“Yes and no.” He gestured for me to sit down on the grass, but I refused, standing with my arms crossed. “I spend most of my time separate from them. When they desire my input, or when it is a decision that directly affects my duties, I join them. But their decisions deal with the world of the living. That is not my realm.”
“So why don’t you tell them to shove it and get this whole thing over with? If they rule over the living and you’re not living, why do they get to say whether or not you’re doing a good job?”
Henry gazed off into the distance toward the sparkling lake. “They are the ones who are able to grant you immortality, not I. Perhaps in the beginning they would have trusted me with this decision, but the mistakes I made with Persephone have colored the council’s opinion of my judgments.”
I gritted my teeth at the mention of Persephone, and hatred gnawed at my insides. Even if it was his actions that caused her not to love him, she was the one who’d hurt him. “Can I ask you something?”
He made a wordless sound in the back of his throat, and I took that as a yes. I settled on the grass beside him.
“Why did you kidnap Persephone?”
He pulled away enough to look me in the eye, and the pain on his face made me regret my question.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”
“No, no.” He shook his head. “I am not angry. I am only trying to understand how it is possible that the truth of the matter could have gotten so lost in time.”
I waited for him to continue, ignoring the dampness of the grass that was starting to seep through my jeans. He looked pensive, as if he were looking for the exact way to tell me something he didn’t often get to say.
“I did not kidnap her,” he finally said. “It was an arranged marriage that she accepted, as her parents were the ones to set it up.”
I hesitated, trying to remember the details of the mythology I’d learned. “Zeus and Demeter?”
“Very good.” His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “You must have figured out by now that my family is a strange one. We call ourselves brothers and sisters, but in truth we are not. We have simply been together for so long that the words to describe the bond we have do not exist. Family is the only comparison we can draw, though it is a weak one.”
“Ella told me you weren’t actually siblings.”
“Did she?” He seemed darkly amused by this. “We all have the same creator, but we are not strictly related. In fact, my brother—who is, of course, not actually my brother—is married to my sister. And their son is married to our other sister as well.”
Making a face, I tried to wrap my mind around that. “Not related, right?”
“Not even remotely.” He pressed his lips to my forehead, a silent apology. Or maybe he was trying to alleviate my anger. “Persephone’s mother is my favorite sister, and she was the one to suggest the match. Persephone and I got along well when we saw each other, and her mother insisted she wanted us both to be happy. While I was used to being alone, I enjoyed the prospect of spending so much time with Persephone. When she didn’t object, things were finalized, and she became my wife.”
Wife. What I would be to him if I succeeded. As often as I thought of what a future with Henry might bring, the idea of being his wife—anyone’s wife—still hadn’t settled well with me. Maybe it was because I was eighteen, or maybe it was because my mother had never married, but I couldn’t imagine it. Then again, maybe that was a good thing. No expectations. And my desire to be married wasn’t stronger than my desire to be with Henry, like I suspected Persephone’s might have been.
“She helped me rule,” he continued, “doing as you will hopefully be doing soon enough. But she was young when we married, and…” He averted his eyes. “Eventually she saw me as her captor rather than her husband. She resented me greatly, and while in the beginning she was fond of me, I do not believe she ever loved me, not like I love her.”
Love, not loved. I exhaled.
“History takes her side, of course, and I have my suspicions about that, but in truth I never forced her into a marriage. I love her dearly, and it was agony for me to see her so miserable. After several millennia, she fell in love with a mortal and chose to give up her immortality for him, and I let her go. It hurt a great deal, but I knew it would hurt more if I made her stay.”
I was silent for the space of several heartbeats as I digested what he was telling me. Unrequited love was one thing, but spending an incomprehensible amount of time in that sort of pain—I couldn’t imagine it. I didn’t even want to try.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my anger dissipating as I wished there was something else to say.
“Don’t be.” Henry’s lips curled up into a smile that held so much self-hatred that I wanted to reach over and smack him upside the head for it. “She made her decision. You have made yours. It is the most you can do.”
Again I nodded, still at a loss for words. James was right. He would always be in love with Persephone no matter what I did; I had to accept that. But part of me wanted him to love me, too. Even if it was only enough to get him through the spring, it would do.
“Henry?” I said, my throat tightening as I gathered the courage I needed. “Do you think you could ever love me? Even a little?”
He looked stunned at my question, his brow furrowed and his mouth slightly open. But I needed to know—I couldn’t expect a fairy-tale ending, but I never had anyway. My fairy tale was one where both my mother and Henry were still alive, and since it was too late for my mother, all of my hope rested on Henry’s shoulders.
Finally he pressed his lips to the corner of my mouth in a chaste kiss, and he then said softly, “As much as I am capable of loving anyone else, yes.”
My heart sank, but while it wasn’t the answer I’d hoped for, it would have to do. He took my hand in both of his and looked at me, as if daring me to look away. I didn’t.
“You have fought for me, and do not think I have not seen that. You believe in me when few others will, and I cannot tell you how much that means to me. I will always treasure your friendship and affection.”
Friendship and affection. The words hit me like a rock, but I struggled to remember that they were better than the alternative—so much better. But something inside of me felt empty, as if he’d stolen something precious from me. Maybe it hadn’t been all romance and rainbows between us so far, but I’d hoped for more, and I didn’t know how else to show him what I wanted. Not without offering myself to him completely, and I couldn’t, not yet. Not when I didn’t know if he felt the same.