“I don’t need protecting.” I was crying in earnest now, and my throat was thick and my voice strangled, but I kept going. “I need to know I’m not going to be miserable for the rest of my life.”

“I should not be your only source of happiness,” said Henry stiffly. “If that is so—”

“It isn’t. You’re not. I have my mother and Ava and—”

“James,” he finished for me, and I wanted to tell him he was wrong, but I didn’t want to lie to him. James was my best friend. “Yes, I am aware. I will not give you an excuse to leave. If you wish to do so, then there is the door. I am sure James will be happy to have you all to himself. Now, if you will excuse me, I have preparations to make.”

I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove his assumptions, but his last words caught me off-guard. “Preparations for what? What’s so important that you have to leave when we’re in the middle of this?”

“My apologies,” he said coolly. “I thought you had already made your decision to abandon me.”

I snatched a pillow from behind me and hurled it at him. Without moving an inch, he deflected it before it was halfway to him. “You’re a jerk,” I snapped. “If this is how you treated Persephone, then you know what? I don’t blame her for leaving you. In fact, she was an idiot for waiting so long.”

Unspeakable agony flashed across Henry’s face, and I clapped my hand over my mouth the moment I realized what I’d said. “Oh, god, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Yes, you did,” he said. “You meant every word.”

I buried my face in my hands and stifled a hiccupping sob. My lungs burned, and all I wanted to do was curl up on the bed and cry, but I couldn’t. Not when Henry was here. Not when he was finally talking to me. “I hate this,” I whispered. “I hate fighting with you. I’m not asking for the moon and the stars, I promise. I just want you to love me, to want me, to spend time with me, to talk to me.”

“And you expect to achieve that by behaving like this?” he said. “You believe that saying such things to me will somehow make me forget the eons I have already lived?”

“As opposed to what? Not saying anything at all? I’ve tried giving you time. I’ve tried risking my life to save yours. I’ve tried everything I can think of, but when you won’t even talk to me—”

“Henry.”

I looked up at the sound of Walter’s voice. He stuck his head in the door, and as he focused on Henry, he pointedly ignored me. I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or offended.

“We are about to begin,” he said, and Henry nodded tersely. As soon as the door shut, Henry released a breath as if he’d been holding it for centuries.

“We may continue this later, if you wish, but I must go now. We are planning for the battle.” He hesitated. “Titans are strongest on the solstices, and we expect Cronus will escape completely sometime in late December, so there is not much time.”

I closed my eyes. If I hadn’t been stupid enough to sneak into the cavern, Persephone would have handled things, and none of this would be happening. “Would you mind if I took a day or two before I left? I want to say goodbye to everyone.”

At first Henry said nothing, but finally he nodded. “Take as long as you need.”

He was halfway out the door when I blurted, “Can I visit you sometime?”

In the moment it took him to turn to face me again, I thought I saw a hint of a smile, but it was gone before I could be sure. “Whatever happens between us, Kate, I will always want to be your friend. It—” He paused. “It is more than I have had before.”

More than what Persephone had given him. That brought me a small amount of comfort, though the distance in his voice kept me from smiling. “I’ll come see you sometime.”

“Then I will do what I can to ensure that you will not come back to an empty palace.”

“I— What?” He thought he wasn’t coming back? Or was he going to fade? Die in battle with Cronus? Did it even matter? “Henry, what do you—”

Before I could finish, thunder rumbled in the room, and Henry blinked out of sight, leaving me alone with fear and questions with no answers. I hurried to the door and threw it open, hoping in vain he’d be there, but I was alone.

It was over.

Chapter Sixteen

Battlefield

Henry didn’t come back after the meeting ended.

I stayed in our bedroom all day as I waited for him, preparing what I was going to say over and over again in my head, but nothing sounded right. Demanding the things I wanted from him—needed from him—wouldn’t fix anything. He had to decide to change; to work on this with me. To treat me like an equal and do whatever it took to keep our relationship alive. I couldn’t do it for him, and no amount of pressure was going to help. If anything, it would drive him away.

However, short of a miracle, I was leaving. I’d set aside the clothes I was going to bring with me, and all day I thought about what I was going to do and where I was going to go. I didn’t know anyone else on the surface, and I had no idea how the others lived. Did they have homes like Henry did? Did Mount Olympus really exist? Did they have mortals they loved and stopped in to see every few years?

Part of the reason I wanted to delay my trip was to give Henry the chance to realize what had gone wrong between us, along with the opportunity to fix it. We wouldn’t be perfect in a day, I knew that, but there was a chance he would try. In the end, that was all I really wanted.

However, the other reason I was delaying was simply because I didn’t know what to do. I could ask my mother, I supposed, or James or Ava, but they were planning their strategy to survive a battle with a Titan, and the last thing they needed was something else to worry about. I wasn’t going to abandon the council and walk away from my immortal life, but I didn’t know where to go or how to get there, and for now that was a good enough excuse to stay put.

The day passed slowly. Every time I heard footsteps in the hallway, I held my breath and waited for the door to open, but it was never Henry. My mother checked on me twice, once after the meeting to tell me she would be scarce while helping the others set the trap for Cronus, and the second time to wish me good-night. With each hour that passed, my heart sank a little more, and finally I gave up hope of seeing Henry that night.

I wasn’t tired, but Pogo was. He curled up on the pillow beside me and snored while I stared up at the ceiling and tried to picture how this would end. Would Henry say goodbye? Would he really want me to visit him? Would the other gods ignore me? My mother wouldn’t, and I could count on seeing Ava whenever she grew bored or lonely, but the others—even James I wasn’t sure about, unless he decided to pursue me once I was no longer married. Would I let him? I didn’t know, and I hated myself for my uncertainty. For even thinking about hurting Henry like that, whether we were still together or not.

Well past midnight, the crushing weight of reality set in. Once I left the Underworld, I would likely never see Henry again. I wouldn’t be in his realm and easily accessible, like Persephone was, and I was certain he would never come looking for me. No matter how many promises he made to allow me to visit, the best I could hope for was seeing him at council meetings—if he didn’t decide to fade anyway.

I sobbed softly into my pillow. Everything I’d done since first entering Eden Manor had been to prevent this from happening. I’d done everything I could to save my mother and Ava from death, before I’d known they were goddesses, but while I had failed them both, I hadn’t failed Henry. He still existed because of me, because I loved him, because I’d married him and agreed to rule the Underworld with him. And now I was taking that away from him.