“Poor you,” I muttered.

He smiled faintly. I found the last stick in the immediate area, and together we stood. “No, not poor me,” he said. “We were always better as friends anyway. Besides, it made working with Henry awkward.”

It was one thing to sneak around behind Henry’s back, but it was another to have a relationship with his wife when he was fully aware of it. “He knew, and he didn’t try to kill you?”

“Of course not,” said James, chuckling. I didn’t see what was so funny about it. “Everything’s an open secret with us, Kate. You’ll see eventually.”

I wasn’t so sure I wanted to anymore, if I managed to make it out of this alive, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. I decided right then and there that if I stayed, if Henry still wanted me here after this mess was cleaned up, I would never cheat on him, not even during the summer. And especially not with James.

Yet I’d spent my entire six months away with James, hadn’t I? What had for me been a break from the mayhem with a friend could have easily been construed as a romantic vacation by Henry. If he really hadn’t checked in on me the entire time I’d been in Greece with James—

Oh, god.

The things Henry must have imagined—my mind reeled, and every emotion I’d started to develop for James vanished. “You knew what Greece would look like to him, and you didn’t warn me?”

James winced. “It didn’t matter. You and I both knew it wasn’t anything more than friends, and if that was what Henry wanted to assume—”

“Of course it was what he’d assume!” Without thinking, I hurled one of the sticks at James. It glanced harmlessly off his chest, but for once I didn’t care about hurting him. He was a god. He’d get over it, and it was nothing compared to the horror and guilt and shame churning inside me. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you? What is it, James? Do you want him to be alone? Do you want him to fade? Do you want to rule the Underworld after all?”

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said, bending to pick up the stick I’d thrown. “And I don’t want to hurt Henry, but more than that, I don’t want anyone to hurt you, either. You have a choice. A choice, Kate, that no one else is pointing out to you because they don’t see what Henry’s doing to you. He’s hurting you, and there’s no guarantee it’s ever going to get better.”

His words were a slap in the face, and I choked on my reply. He was saying everything I didn’t want to hear. Everything I was trying so desperately to ignore.

“It will get better,” I said shakily, fury rising up inside of me until I could taste it. “As soon as he understands that I have no interest in ever being with you, I’m sure he’ll come around.”

To my immense satisfaction, James winced. “Believe what you want, but your deal with Henry is clear. He has you for six months, no more. You can do whatever you want during the summer, and he has no say in it.”

“That doesn’t give me the right to break his damn heart.” I stalked off toward camp. “And it doesn’t give you the right to try to make me. I can’t believe you, James. Out of all the nasty things to do, playing me like that—”

“I wasn’t playing anyone.” He hurried to catch up, and I refused to look at him. “I’m not doing this for fun, Kate. You’re the one who invited me to go to Greece, and I said yes because I like spending time with you. And because I wanted to help you see what you’d be missing if you decided to come back. You can’t yell at me for that—I behaved. No matter how badly I wanted to kiss you, I never did.”

“Don’t say that.” I spun around, and he came within inches of plowing into me. “I’m not Persephone. I’m not going to cheat on Henry no matter what season it is, and I don’t care how much time passes. That isn’t going to change.”

“What if things never get better?” said James. “What if Henry never loves you the way you deserve? What happened to Persephone…I don’t want to see you repeat her mistakes. You shouldn’t have to go through that kind of pain—you or Henry both. He’s set in his ways, and he’s never going to change. There’s no shame in admitting your marriage isn’t working—”

“Just because we have some problems doesn’t mean it isn’t working.”

He sighed. “All I’m saying is that you have a choice, Kate. Understand that, please, and don’t go running in the direction of Henry because you think you can fix him.”

“I’m not,” I snarled. “I’m with him because I love him.”

“Then it shouldn’t be too hard for you to make me a promise,” said James. He was crazy if he thought I was going to promise him anything though. “Think about the possibility of living your own life instead of the life Henry and the rest of the council want you to live—and I don’t mean consider it for half a second. I mean imagine what it’ll be like if Henry never loves you like you love him. Imagine how it’ll feel coming home to a cold bed and a husband who would rather do anything else than spend time with you. Because like it or not, if you stay, that’s a possibility. And in return, I’ll stop badgering you.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to go screw himself, but nothing came out. Instead my eyes welled up, and before I could stop myself, words flew from my tongue, tangled and thick and completely out of my control. “You really think it’ll be like that? You think he doesn’t love me?”

James pursed his lips and reached out to touch me, but I pulled back. “He loves you, but yes, it’s a possibility he’ll never be there for you the way you want him to be. There’s a risk that this time around, you’d be Henry and he would be Persephone.”

So I would be the one left yearning for someone who didn’t want me. I wanted to snap and tell James how wrong he was, that I had a pocketful of flowers to prove it, but I couldn’t. Henry could send me enough presents to fill the Underworld a hundred times over, and it would never be a substitute for his touch. For the feel of his arms wrapped around me like Adonis had wrapped his around Persephone.

“All I’m asking is that you really think about whether or not this is the life you want,” said James softly. “If you decide you’d rather not, no one can force you. And I’m not asking that you spend your life with me, either. I just don’t want you to be tied down to someone who doesn’t appreciate you the way you deserve to be. You should be the one in control of your destiny, Kate, not any of us. And especially not Henry.”

I clutched my pile of sticks to my chest and said around the lump in my throat, “Okay. I’ll think about it. But—stop talking like that, okay? Please. Not when Henry isn’t here to defend himself.”

James nodded once, and that was enough for me. Taking a shuddering breath, I pulled myself together and squared my shoulders. Henry would have a fair shot. He would have a chance to prove James wrong, and when he did, James’s argument would be obliterated. And everything would be all right again.

“Did you at least tell Henry nothing happened in Greece?” I said, pleased the edge in my voice was back. I could break down another time.

His silence was all I needed to hear. With a muted screech, I stormed back toward camp, ignoring the string of apologies James spilled behind me.

As long as Henry wanted me, I would remain faithful. But if he didn’t, if this life together was a chain to him, then the best thing I could do was set him free. At the same time, my mother’s expectations were a heavy burden for me to carry, and thousands of years was a long time to love a single person; it was entirely possible that Henry had the same reservations that held him back. And if he really did believe that James and I had become involved during our trip to Greece, then that was the first thing I’d have to set right the moment I had a chance.

Either way, I loved Henry. Maybe one day he would believe that.

When I reached camp, I dropped my sticks into the center and sat heavily down on a tree stump. James trailed in after me, and once he’d arranged the kindling into another teepee, he started the fire. It would be impossible to sleep with the sounds of the carnival in the background, but Persephone didn’t seem to need it, either. Another advantage of dying, I supposed.