Page 133 of Hekate: The Witch (Goddesses of the Underworld #1)

‘And Why Are You Here?’

The question escaped my lips

before I could even stop it.

It hung there out of my reach.

Hermes seemed surprised,

almost as though he wasn’t

asked this often.

‘Do you not know, young one,

that I am what they call

a psychopompos?’

A psychopompos ,

Charon had told me,

is a guide to the dead.

‘And who are you guiding?’

I asked, looking behind him.

‘I see no one with you.’

‘I too can keep a secret,’

he said cryptically,

then gestured beyond the cypress.

‘Shall we?’ he asked,

and with a fluid flick of his fingers,

golden light poured like magma

from the mountainside

closest to us, spilling away

into the River Lethe.