“In what, like, Underlord primary school?” It would be impossible not to catch the sarcasm in her voice.
“Something like that, I guess. According to that version, it was a traitor who stole it. A man who begged for one thing but took something else instead.”
“Who was he?”
“Orpheus.” There’s a bite to my voice when I say his name. We’ve been taught from the age we were nurslings to despise him.
“The musician?”
I nod. “He used his music to confound Hades—manipulate his emotions. He begged for his wife to be returned to him, and the goddess and god of the Underrealm were so moved by his songs that they agreed to let him take her back to the mortal world. It wasn’t until he was almost gone that they realized that Orpheus had taken something else while they were distracted. The Key. Hades sent an army of Keres to stop him. They grabbed Eurydice, but Orpheus escaped. Hades went after him in his chariot, but he never returned. He was ambushed without his Kronolithe, and the Sky God struck him down. Some say Orpheus was working for the Sky God; others say it was Orpheus’s father, Apollo, who orchestrated the theft, and that Hades’s death was unintentional. Others say Orpheus knew nothing of what he was doing and acted purely out of fear—he’d stolen the bident so he could lock the main gates, thinking nobody would be able to take his wife from him again. Whatever the case, the treacherous deed was done. Hades was slain and the gates of the underworld have been locked tight ever since, and the war has been at a virtual standstill.”
“This may seem like an obvious question, but if Hades was the ruler of the land of the dead, and he, you know, is dead, then why isn’t he still in charge? And what about your mother? Why wouldn’t she still be with you there?”
“It doesn’t work that way. There are many different lands within the Underrealm, and three different places souls go when they die. Tartarus is the land where people go if they have outright wronged the Gods. It’s a place of eternal torment, like what Christians and other religions believe to be their version of Hell. People who die with glory and honor—like victorious Champions, war heroes, and the like—go to the land of Elysium. It is what you would think of as heaven. But everyone else becomes a nameless, faceless shade in the Wastelands. They’re kind of what you would think of as zombies. Hungry, insatiable, mindless souls.
“Normally, someone like Hades would have gone to Elysium, but as the stories go, fearing reprisal, the Sky God refused to give his brother a proper burial, and dishonored him by scattering his body throughout the Overrealm. As a result, Hades became just another shade, forced to wander the Wastelands. Most people believe Tartarus is the worst possible fate that could befall a soul, but I think it’s the Wastelands. Because even though you’re in torment, you’re still yourself.”
“I agree,” she says. “So do you ever get to visit your mother in Elysium?”
“My mother wasn’t a Champion or a hero. Only the honored go to Elysium. She is just another shade now.”
“But there is more than one way to be honorable,” she says. “Doesn’t being a good person count for anything?”
I don’t know how to respond to that. I’ve never thought of honor in any other way than I have been taught to consider it. I’ve never imagined my mother being anywhere other than lost to me forever in the Wastelands. “I don’t know,” I finally say.
“So what happened to the Key?” she asks.
“Nobody knows. But Dax has a theory that we need the Cypher to find it.”
“And that’s supposed to be me?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll see about that,” she says. “Hey, wait a second. So how did you get here? If the gate is locked and all?”
“Through Persephone’s Gate. It’s kind of like a back door to the underworld. Demeter built it to ensure that Persephone would always be able to return to the mortal world without Hades’s consent. I guess she was afraid he might try to stop her, depending on his mood. But I know what you’re thinking. Why don’t we just use that door to come and go from the Underrealm as we please? Use it to launch another attack on the Skyrealm? It’s because the gate only opens once every six months and it was originally built to transport only a single person. We can maybe get a handful of Underlords through it at once. It’s reserved now for the transport of Champions and their Boons.”
“And what’s up with that? Why do you need Boons? Are they your mates?” A pink blush brightens her cheeks. “Erm … I mean, are Underlord girls just really ugly or something?”
“There are no Underlord women. I don’t know if it’s a remnant of Demeter’s curse or just the will of the Fates, but no female child has ever been born in the Underrealm.”
“Oh,” she says. “So that’s what’s with all the girl snatching.”
“Nobody is snatched. The Boons must give their consent to come.”
“But do they really know what they’re getting themselves into? Consent isn’t really consent if she doesn’t know what she’s saying yes to.”
I am silent for a long while. I can’t deny that there is truth to Daphne’s words. I never knew why my own mother had agreed to follow Ren into the Underrealm—what he promised her to get her to come—but I doubt she knew that it would lead to her eventual death. A pang of guilt hits me. Daphne doesn’t know that saying yes means that she very well could be agreeing to a much shorter life span. But that is if she is only a Boon, I try to tell myself. If she is the Cypher, could that mean she would survive longer than an ordinary girl? Perhaps finding the Key to the Underrealm will grant her immortality, too, when it is restored to the Underlords.
But how exactly will the Court use her to find the Key? What will be the cost?
“The Boons live very comfortable lives of luxury,” I say at last. “I imagine that appeals to many girls.”
“Some,” she says. “But I don’t fancy giving up my free will for comfort.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“And I don’t fancy finding this Key for you people, either. You think I want you restarting this war and trampling my world again in the process?”
“It’s not just for opening the gates. The Key is also needed to stop the locks on Pandora’s Pithos from failing. Imagine what would happen to your world if more of the Keres got out. They would multiply and do far more damage than any fight between the Lords.”
“Oh,” she says, quietly. “Could that really happen?”
“I don’t know for sure. There are rumors.…”
“So you don’t know anything, really.”
I start to say something, but she stops me.
“I don’t want to hear any more. I’m not going to be your Cypher, so stop trying to use scare tactics on me.”
We are both wordless for a long time after that. Daphne fiddles with the touch screen, trying to find a radio station, but we’re too remote to get anything clear. There’s only one car in front of us and one car behind.
“All my music was on my phone,” she says, turning off my radio.
“I have half a dozen MP3 players.… But I left them all in my other car.”
Daphne starts to hum to herself. It’s a song that sounds vaguely familiar to me, but I can’t say that it’s one of the ones I downloaded from the music store. I listen to her, melting into the melody, until a sudden pain pricks behind my eyes. I rub at them and realize I’ve got tears welling in the corners. I wipe them away quickly, but not fast enough for Daphne not to notice.