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Megaera was standing guard in the West Hall when the ever-present background noise of Hades and Persephone’s voices stalled out and stilled. Then the Lord’s voice rose again, in a rueful chuckle.
“Achilles. This ought to be interesting to deliberate.”
Meg… didn’t know what to think of Achilles.
Based on the whispers she’d overheard from the recently deceased in the weeks before his arrival, she’d started to expect his name to join the roster of souls that she and her sisters shared custody of—Sisyphus and Tantalus and the like, whose crimes stretched the full length of the Erinyes’ jurisdiction.
He’d really been indulging. Broken oaths, acts of rage, outright murder. All excusable in the confines of a war, but only to a certain extent. Only if it could be attributed to heroism.
There had been no heroism to the deeds of Achilles, ever since Patroclus of Opus entered the underworld.
“Grief is a powerful thing,” Queen Persephone was saying, when Meg turned her attention back to the conversation in the Great Hall.
At the moment, Achilles was confined to a holding cell in Erebus at the time, pacing it end to end, ripping at his matted hair and gnawing on his own arm with the needle-teeth of a Nereid, wailing fit to shake the foundations of the House.
Meg could hear him—no matter that he was deep beneath even Tartarus, in the ever-expanding sprawl of Erebus. She would hear him even if he was Elysium.
Never had a soul called so loudly for her whip. His screaming had no words—he was beyond them, Nereid-feral with grief—but Meg could hear him anyway, begging for punishment. He craved it even more than he deserved it.
“Grief does not excuse him,” Hades said, more to himself than to his wife. “For Hector alone he should spend eternity in Tartarus.”
Privately, Meg agreed. If half the gossip was true…
( Defilement of a corpse , said the Trojan shades.
Cannibalism , said the Greek ones.)
“Asphodel is out of the question, unfortunately,” Hades said. “As convenient as it would be to split the difference and call it done. A warrior of his caliber cannot be confined to the Meadows. He would incite chaos.”
“Elysium or Tartarus, then,” Persephone replied. “Where is his lover?”
“Oh, him? Asphodel, certainly.”
(Something in Meg’s chest squeezed tight, at that.)
“Did he not die in battle?” Persephone asked.
Hades scoffed. “He gave himself over to the children of Ares in an act of desperation. I would not call that grounds for immortalization in the afterlife of heroes.”
Whatever Persephone’s reply might’ve been, it had been cut off by a howl from below—long and drawn-out and inhuman.
Meg felt it in her chest, like a blow to the space beneath her sternum, knocking the breath from her lungs.
The wail went on and on, and then dissolved into loud weeping—far more human, no less disturbing, then faded from hearing.
“You would think,” Hades said, at length. “With the amount of children my extended family sires, it would have occurred to me before now to soundproof the rooms of Erebus for the voices of demigods as well as mortals.”
“I’ll put in an order with the House Contractor,” Persephone replied, her voice strained.
There was another long, ragged silence.
“Clearly he doesn’t need Tartarus to be punished,” Hades muttered. “But I’m loath to send him to Elysium, given the circumstances. I’d leave him in Erebus for a time, but…”
Meg left her post and walked up to the desk. “If I may make a suggestion, Lord Hades?”
Hades just grumbled, but Persephone leaned forward. “What is it, Megaera?”
“Send him to Elysium. It’ll be just as torturous for him as the end of a whip, if his lover’s in Asphodel. And that way we won’t have to worry about containing a feral half-Nereid.”
Hades drummed his fingers against the desk. “It’s a compromise. Rewarded for his heroics and punished for his misdeeds. Thank you for your expertise, Megaera. I’ll send Charon to take him.”
Meg turned smartly on her heel, heading back to her post: an alcove between two statues, at the midpoint of the West Hall.
‘Standing guard’ was a meaningless assignment, more to give her something to do while her usual work area in Tartarus was under construction than an actual job that needed doing, but she treated it with the same gravity that she treated any of her work. She was getting paid, after all.
She had just barely settled herself at the guardpost when there was a rush of commotion from behind her—splashing and clattering, voices raised all at once.
Meg darted back into the Great Hall, whip drawn, just in time to see Charon staggering out of the Pool of Styx, sputtering in displeasure.
His dark robe clung to the angles of his body, dripping red water around his feet. His hat was askew, baring one side of his skeletal face and shadowing the other.
His mouth… dripped.
Instead of his usual smoke, something the consistency of blood dripped down Charon’s chin, spattering the front of his robe and the floor with purple stains.
“Charon!” Hypnos yelped, wide awake quicker than Meg had ever seen him. “Whoa, hey—”
The air around Hypnos crackled, like it was tearing, and for a moment Meg thought she saw a mass of limbs and faces, eyes opening in droves across bare skin and exposed bone.
Then Hypnos was himself again, arms thrown around his brother’s chest. “Hey, hey, hey, breathe for me. Breathe.”
Charon coughed at length, spat a glob of purple onto the floor, and rattled something at his brother, threads of smoke drifting out between his teeth.
“Do not make that joke to his face, or you’ll end up back in the Styx,” Hypnos warned, unclasping Charon’s cloak and shoving it to the ground with a colossal noise of gold striking marble.
“The Styx not a fan of him?” Meg asked, tucking her whip back into her belt.
“I’d say it likes him too much,” Hypnos replied, his high voice gone slightly thready. He pressed a hand to his brother’s chest, grinding the heel of it in just below Charon’s sternum, until the soft purple light that flickered behind the bones and translucent skin flared bright, then settled. “It wants him back. Better?”
“Ghhhrrruh,” Charon muttered.
“I suppose I can’t convince you to rest?”
“Khhrrrrhh.”
“Okay, okay.”
Meg watched them talk with her lips pressed together, doing her best to hide her curiosity. Hypnos and Thanatos talked to each other the way Meg talked to her siblings—to Alecto, at least—but this was different. Gentler.
“Are you quite finished?” Hades asked.
“Grrrahh khhhh,” Charon said, shaking his brother off and heaving himself to his feet with the aid of his oar. “Hrrrghh… nghh kahhh. ”
“Picking your battles!” Hypnos chimed, hovering back to his post. “Smart of you. I wouldn’t want to fight him either, if he, uh,” Hypnos trailed off as his gaze dropped to his parchment scroll. “Yikes.”
“So you were unable to retrieve Achilles,” Hades concluded. “And you have no intention of trying again?”
“Khhrraah.”
Meg could understand that, at least. Charon was like his brothers in that regard, and like his mother. None of the Night’s progeny could be convinced to do something they didn’t want to, especially if they had already been burned by it once.
“I’ll get him.” Meg cut in. “I have an idea.”
“How do you plan to get him back out?” Hypnos asked. “Wait, don’t tell me, you have clearance to traverse Erebus.”
“I do, in fact, have clearance to traverse Erebus,” Meg answered, heading toward the lounge. “But there’s something I need first.”
A bottle of nectar cost a full day’s wages from the Wretched Broker, but Meg had all of eternity to earn gemstones. She slid the payment across the counter, tucked the bottle away, and stepped back into the hallway.
“Good luck!” Hypnos chirped.
“Be careful, Megaera!” Persephone added.
Meg nodded firmly, drew her whip, and spread her wing. The Underworld yawned open beneath her, and she dove into Erebus, toward the soul calling her name.
***
Achilles was huddled in the far corner of his cell, chewing on his forearm with puncture-sharp Nereid-teeth. His free hand was knotted in his hair, ripping out strands with the force of his grip.
He was weeping, tears mixing with the blood and drool on his face from the way he gnawed at himself. His eyes were swollen, the actual color of them hidden by blown-wide pupils and the red stain of grief.
It was as pathetic as it was disgusting.
As soon as he noticed Meg, his teeth slid from his arm, and he flung himself at her.
It was only because she knew he would that she was able to react in time, drawing her leg up and lashing out with a sweeping kick, knocking Achilles into the wall.
He crouched there, panting.
He was covered in gore, old and new. It was caked around his mouth, matted in his hair. It dripped from his hands and from his wounds, pooling around him. His sandaled feet slipped as he braced himself to lunge at Meg again, eyes flashing inhumanly in the dark.
Meg lashed him across the face with her whip.
Achilles wailed. Meg felt it in her throat, her fingertips. She was certain that they heard it in the House.
Punish me , the miserable thing in front of her was begging, wordlessly. Punish me, ruin me. I deserve it.
Meg wiped the blood off her whip, coiled it, and returned it to her belt. She brought out the bottle of nectar, holding it the way she’d hold a weapon, and knelt beside Achilles.
Gods, he was so pathetic. It made Meg’s stomach curl.
She uncorked the bottle, grabbed a fistful of hair sticky with blood, and wrenched Achilles’ head back, pouring the nectar into his mouth.
He resisted at first, as she was certain he would, but his grief had left him too weak to truly fight her grip, and he eventually gave in, drinking from the bottle like an infant at its mothers’ breast.
Officially, nectar was forbidden in the House of Hades. It was made, the rumor went, from the River Lethe, diluted to a fraction of its effects. It wouldn’t erase memories, but it dulled them, smoothing the edges until they were bearable.
A necessity, in the face of eternity.
Some of the blood started to fade from Achilles’ skin and hair. His needle-teeth thickened and dulled, to a man’s teeth rather than a Nereid’s. His death-wounds—poisoned arrows, one in his back and one in his left heel—began to scab, then to scar.
Shades were only memories, after all. To soothe a memory soothed the whole of a self.
When the bottle was empty, Meg set it aside and let go of Achilles’ hair. It was still tangled and unkempt, but far less gory, except for the hair around a half-healed gash in his scalp, which was still matted down with dried blood.
“I beg your forgiveness,” Achilles said, his face turned toward the floor. His voice was dull, rough with use. “You are not the target of my wrath, nor was the… the one who came before you, who I killed. I was not myself.”
“You can’t be anything but yourself, shade. But I’ll accept that you were not in control.”
Achilles nodded. He was looking at his hands, Meg realized. At the blood under his nails, in the lines of his palms.
“Where,” he asked, his voice breaking suddenly. He lifted his gaze to her. His eyes were green, beneath the red of weeping. “Where is Patroclus?”
“You can ask Lord Hades all the questions you want, if you’re willing to behave.” Meg stood, and offered him a hand.
Achilles reached up and clasped her forearm, getting his feet under him and bracing his weight against hers until he was upright and somewhat steady.
Meg grasped him by the back of the neck, flared her wing, and brought them out of Erebus.
Her landing was ungainly, as it had the tendency to be when she had a passenger, even one that wasn’t kicking his feet and grabbing for a weapon the moment they rematerialized.
Meg let her weight drop, driving her shoulder into Achilles’ back and knocking them both to the ground.
“I said behave, ” she snarled, yanking on his hair. “You little shit.”
“Megaera,” Persephone said. “Let him up.”
Meg let him up.
Achilles stood, brushed himself off, and bowed to Meg, a hand clasped to his chest. “My apologies once again, mistress. It was not so long ago I was at war.”
“Don’t make excuses,” Meg said. “It’s unbecoming.”
Achilles nodded. He dragged his hands across his face, then turned and approached Hades and Persephone, bowing deeply before the desk. “Lord Hades. And, my lady—”
“Queen Persephone,” Meg filled in.
“My Lord and my Queen, I ask—nay, I plead of you the answer to a single question, then you may do with me what you wish.”
“You’ve been quite the inconvenience, Achilles Pelides,” Hades said, “But you will have your answer.”
“Where is Patroclus?” Achilles asked. His voice broke on the name.
“The Meadows of Asphodel,” Hades answered.
Achilles bit his bottom lip so hard that it bled, adding to the mess on his face. “Where will I be sent?”
“One question, you said.” Hades scoffed.
“Elysium,” Persephone said. “I’m sorry.”
Achilles didn’t make a sound. His whole body shook and his face contorted, fresh tears slicking his swollen face, but he was silent. It was somehow more disturbing than his screams.
Meg, by nature and by employment, was a torturer. She spent her days or nights among the worst of humanity, making their eternities as miserable as possible.
She had never seen someone in so much pain.
Persephone was speaking quietly to Hades, but Meg couldn’t make out the words. Achilles’ silent torment was too loud in her skull.
“Send him instead,” Achilles said, his broken voice cutting into the air like a blade. “Send Patroclus to Elysium. He’s the hero, not me. I’ll go to Asphodel—I’ll go to Tartarus, I’ll serve you here, I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?” Hades asked.
Persephone’s gaze left Achilles and slid to Meg. There was a question in her eyes, in the tilt of her head.
Meg nodded, just enough for Persephone to see.
“Construction in Tartarus is almost complete,” Persephone said. “Megaera will return to work soon. We’ll need a more permanent guard for the House.”
It was a lie. Meg knew it was a lie. The House didn’t need to be guarded. It was at the base of the Underworld, in the heart of Tartarus. If it came to it, Hades himself was fully capable of defending his home, if Cerberus didn’t eat the intruder first.
“I am a warrior,” Achilles said, wretched with desperation. “If you have soldiers that need training, I am capable of that.”
“You will never see him again, you understand that?” Hades said.
Achilles’ face split in a poor facsimile of a smile. “At least this way I’ll never have to know if he despises me.”
Hades slid a piece of parchment to the edge of the desk. “Are these terms to your satisfaction?”
Achilles took the contract and read it over. His fingers left bloodstains on the parchment. “It’s… yes, it is.”
Hades held out his quill. “Sign.”
Achilles braced the parchment against the desk and signed it with a shaky flourish, then handed the contract and quill back to Hades.
“You have my thanks,” Achilles said, but his voice was losing strength.
Meg forced herself to stop staring and stepped forward, taking hold of Achilles’ arm. “I’ve got him,” she said, more to Persephone than to anyone else, leading Achilles out of the Great Hall.
***
The baths, like most fixtures of the House intended only for its permanent occupants, were well out of the way of the main hall, tucked away where no shades would wander.
Achilles stopped in the doorway, and Meg’s pushing didn’t move him.
“Shade,” Meg snapped, her patience running thin. “Go in. It’s a bathhouse, it’s not going to bite you.”
Stiffly, Achilles stepped inside.
He’s been part of that war on the surface, the rational part of Meg—the part that wasn’t preoccupied with the way the soul beside her was begging to be made to atone—reminded her. He probably hasn’t seen a bathhouse in years.
“Strip,” Meg ordered.
Achilles didn’t move. His hands hovered at his chest, uncertain.
Meg left him standing there, crossing to the back of the room to find what he would need. Soaps and conditioners, oils. A wide-toothed comb for his snarled curls.
She turned back, and Achilles hadn’t moved. His eyes were wide.
“Unclasp your cloak,” Meg started, and he finally reacted, obeying only as far as her instructions stretched.
It was that kind of day, huh.
Or night. Gods, whatever.
Unbidden, Meg thought of Thanatos. Too small and too still in Ares’ arms, his wrists an ugly mess of gore where he’d tried to tear them free of the chains.
(Meg had never seen a god need an amputation before.
Then again, she’d never seen a god’s own power turned on them so literally.)
She shook her head to clear away the memory.
Responsibilities came and went—she had to focus on the current one.
As gently as she was able, Meg talked Achilles through undressing, through getting into the bath, through washing his hands and face and each of his limbs.
He didn’t look quite human, even when he wasn’t Nereid-feral with his grief. His limbs were slightly too long, and his ribs had thin slits along them that might have been gills. There was a slight webbing between his toes, and between his fingers as well.
If the lights were dimmer, Meg expected that his eyes would flash like a pair of obols, reflective in the dark.
“Now for your hair,” Meg said, crouching by the bath and picking up a bottle. “Hands out.”
Achilles didn’t move.
“Hands out.”
Achilles shook his head.
Meg bit down hard on a snarl, pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth. “What is it?”
“I don’t—” Achilles started, in a fragile voice. “Pat always… he asks me to wait, so he could…”
“Do you want me to do it?”
Achilles shook his head again, more firmly.
“One of us has to,” Meg insisted.
Achilles drew his hands to his chest, pulling at the webbing between two of his fingers. “No.”
Meg chewed her lip for a moment, turning the bottle over in her hands. She tugged the cork out, poured some into her hands, and lunged.
She got both hands into Achilles’ hair, and even got his head beneath the water, before pain lanced white-hot across her vision, and she opened her eyes on the other side of the room, blood dripping from her nose, head ringing from the impact with the wall.
There was water splashed across the floor, bottles broken open and their contents spilled. Achilles was curled in on himself, one hand pressed to his mouth.
“Not my proudest moment,” Meg said, hauling herself to her feet.
Achilles made a noise, somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “No, I wouldn’t say so.”
“I won’t do that again,” Meg promised.
“Please don’t.”
Meg went back to the bath, sitting down on the edge. “We do need to do something about it, though.”
Achilles huffed, but he didn’t object this time.
“Lean forward,” Meg said, and Achilles obeyed.
She laid a hand on his back and pushed him down, until his hair was under the water. She held him there a moment, then pulled him up.
“Better,” she said.
It wasn’t better. It was just damp. But Meg was willing to compromise.
It was easier after that, at least. There were warm towels waiting, and in a basket by the door was a long chiton that fit Achilles perfectly, and a belt to hold it.
Meg walked him down the hallway of servants’ chambers until they found a door with his name carved into the wood: Ἀχιλλεύς
Achilles traced the letters for a moment, then opened the door.
“I thank you, Mistress Megaera,” he said.
Meg caught his arm. “You have a responsibility to this House.”
Achilles nodded. His head tilted in confusion, childishly.
“Part of that responsibility is to be at your best,” Meg continued. “I understand that's not much, especially right now, but I expect you to try.”
Achilles’ gaze dropped.
“Can you be relied upon to know when you need to tend to yourself, and act accordingly?”
“No, Mistress,” Achilles answered. “I can’t say I can.”
Meg squeezed his arm. “Thank you for your honesty. I will take that responsibility.”
Achilles opened his mouth, shut it, then exhaled slowly and tried again. “I... I wouldn't ask that of you.”
Meg allowed herself a breath of a laugh. “Of course you wouldn't. That's why I'm telling you.”
Somewhere in the midst of her words, Achilles’ eyes had filled with tears. He didn’t speak.
“All you need to do is listen to me,” Meg said, sliding her hand down his arm to squeeze his hand firmly. “And I’ll take care of you. Understood?”
Achilles nodded. His mouth twisted with a sob. “Understood,” he choked out.
Meg let go of him. “Good. Get some rest. I’ll retrieve you when your duties are needed.”
Achilles brought his fist to his chest, bowed, and shut the door between them.
Meg turned on her heel and walked away, leaving him to his grief.