The barreling shadow of doom screeches to a halt before Hades and I, towering over the two of us like a skyscraper. I squeak a second time, ducking behind Hades. He laughs — actual, full-bodied chuckles— at my reaction, and steps forward to greet the big black dog.

"This is Cerberus." He scratches the dog's head, turning to me. My eyes just about bug out of my head at the sight of the two standing side by side; the top of Cerberus' shoulder is almost level with Hades' head. The monstrous dog has to crouch down just so his head is within Hades' reach.

"I can see that. Why does he look so..." I struggle to find the right words. "Semi-normal? Normal and un-normal? Normal-ish?"

"What are you surprised by?"

"Well..." I fold my arms and unfold them again, tucking my hair behind my ear as I regard them with an incredibly wary gaze. My questions bubble up through my lips before I can stop them. "Why is he so small? Why does he look like a Newfoundland? Why does he have one head?"

Hades chuckles. "He prefers to take this form when he is around those he is not familiar with. He finds that it does not scare them as much."

"You're talking about him like he's extremely intelligent." I say slowly, tentatively holding my hand out to the dog. Cerberus blinks at me, almost like he's sizing me up, and steps forward. It takes all my strength not to flinch as he draws closer. "Is he?"

"Of course." Hades replies, watching Cerberus sniff my hand. "He has the essential job of ensuring that the dead are unable to escape, and that those who do not belong in this realm do not succeed in breaching it. That task requires some degree of intelligence, would you not agree?"

"I guess." I smile and reach up on my tip-toes to scratch behind Cerberus' ears. "But that still doesn't explain why he's so small, and... well... normal." Cerberus growls softly, and I wince. "Sorry."

"He manipulates the way you perceive him; that is why you only see his smaller form. I see something quite different to you." Hades explains. "He only takes his true form when he's either guarding his post, or around myself or Aeacus. It takes him a long time to trust you enough to let you see his true form."

"You or Aeacus? What's so special about Aeacus?"

"Aeacus and Cerberus formed a... special bond, when he turned up." Hades' lips turn up ever so slightly when Cerberus' eyes light up at the sound of Aeacus' name. "Aeacus is somewhat of a recluse, and prefers to call himself Cerberus' caretaker over an official Judge of the Underworld. He will help out when he is needed, but tends to prefer the company of Cerberus over anybody else."

"That makes sense. Who wouldn't prefer his company?" I glance up at Hades and smile. "He's gorgeous."

Cerberus chuffs, almost appearing to smirk at my praise.

"I am sure he appreciates that compliment." Hades responds with a hint of amusement. He whistles again, this time two short sharp blasts, and flicks his wrist at Cerberus. "But unfortunately, he will not be remaining to hear any more. He has a rather important job to attend to."

"I understand." I nod. I pat his head one more time and bow my head. "It was an honour meeting you, Cerberus."

Cerberus barks once and licks my entire arm, causing me to erupt into giggles. After meeting his master's gaze for a moment, the majestic dog nods his head and leaps off into the darkness, disappearing as quickly as he appeared.

Hades looks back at me. The giggles die down in my throat when I realise his expression has retained its sombre seriousness once again. "I have something to show you."

"What is it?" I ask curiously, drying my arm off on my black jeans. His only response is to offer up his arm for me again. I cautiously reach forward. Without warning, I feel that same strange pulling sensation in my belly button again, and before I can properly close my eyes, my vision tunnels into darkness.

After a few seconds, my feet touch solid ground again and my vision is abruptly returned in a blinding flood of light. Hades continues forward like nothing out of the ordinary has happened. I, on the other hand, stumble forward with a gasp, my hands wildly searching for something steady as my body continues to ripple like it's still moving through space.

"Oh my—" I lean heavily on my knees, cutting myself off with a spluttering cough. "I am never going to get used to that."

Hades pauses and glances over his shoulder at me. His midnight-blue eyes widen a fraction.

"You did not close your eyes, did you?" He asks, reaching out to steady me. I shake my head, pressing my lips together into a thin, white line. "You must close your eyes when I transport us, Evie. You will feel nauseating episodes of dislocation if you attempt to witness the process."

My sardonic reply hisses out through my teeth. "Yeah, you think?"

"Are you alright?"

"Asking that is just inviting an even more sarcastic retort." I laugh breathlessly. Using his proffered arm as a support, I slowly unfold myself from my upright foetal position and breathe in deeply. "Here's an idea: why don't you just never zip zap me around like that again?"

"It is my main method of moving around the Underworld." Hades responds, moving away the moment he's sure I'm steady on my own feet. "So unless you are wanting to be left behind when we travel around the Underworld, I do not think you will find satisfaction in my answer to that question."

"Can't you just... take the bus?"

"There are no buses. Oddly enough, I am the only one who feels the need to move around the Underworld." Hades replies amusedly. Then his expression switches to one of serious sincerity, so quickly that I almost get emotional whiplash. "Your family is just around the corner in their Elysium, Evie. Are you ready to see them?"

"Wait, what?" I blink rapidly, bewildered by the sudden change of subject. His words sink in. The air around us freezes. "You—you brought me to see my family?"

"Yes. I said that I would, and I do not forgo my promises." Hades replies. He watches me with what almost looks like a touch of sympathy. "Have you changed your mind?"

"No, I just—" My throat closes up. I have to shrug several times before I'm able to get the words out. "I just didn't realise I would see them today."

"I apologise. Had I known you were expecting a warning, I would have told you. I thought it would be a pleasant surprise."

"No, don't apologise. It is a nice surprise." I offer him a small smile. "Thank you, Hades. I'd love to see them."

"Very well." Hades inclines his head and waves his hand. Suddenly, I'm not looking out into hazy darkness anymore, but at a vintage, wooden country house, equipped both with the generic white picket fence and a front porch dressed in light grey. Light dances across the white house in broken shadows, from a source up above that disappears when I look at it, and there's an all-too-familiar willow tree enveloping the front yard. Achingly familiar laughter pours out of the open front door, and more than once I see a shadow flit past the rustic windows. A golf ball lodges in my throat.

"I recognise this house. This is the house that I lived in before..." I clear my throat, shaking my head. "Why can I see this house?"

"It is your parent's Elysium. This is the house they imagined they would have lived in for the duration of their lives, had they been given the chance."

"But I thought you said that a person's Elysium depended on what they thought they deserved?"

"That is correct." Hades nods. "But it does not work as simply as that. If it did, a lot of unworthy people would receive a happy ending, when in reality what they deserve is the complete opposite. As the God of the Underworld, it is my duty to have the final say in the ultimate determination of a person's Elysium, to ensure that each and every Elysium is fairly distributed, by my judges, in accordance with that person's life. Your parents believed they deserved happiness after death; we agreed with them. This was the result."

"Oh. And that's the same for everyone then? You've determined the Elysium of every person who's ever died depending on what you think is fair?" I ask. He nods. "You've never once been tempted to sentence someone to, I don't know, eternal hell just because you don't like them?"

"Of course not." He replies seriously. "It may not seem it, Evie, but I am a very reasonable person when it comes to determining a person's Elysium. I only sentence people to eternal hell if I think they truly deserve it."

"Wait, eternal hell actually exists? You're not joking with me, are you?" I ask incredulously. His eyes merely twinkle in reply. I narrow my own eyes at him. "Stop it. You're freaking me out."

"Stop what?" He asks, somehow managing to look completely innocent. "I do not understand your request."

I burst out laughing.

"You sound like a rehearsed robot." I chuckle, rolling my eyes good-naturedly. "Do you even feel emotions?"

Hades stiffens. His expression smooths over. "Yes."

"Oh." I blink, taken aback by the iciness emanating from his tone. Nice one, me. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. I was only joking."

Hades doesn't respond, his expression more impassive than a looming cliff-face. I half expect my limbs to stiffen into crystalline ice under his frigid gaze.

Clearing my throat, I tuck my arms under my armpits and step forward. "Can I meet them?"

"No. You cannot go any closer." He responds blankly. "This is their Elysium. Disrupting it would have dire repercussions for both your parents and yourself — repercussions that I do not have the time to regulate."

"Oh." I swallow and rock back on my feet. "Is there any way I can see them, then?"

I feel the prick of his gaze on my back as he watches me. Finally, he steps into my peripheral vision and nods tightly. "You will need to come closer. I can cloak us both with invisibility so you can see them for a few minutes, but I will only hold it for a brief period of time. After that, we must go."

"Okay." I shoot him a small smile. "Thank you, Hades."

Hades nods again and beckons me closer. Stepping forward, I cautiously place my palm on his forearm and close my eyes, well aware of what happened the last time I forgot that one small detail. Only this time, when he clicks his fingers, I'm just engulfed by an odd feeling of displacement. I open my eyes to see that the air around Hades and I now shimmers slightly at the edges. Hades glances down at me briefly, arching an eyebrow. I nod in response. He waves his hand to the side, and the next thing I know, I'm standing in the middle of a kitchen I know like the back of my hand, facing two people that I haven't seen in years. My heart stops.

It's my parents.

They haven't changed one bit since I last saw them; my mother, with her light ginger hair dusted with the first signs of ageing, and my father, with his dirty blonde hair and crow's feet in the corners of his eyes from laughing too much. They're both standing at the sink, washing dishes side-by-side and laughing between themselves at a joke my father made. The clinking of the dishes muffles the crackling of a fire in the background, and my parents' laughter breaks up the otherwise unusual silence of the house. For several moments, I strain my ears trying to figure out exactly what it is that's missing. Then my mother calls out, and I realise with a jolt what it is.

"Evie! Ellie! Dessert's almost ready! Can you please come and set the table?"

My eyes widen. I take a couple of steps forward just in time to see two strawberry-blonde girls rush into the room, giggling and pushing each other in their haste to beat their rival to the table. You only need to take one cursory look at them to know that they're identical twins; it was only those who were really close to the twins that could really tell them apart. The easiest way was, of course, their eyes: one had eyes the colour of the deepest rivers, and the other eyes the colour of the ocean.

It takes me several tries to clear my throat enough to get a full sentence out. When I finally succeed, my voice is hoarse. "Is that...?"

"You and your sister?" He finishes my sentence. I nod. "Yes, it is. Your family's conception of Elysium is that of utter happiness, which included you at the age that they all died. For all they know, you died alongside them."

Wrapping my arms around myself tightly, I watch my family move around my childhood home in complete silence, unable to tear my attention away from them. My throat closes up. The more time that passes, the more I find myself desperately missing it; missing the comfort of the family that was torn so callously away from me. I'd almost forgotten how much I missed them, or how empty Hades' palace had felt without my new family until now.

"Why me?" I finally ask, my voice softer than a whisper. Hades looks at me quizzically. "Why did Spencer and my... foster family choose me?"

"That is not of relevant importance."

I still. "What?"

"It is a factor you do not need to know."

"I understood you the first time Hades. You mean you know?" I ask. He nods once. I clear my throat several times, crossing my arms over my chest as I attempt to process it all. "So you're telling me, you know exactly why I was raised for the last ten years by Greek gods, but you're going to keep it a secret from me because it's 'not of relevant importance'?"

"Yes."

"Seriously?" I can't help but laugh, his apathetic words rendering me in shock. My annoyance twists my words into bitterly-spoken barbs. "What gives you that right? This is my life we are talking about, and you're purposefully keeping me in the dark about half of it. How on earth is that fair?"

"I apologise, Evie. I did not mean to upset you with this." Hades tells me impassively. "That was not my intention."

"You're not answering my question." I retort. My attention is now completely stolen from my family as I face him head-on. The moment I give Hades my full attention the house slowly fades away into the background, softening at the edges until it has disappeared altogether. "Why are you keeping this a secret from me, Hades?"

Hades hesitates, only for a fraction second, but it's long enough for me to catch the guilt that flashes through his eyes. Then it's gone, and his expression is blank once more. "That is also something I cannot tell you."

I blink at him rapidly. "You can't tell me? You trick me into agreeing to a deal that was practically made null-and-void by the fact that the person I was saving is a god, then say in the same breath that I was raised for the last ten year by a bunch of gods, and now you suddenly know exactly why that is, but you can't tell me?"

"That is correct."

I swallow and nod several times. I'm so overwhelmed by shock that I physically feel sick. Clearing my throat, I take a step back, throwing up sky-high walls between us in the same action. '"I'd like to go back to my room. Now, please."

Hades' jaw clenches. He nods tightly. "Very well."

He clicks his fingers. With a crippling wave of nausea that hits me like a bullet train, everything twists into overwhelming darkness, and Hades disappears.

— — —

"Evie?!"

I open my eyes with a gasp, stumbling against a wall as another wave of nausea punches me in the gut. Once the feeling recedes, I slide down the wall, bending my head forward and pressing every part of my body against the cool marble floor. I slowly suck in a ragged breath. Now I understood why Hades insisted I hold onto him when he transported us around — it feels like I left eighty percent of my insides behind.

"Evie?" Someone tentatively touches my shoulder. I jump about a mile in the air, wildly looking up. Disappointment surges through me.

It's Calla.

"Oh. Hi." I swallow and smile tightly at her. "Don't mind me. I'm just gonna sit here for a few minutes and try not to throw up the majority of my internal organs."

"Why?" She offers me a hand up.

I smile at her gratefully and pull myself up, making a face when my stomach heaves. "Let's just say I discovered why Hades prefers to escort people around instead of zapping them places."

"Why was he zapping you places?"

I grimace. "I may or may not have let my temper get the better of me, which made him mad, so..."

"So he zapped you to your room." She finishes, helping me over to my bed. "Why are you angry with him?"

I sigh, drawing my knees up to my chest.

"Hades told me that he, along with apparently every single person I know, is keeping a secret from me. A secret that I'm ninety percent sure is the reason my foster family was the divine version of the Brady Bunch. And when I tried to ask him about it, he, well..." I gesture towards myself, throwing my hands up in the air with a humourless laugh. "So, yeah. For someone who personally hates people keeping secrets from her... there's that."

Calla flinches at the bitterness clouding my tone. "What do you mean, every single person you know? I'm not keeping secrets from you."

"No. You're right. You're not." I twist my lips to the side and shoot her a small smile. "I'm sorry Calla. I shouldn't be taking my frustration out on you. That's not fair."

"It's okay." She smiles at me and pats my hand. We sit in awkward silence for a few minutes before she tentatively speaks up again. "I get the feeling that is not the only reason you're frustrated. Is there something else bothering you, Miss Evie?"

I fall back on my bed and blow my cheeks out. "Not something."

"Someone?" She guesses. I hold a thumb up in the air. "Hades?"

"Who else?" I snort.

"Why is he bothering you?"

"It's not him, per se, it's just that..." I hesitate, chewing on the inside of my cheek. "I'm suddenly unsure as to whether this was a good decision or not."

"What decision?"

"The decision to stay here. In the Underworld. To honour my deal with Hades." I prop myself up on my elbows and look at her.

"Why are you unsure about that?"

"I guess a part of me always thought I would actually be able to do this, even when Hades disappeared for the first few weeks." I shrug. "Even after the dinner on my first night here, where I found out about the whole every-single-person-in-my-life-being-a-Greek-god situation, I thought I could at least trust Hades — which sounds weird, I know, but he seemed genuine, and at the time I thought he was the only one who hadn't lied to me."

"Alright." Calla nods slowly as she processes it all. "I sense a 'but' coming up."

"Your senses are not wrong." I sigh. "After what Hades told me, or didn't tell me, I don't feel as confident about being able to keep my promise anymore."

"Why?"

"Because I hate people keeping secrets from me. I hate it. I feel like I can't trust someone when I know they've been lying to me, especially if they're lying about something that'll affect me. And now that I know that Hades has been keeping something from me this whole time, something big, I don't know if I can trust him. I don't know who I can trust anymore."

Calla's quiet for a second. "You can trust me."

"That's true. I can." Her comment draws a small smile out of me. I reach over and squeeze her hand. "And I do. So thank you."