Nicholas presumably loved her, or at least he felt loyal enough not to cheat, unlike Ava. Maybe she had an excuse, but it reminded me strongly of Persephone, and bitterness curled through me, wrapping around my insides and making me still as stone. For a moment, I hated Ava for doing that to her husband whether he was okay with it or not.
“You’re not married, are you?” I said to James.
He shook his head. “Not yet, not off icially. There’ve been some mortals, of course, but we’ve all had a few mortals on the side.”
“More than a few,” said Ava with a snort.
“Then why get married in the f irst place if you’re not going to stay faithful?” I said.
Ava shrugged. “I think Daddy believed that getting married would force me to settle down, but that didn’t work out too well.” She paused. “Nicholas understands, you know.
He knew what he was signing up for in the beginning, and he doesn’t mind. At the end of the day, he knows he’s the love of my life.”
“We get married for the same reasons that mortals do,” said James. “To create a family, a home, to have that sense of security. To have a partner. And in Walter, Henry and Phillip’s cases, to have a queen to help them rule.”
“Didn’t turn out too well for Henry,” I muttered, and James sighed.
“No, it didn’t.”
A strong breeze made the leaves on the trees above us rustle, and I forced myself to relax. I couldn’t change what had already happened. I could, however, control what I did, and I already knew I would never hurt Henry like that. No matter how bad things got.
However, a tendril of resentment lingered inside of me, and I couldn’t resist muttering to Ava, “If you can stay with Nicholas, then why couldn’t Persephone stay with Henry?” She said nothing. The f ire crackled, and off in the distance I heard a woman singing, but I didn’t pay attention.
Many of the mortals we’d passed had been singing. While some of the songs I’d recognized, others were so old that they’d been lost to time, except to the dead who sang them.
“Persephone fell in love with a mortal,” said James after a long moment. “She wasn’t any different from the rest of us—she wasn’t faithful to Henry before she’d met Adonis, either.”
“You can’t say you’re all like that when Nicholas doesn’t cheat on Ava,” I said sharply. So it hadn’t been once, then.
Henry had had to endure knowing Persephone had been with other people over and over again—presumably other members of the council he had to face afterward. Yet he’d still loved her.
“Calliope didn’t cheat on Daddy, either,” said Ava thoughtfully, and I nearly choked.
“Calliope and Walter?” I wheezed. “But he’s so old.”
“She’s older,” said Ava with a sniff. “Besides, age doesn’t matter after the f irst thousand years or so. He only looks older because he wants to. He thinks it makes him look distinguished.”
It didn’t make any sense. Not that Calliope was older or anything, but that she was married and would love Henry so badly that she was willing to kill to have him. “Then why—” I gestured around us, frustrated. “Why are we here? Why are we doing this if Calliope’s married and loyal to her husband? Why would she do all of this to get Henry if she already had Walter?”
James and Ava exchanged a look I didn’t understand, and I dug my nails into my jeans. I was already thousands upon thousands of years behind. Knowing there was something they weren’t saying only made my frustration grow.
“Walter fathered all of us,” said James. “Everyone on the council who isn’t the original six.”
“Or me,” said Ava. “He was in different bodies and forms, so, I mean, it isn’t gross or anything. But they’re all Walter’s children.”
“And Calliope is only mother to two of us,” said James.
“Nicholas and Dylan.”
I was silent as the weight of everything that implied settled over me. I didn’t know exactly how long they’d all existed, but I did know it was longer than I could comprehend. A hundred years sounded like forever to me, but for them, it was barely any time at all compared to the rest of their lives. And throughout it all, Calliope had watched her husband love other women, and she’d had to accept his children as her family. As her equals.
For one terrifying moment, I understood why Calliope was doing this. I could feel her anger, her hurt, all of the pain she’d gone through, and her loneliness and desire to be loved. She’d watched Henry go through the same thing with his wife, and she must’ve seen a kindred spirit. Someone she thought would understand and want to be with her, because she would never cause him that kind of pain.
Instead Henry had thrown it back at her, and he’d become one more person to make her feel utterly alone.
But Henry wasn’t the bad guy. He’d stayed loyal to Persephone despite everything she’d done to him, and my momentary compassion for Calliope faded. In the end, she was to blame for what she’d done, no one else.
“No wonder she snapped,” I mumbled. “If I had to watch Henry do that to me, I think I would, too.”
“It doesn’t excuse murder,” said James. “And it doesn’t excuse releasing Cronus. No matter how much of an ass Walter is, she’s the one who ultimately made those choices.” And we were the ones who had to face the consequences, just like Henry had nearly faded because of Persephone.
It didn’t make sense though. “So why did Persephone give up her immortality when she could do whatever she wanted? She had the same deal with Henry as I do, right?
Six months out of the year, I’m his wife and help him rule, and for the other six, I can do whatever I want?” Ava tossed me a yellow apple from seemingly out of nowhere. I caught it, but I didn’t take a bite. “It wasn’t like that at f irst,” she said, glancing at James, who was staring off into the forest with a faraway look. “Henry offered that to her when he realized how miserable she was down here.
None of us can take this all the time except for him.”
“Most of the council doesn’t visit,” said James. “Our abilities are muted down here, and—”
Crack.
Wood sizzled above me, and right as I looked up to see what had happened, Ava shoved me off the log and onto the ground, dangerously close to the f ire. I yanked my hand away from the f lames, and a deafening crash turned the world into dust.