the case.

"I am the Lord of the Dead," he stated, more to the room in general than to any one of us. "Nothing has ever existed beyond my reach. I didn’t know it was possible for me to be blind to something. I don’t care for the lesson."

"Aw, welcome to the club, Your Majesty," Nana quipped as she continued rocking Melaina. Her mouth curled into the sweet poison she saved for anybody who needed a peg knocked out from under them. "Turns out you're not the biggest, baddest thing in every room after all. That's got to sting something fierce at your age."

I lost the fight with the smile tugging at my mouth and couldn’t keep from teasing him more. "It's a real journey, finding out you're not as all-knowing as you figured. The rest of us have been clueless the whole time. You're only a few thousand years behind the curve."

"I preferred the two of you afraid of me," Hades grumbled, though his mouth twitched before it flattened again. The joke had bought me ten steadier seconds. I spent them sorting my thoughts and what this meant for us.

"We can't all get what we want, but that doesn’t matter right now," I pressed on, pinning Hades with a look. "If you can feel Orenthiel, can you reach him?"

Hades sipped his drink, meeting my gaze. "I can open the way to his pocket, though I cannot go in. He crawled somewhere I could not go. But the door will hold as long as I stay here and anchor it."

"We should act before he recovers," Mythia suggested. "Right now, he’s wounded and not at full strength. My guess is we’ve got hours before he’s back here and we’re screwed."

"That's a great idea," Nana agreed, dropping her shotgun across the island with a clack. "Right now, we have this rare gift. We can go through while he's cracked and take him out. Better than waiting for it to come back."

My decision was made before she finished speaking. I lowered Thaniel into the carrier on the island. Setting him down turned out to be the hardest thing I'd done all day. "I need you to open that door, Hades. I'm going through," I told the room, scanning faces until I landed on the two I needed. "I don't want to go alone. The team should be small so we can get in fast and finish him before he heals. I’m thinking Stella, Layla, and me. That leaves Aidon, Selene, Mom, and Nana to protect things here. Nina and Jean-Marc can seal any rifts that open."

"As if you have to ask. Of course, I’m going with you." Stella was already off her stool and grabbing a bag of potions. "I would love to be part of killing that thing."

"It’s about time I get to go on one of these excursions." Layla shoved off the wall by the door. She'd had my back since I’d received my Pleiades power. She was more of a sister to me than anything else. "My wolf has run things down that slip between places. I’ll take a chunk out of any creatures he sends after you."

"I knew you'd want to come." I turned to Aidon and cringed. "You need to stay here."

"No." It came out flat. I’d only heard the Underworld in his voice a few times since we’d met. This was one of them. "I go where you go. I'm not standing in a kitchen pacing while you go after that thing."

"Think for one second before you fight me on this." I crossed to him and flattened both hands on his chest. His heart was slamming way too hard against my palms. "What if this whole thing is a trap? He has no backup for whatever Kaltherax did for him? He might not have had anything else, but we can’t assume that. He could be allowing your father to sense his pocket. And the second, we all march off to finish him, he knows the house is light on protection. He’d be able to slip right back here while we're in another realm with our hands full."

"You really think he was able to plan all of this?" His jaw worked as he weighed it.