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“Ari—” he said as she approached.

“Don’t get up,” she said, and he wondered which of them she was talking to. “I need to talk to you.”

“Of course,” he said, his eyes falling to the woman. “Go.”

When he looked at Ariadne, her gaze was hard.

“It wasn’t what you think,” he said.

“Do you know what I think?” she countered.

Dionysus started to respond, but Silenus interrupted. “You must be Ariadne,” he said, leaning over the arm of his chair into Dionysus as he extended his hand. “I am Silenus, Dionysus’s father.”

“Adopted father,” Dionysus felt the need to clarify.

Ariadne took his hand, though she didn’t seem completely comfortable.

“Aye, I can see why my son is smitten,” Silenus said.

Dionysus shoved him back into his own chair. “Shut up,” he seethed and then looked at Ariadne again.

“I want to go back to the island,” she said.

“What?” That was not what he expected to hear.

“I want to bury Bully,” she said.

“Ari, it isn’t safe.”

“It’s not right to just leave him there to rot,” she said. “He deserved better than that.”

“Did you ignore the part where he is in a cave with a fucking monster?”

“A monster you were supposed to kill,” she pointed out.

Dionysus shook his head. “I am not going to have this conversation with you. We aren’t going back to that island just so you can fulfill your misguided sense of duty to this creature.”

“If you won’t take me, I’ll ask Hades.”

Dionysus ground his teeth. “Out!” he commanded, and suddenly, everyone gathered in his suite stopped drinking and dancing and fucking. As if they were under some spell, they filed out of the room—except for Silenus.

“What about me?” he asked.

Dionysus glared, and his father sighed.

“Fine.”

Once they were alone, Dionysus rose to his feet. To Ariadne’s credit, she didn’t back down.

“Do you think Hades will bend to your childish will?” he asked.

“It isn’t childish to want to give someone a proper burial,” she said.

“It is when you wish to go back to an island that nearly took both of our lives,” he said. “Why go back? Are you hoping to see Theseus?”

She slapped him, and it stung.

“How dare you,” she seethed, her voice trembling.