It all started with a little bet (it always started with a little bet).

There was a party over at Dionysus' place, but Hades wasn't drunk. It would have been less embarrassing if he was, like the time Hephaestus made that bet with Poseidon that he could design a ship the sea god could never sink. The Titanic had looked so good on paper.

In fact, that was what they were discussing. Aphrodite (who said she was trying to make Hephaestus feel better, but Hades thought she was just trying to rub salt in his wounds) had inspired more love stories than a mortal could count about the tragic ship going down. Artemis (who didn't mind love stories so long as everyone died in the end) had added a song about it to the list of ones Maidens of the Forest sang while conducting rituals honoring her in the woods (more popular than Pink Pajamas but not as well loved as The Song That Never Ends). The party had gotten to the point where Apollo and the Muses were singing it and encouraging everyone to join in. Hephaestus sat in the corner pretending he couldn't hear a word of it.

"Oh, it was sad,

So sad!

It was sad,

Too bad!

It was sad when the great ship went down!

To the bottom of the sea.

Husbands and wives and children lost their lives.

Oh, it was sad when the great ship went down!"

Hephaestus sat in the corner pretending he couldn't hear a word of it.

Zeus and Hades were chuckling over the whole thing and discussing the latest romance Aphrodite had gotten one of her followers to write and all the problems with the plot. That led to talking about improbable romances in general, and that led to the bet.

"Five bucks," Zeus said (while male deer were generally sacred to Artemis, Zeus had a few sacred herds of his own). "Five bucks says you can't do it."

"Let me see if I've got this. I have to find a woman who's incapable of loving anyone but herself, right?"

"The most narcissistic soul since the original drowned in the fountain."

"And I've got to convince her she not only loves me but that we have true love? And that I'm under a curse only she can break?"

"That you're a god and under a curse. And not just any god. You can fudge a bit and let her think you're me or Poseidon, but she has to know you're one of the top three. Then, when she kisses you, she has to give you the opposite of true love, the anti-true love kiss, but she has to be believing it's true love while she does it."

"I hate to steal your sacred animals, bro. This will be like taking candy from a baby. Watch the master at work."

Sometime later, the brothers were back on Olympus.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA!" Zeus was laughing so hard, tears were pouring down his face. "That was hilarious! You should have seen the look on your face! Oh, wait, you can see it. I put the whole thing on dieutube. You've gone viral, brother!"

Hades gritted his teeth. It had all been going so well. The bicycle had been a brilliant touch, if he did say so himself. A chance meeting, a bike ride through the moonlit woods, it had been like shooting fish in a barrel. Or, that's what he'd thought.

He remembered what one of the wiser mortals had said on the subject. A sucker bet. . . . A bet that is reserved for suckers. For a gambler to get sucked in on such a bet is most humiliating. But to lose it means that you are marked for a very long time as a chump. You must go all out to win it. . . . Among my people, being a chump is like losing your citizenship.

If Hades didn't do something about it now, he was going to be like Hephaestus, standing in corners pretending he was just fascinated by the latest article in Handyman's Weekly while Apollo was singing to the whole world about how stupid he'd been. And what was a Death God without respect? Even a world war—even two world wars— might not be enough to get people taking him seriously again.

"Double or nothing," Hades said.

"What?"

"Double or nothing. My mistake was I moved too fast. Give me another try. Double or nothing says I can do it."

Zeus looked virtuous. "I hate to steal your sacred animals, bro." (Hades had lots of sacred animals. Most of them were undead and the stuff of nightmares, but there were a lot of them).

"Triple. Unless you're scared?"

Hades smiled smugly as he finished kissing Zelena (although he was already thinking of making a few offerings at the altars of the god of mouthwash. Who was that, anyway?). Being a god, he didn't even need to snap his fingers to make time stop.

"Hey, Zeus, did you see that? Impressed, yet? Admit it, you didn't think I could do it."

"I didn't think anyone could do it," Zeus said. "Not in a million years."

"I know. Am I good or am I good?"

"You were great. I never thought you'd go through with it. I mean, true love! You had her completely taken in! And, now, you're stuck with her. Forever."

"Forever? What are you talking about?"

"True love. You convinced the mortal you have true love. You know what that means."

"What do you mean? People lie about true love all the time. Look at the blonde over there," he said, pointing to Emma. "She's got a boyfriend who's as bad as Zelena. Two weeks ago, he got peeved and tried to murder her whole family. She's so co-dependent, she dragged all of them down here to get him back. He's done nothing but whine they aren't rescuing him fast enough and tell her how much better everyone and his brother are than her, and she still thinks that's true love."

"Sure," Zeus said. "Mortals lie about true love, especially to themselves. Gods are held to a higher standard."

"Excuse me? Did I swear by the River Styx? Did you hear me making any sacred oaths? I don't think so."

Zeus rolled his eyes. "You didn't have to. This is about true love. You think Aphrodite is just going to let this go? Or what about Hera? She's the goddess of marriages. You know how prickly she gets. You're stuck with Zelena for one mortal life time. If not longer."

Hades thought fast. "What if she dumps me?"

"Sorry?"

"I can't dump her. What if she dumps me?"

"You just convinced her you have true love. Are you going to unconvinced her? Because, if you do, I think somebody owes me fifteen bucks."

"The bet was convince her and get her to kiss me. Which she did."

"And, now, you're unconvincing her."

Hades would have argued, but he already saw his way around that one. "Fine, fine, I'll get her to dump me and let her go on believing we're still true love. Does that satisfy you?"

"Oh, right. Like that'll happen."

"Want to make a bet?"

"How much?"

Hades thought about it for a moment. He really had more than enough sacred deer. And the still alive kind were such a pain to take care of, more trouble than they were worth. But, there was one thing he did want. "Mortals aren't supposed to think they can just come dancing into the Underworld. I promised to let them go, but you haven't said anything. I get Zelena to dump me, you make the blonde pay for treating my kingdom as her personal tea party."

"There are rules, Hades. If you promised to let them go, you can't just have someone else punish them in your place. You know that."

"Did I say punish her? Be creative. Just make sure people know for generations to come she should have never gone waltzing in here." He grinned evilly. "Unless it's too hard. I mean, if you're scared. . . ."

"Don't even think it," Zeus said. "You get the mortal to dump you. I'll take care of the rest."

Like taking candy from a baby, Hades thought.

A few hours and a small pile of ashes later and he was back in the Underworld where he belonged.

"OK," Zeus said. "I'm impressed. How did you do that?"

"What, weren't you watching?"

"I saw it, but how did that happen? The woman's a narcissistic sociopath. Why did she even care if you were going to kill her sister?"

"Not kill her, destroy her soul—and don't pull another 'Oh, no! That was lying!' stunt on me. I'm the god of death. If I bend the truth a little about someone's afterlife, that's my business."

"Fair enough. But, why did she care?"

"Because she's a narcissistic sociopath. Zelena needs to know she's at the center of everyone's universe. She knew she was supposed to be at the center of mine. I told her we were true love and all that. But, she's got huge issues with her sister. It makes us and Dad look like a family sitcom—and he ate us. She used to just want to erase Regina from existence and recreate a new timeline where everyone loved and adored her. Now, she wants Regina to be the one who loves and adores her and tells everyone how awesome she is. When I got in the way of that, she didn't need me anymore. I just had to convince her there was a magic weapon she could blow me to ashes with and that I'd be dumb enough to let her take it from me."

"I see. So, what about killing Arthur? Or was that part of the plan?" Hades thought he heard a note of disapproval. He was the god of death, so it wasn't like anyone could say he was crossing a line when he made people dead. But, Zeus could get persnickety sometimes, especially when he was sober (Hades was tactfully not looking around to see if the dead Robin—who was really dead, even if the soul-destroyed thing was lie—was strangely absent from the afterlife and had already decided not to comment if a Robin who wasn't twenty-eight years older than the one who'd been frozen in the curse, suddenly popped up claiming to be from an alternate world or something like that).

"I just needed him to make sure someone up here got the message about the magic weapon. Not that that went quite the way it was supposed to. I thought the savior would make herself a little more useful than that—it's kind of in her job description. But, it all came together in the end. And nobody's going to be coming down here to get the thief back—" Hades pretended not to notice Zeus suddenly looking very innocent. Nope, the god of poker faces he was not, "— because they think his soul's been blown out of existence. It's all good. Now, it's time for you to do your part."

"Already taken care of. I sent the pirate back."

"You what? What kind of punishment is that?"

Zeus looked uncomfortable. "I'll be honest. I was going to let her off easy. You know, sic some furies on them, maybe some earth tremors till they do something to set things right, stuff that reminds people some things weren't meant to be done. So long as they're scared half-to-death about what almost happened, mortals don't worry as much about what did happen, right?"

"I think you're giving this bunch too much credit for thinking."

Zeus grimaced. "I know. This mortal, Emma Swan, walked in on a man trying to save the life of his wife and his unborn child, and she put a stop to it because she couldn't wait to talk to him. The woman was her son's step-grandmother. She didn't even ask what was going on!" He shook his head in disbelief.

Hades understood. If there was one thing any son of Cronus knew, it was that it was important to keep track of where your relatives were. Even mortals should be able to grasp that. "She's not really good at paying attention."

"I could see. I thought about siccing the furies on her. Not to kill her but to drive her insane and let everyone know what she'd done."

"Sounds fair," Hades said. The furies, after all, got to avenge crimes against family. Usually, they waited till people were dead (Hades had had to be quite firm with the ones that kept coming after Hook before he was done with him), but they rarely complained when they had a chance to go after the living. "But, you didn't do it?"

Zeus grinned evilly (privately, Hades had to admit, his brother's evil grin was . . . eviller than his. A lot eviller). "I had a better idea. A much better idea. I found that captain you had down here, Killian Jones, and I sent him back."

"You what?" It was one thing for Hades to look the other way when Zeus snuck a mortal out. But, telling him to his face? He couldn't believe it. "How does that fix things? He was the whole reason she came down here in the first place!"

"I know. That's the beauty of it. I told him, as a reward for stopping you, he got to go back."

"Again, how is that a punishment? Anyone's going to think they can just waltz down here and waltz out with whatever they want. I'm going to have to build a wall just to stop the tourists!"

Zeus sighed over his brother's stupidity. "You're not seeing it. Think it over. Emma Swan thinks they're true love. No matter how badly he treats her, no matter how unhealthy and codependent their relationship gets, she'd going to stick to him like glue. It's just what you asked for. If you want, I'll even tell the muses to inspire some epics about how bad the relationship gets. Maybe we can even have some true crime movies made out of it."

"Don't you need a crime for that to happen?"

"Give them time. Trust me, generations will know, if you take on the Lord of the Dead, you may get exactly what you wished for—and nothing is worse than that."

"Brother, you are one nasty deity."

"You know it. Now, go get your bowling ball. It's Tuesday, and we're playing Thor's team. And keep an eye on Loki. That guy cheats."

"How much do you have riding on this one?"

"Winner gets free drinks, and you know how Dionysus feels about that."