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“No.”

“When you do, let me kill it,” he said.

Hades could not help how he bristled, and the instinct made guilt bleed into his stomach.

“If I kill it,” Hephaestus explained, “I can make a weapon from the ashes.”

Hades stared. This conversation had taken a sudden turn, and it felt almost treasonous—not to Zeus but to themselves. He already knew the god was experimenting. He’d caught him fashioning a trident out of adamant—an attempt to recreate Poseidon’s most powerful weapon.

“It’s too dangerous, Hephaestus,” Hades said.

“It is no more dangerous than your helm,” Hephaestus said. “Or Poseidon’s trident or Zeus’s lightning bolts.”

“Except that those weapons are not prophesied to kill gods,” Hades countered.

“I will not pressure you,” Hephaestus said. “But the offer stands should it be needed.”

Hephaestus extended his hand in an attempt to return the tip of Cronos’s scythe. Hades’s eyes fell to it. Despite only being a small piece of a whole, it was just as deadly and still contained his father’s magic.

His eyes returned to Hephaestus.

“Can you make a blade from that piece?” Hades asked.

“I can,” Hephaestus said. “If you wish.”

It was not as if Hephaestus had not already begunforging weapons. The scythe was powerful, and it could wound a god severely, enough to trap them in Tartarus if needed.

“I wish it,” Hades said.

Hades thought after his visit to Hephaestus he would feel like he had some control over the violent thing that lived within him, but he didn’t. It still raged beneath his skin, threatening to explode.

He felt a lot like he imagined Hephaestus had tonight—completely helpless.

He did not know how to keep it in, how to quell it, but he couldn’t let Persephone see this. He couldn’t allow her to bear witness to his horror when she had seen so much of her own.

So he did the only thing he knew to do—find Hecate. But when he appeared in her meadow, he could tell she was not home. Her cottage was dark and everything was too still. Normally he would have attempted to sense whether she still remained in the Underworld as she often left for the mortal world to carry out whatever she pleased in the night, but it had not really mattered.

This took him away from the castle.

He paced outside her cottage, attempting to expend some of the electric energy that raced through his veins, and started to consider other options.

Should he go to Tartarus and take his rage out on Pirithous who was partly responsible?

Usually, that would seem like the right thing to do, but for some reason, it did not seem so now.

This anger was different. It was not destructive, but it was terrifying.

And perhaps that was what worried him the most—he usually knew what to do with this feeling, but not this time.

This time, it was different, and he needed Hecate.

“Let me get my calendar,” she said. “For I must mark this occasion.”

Hades turned toward her as she came out of the darkness surrounding them in the meadow. She wore a cloak and pushed back the hood so he could see her face, though shadowed.

“Hecate,” he said. “I—”

“Need me?” she asked, smiling and arching a brow.