I’d seen his books. Almost all of them had been written before his birth, which had been more than a century and a half before mine. Many of them were books of love poems. He’d tried to read to me from one of them the night before, in order to cheer me up.
It hadn’t worked.
I thought it more polite to say “Thank you, John,” than “Do you have any books that aren’t about love? And young couples expressing that love? Because I do not need encouragement in that direction right now.”
“And you have this whole castle to explore,” he said, an eager light in his eyes. “The gardens are beautiful….”
I glanced skeptically at the billowing white curtains. I’d already seen the gardens outside them. Deathly black lilies and poisonous-looking mushrooms were beautiful, in their own way, especially to people like my mother, an environmental biologist who had a fondness for exotic plants and trees.
But I’d always preferred ordinary flowers, like daisies — the kind that grew wild, not cultivated in a garden. What chance did a poor, wild daisy have against a sophisticated black lily?
The night before, when I’d still been determined to escape and had tried to climb the garden walls, I’d seen that John’s castle was on a little island, surrounded by water. There were no boats to cross it. Even if I could find one, the only place to go was the next island. That was the one where he worked, though. And there was no way to get from there to where I wanted to go, back to the land of the living.
“But you should know I’ve told my men that if they do see you anywhere you’re not supposed to be, they’re to bring you straight to me.” Had he read my thoughts? He must have noticed the owlish look I gave him, since he added, his voice growing hard, “Pierce, it’s for your own good. There are dangers here that you —”
“You told me there’s no one here who can hurt me,” I interrupted. “You said I’m safe here.”
“You’re safer, because I can protect you,” John said. “But you have a heartbeat, and you’re in the land of the dead —”
“You have a heartbeat,” I pointed out. I’d felt it beating, as strong and steady as my own, beneath my hand. He certainly seemed fit for someone who was supposed to have died so many years earlier, not to mention so violently in my dream.
“Yes,” he said. “But that’s different. I’m … Mr. Smith already told you what I am.”
I thought it strange that he didn’t want to say the words death deity out loud. It wasn’t like I hadn’t noticed he had gifts that were unlike a normal nineteen-year-old boy’s.
Then again, I was having communication difficulties of my own, so maybe we were even. I decided to drop it.
“So Furies can find me here, too?” I asked instead.
“They can,” he admitted, sounding more like himself again. “But it will be much harder for them to attack you in a fortified castle in the Underworld than in your high-school cafeteria. Still, even with me around, and a necklace that warns when Furies are coming,” he added, tugging on the chain I wore around my neck so that the large round diamond at the end of it slipped from the bodice of my gown, then tumbled into his palm, “that doesn’t mean you’re invincible, Pierce, whatever you might like to think.”
I sucked in my breath defensively. “But Mr. Smith said —”
“Mr. Smith is a fine cemetery sexton,” he said, holding the diamond up so that it caught the light filtering in from outside the stone arches. Whenever John was around, the stone glowed a deep silver gray, the same color as his eyes, but when people like my grandmother, who definitely did not have my best intentions at heart, were present, it turned a warning shade of black. “And I’ll admit he’s been better at his job than any of his predecessors. But if he’s got you under the impression that just because this necklace was forged by Hades to warn Persephone when Furies were present, it also has the power to defeat them, you’re wrong. Nothing can defeat them. Nothing. Believe me, I’ve tried everything.”
His scars were testament enough to that.
Imagining what he must have endured — and remembering what he had gone through in my dream — caused tears to gather under my eyelashes. One of them escaped and began to trickle down my cheek before I could wipe it away without him noticing.
“Pierce,” he said, looking alarmed. Nothing seemed to discomfit him more than the sight of my tears. “Don’t cry.”
“I’m not,” I lied. “I’ve seen what the Furies have done to you, and it’s so unfair. There’s got to be a way to stop them. There’s got to be. And in the meantime, can’t I at least go back to warn my mom about what’s going on? Even if it’s only for five minutes —”
His expression darkened. “Pierce,” he said. “We talked about this. Your mother is in no danger. But you are. It’s too risky right now.”
“I know, but I’ve never been away from her for this long without her knowing where I am. She’s got to be freaking out. And what about my cousin Alex? You know he lives with my grandmother, and now that Uncle Chris is in jail, Alex will be with my grandmother all alone —”
“No, Pierce,” John said, so sharply I jumped.
Thunder crashed, seemingly directly overhead. Technically, where we were — hundreds of miles beneath the earth’s crust — there shouldn’t have been any meteorological phenomena. But it was one of John’s many special gifts that, when he felt something very deeply, he could make thunder — and lightning — appear … with his mind.