"I ought to lock you up in Tartarus," his father had threatened once, but Zagreus had hardly entertained the thought that he actually would.

But it seemed with his latest run getting him closer to the surface than ever, before Hades' hand cut his escape short, that the Lord of the Dead had panicked. In the moment between his death and when he should have woken from the Styx, sopping with blood, there was a wrenching sensation as the world tilted around Zagreus. When his vision righted itself, the prince found himself in a solitary cell, dark and quiet, far away from the House and anyone who could help.

His father stood on the other side of the bars. He did not look down on his son, but was half-turned away, his profile unreadable and seeming to be carved from the stone that surrounded them. Groaning at the sudden, unwelcome change of scenery, Zagreus nursed a newfound headache before standing to face him.

"You can't keep me here forever, Father," he finally said.

"This will not be forever, boy," Hades rumbled. "Just until you cease this foolishness of trying to escape."

"In that case you'll be disappointed," Zagreus bit out, and his father seemed to smirk.

"As the mortals have learned, I have an eternity to wait. You'd do well to learn the same."

Without another word, Hades turned fully to leave.

"Wait, don't—" Zagreus cried, trying to dash towards him, but stumbling forward instead, falling to his knees. By the time he recovered Hades was gone, and Zagreus cursed. Whatever his father had done to get him here, it seemed to have cut him off from the Mirror of Night and its benefits, and he knew he wouldn't find any Olympian Boons lying around. A quick self-inspection turned up no weapons, which wasn't too surprising, and no keepsakes or other amenities, which grated on his spirit.

Still, it could be worse, he thought as he inspected his surroundings—the dingy cell at least had a bed, and he wasn't chained to a boulder like Sisyphus. Zagreus tested the bars and found them as unyielding as his father claimed his domain was, then fiddled with the lock to see if it was a trick and the door would swing right open. To his consternation, the cell door remained shut, and Zagreus let out a heavy sigh as he considered his predicament.

"I guess he was serious about there being no escape," he muttered. "Never thought he'd go this far, though I probably should have. Well," he said to the darkness around him. "Guess I'll prove Father wrong on this account too."

Zagreus paced his cell restlessly, inspecting every inch of the walls, ceiling, and floor surrounding him. Made of thick stone, they easily resisted his attempts to dent or even scratch them, and when he managed to chisel a bit off a wall, the prince was dismayed to find the tiny mark repairing itself. Clearly, Daedalus had gone all-out in designing this prison, no doubt to Hades' exact specifications.

When no immediate way out presented itself to him, Zagreus turned to the stone bed. It lacked a pillow and blanket, which was fine by him since he didn't plan on using it. Unfortunately, Zagreus was no Heracles, and it was immovable no matter what he tried. Finally he checked under the bed and found something of interest—what seemed to be crumpled parchment. Zagreus reached under and managed to grasp it, and upon unfolding the paper his brow wrinkled in confusion at first; it looked like music notes, which he couldn't read. Then, in an instant, he understood.

"Guess Orpheus must have been here before me," Zagreus said, and upon inspecting the paper more closely he saw the notes were written in what looked like ink. "At least they gave him something to write with. Father gave me nothing, as usual."

Abandoning his search of the cell itself, he leaned out as far as the bars would allow him to inspect the surrounding areas. He couldn't see much from his position, but what he could see was dark, gloomy, and a little cold—the halls of Tartarus, for the eternally punished.

He understood what his father was doing, sending him here; Orpheus's stint in solitary was punishment for refusal to sing, but this was meant to wear him down, make him pliable and obedient. Zagreus had to admit he couldn't think of much better ways to do it than by cutting him off from family and friends, from the shards of hope at the thought of finding Persephone that, until minutes ago, had only grown larger over time.

Above all, Zagreus still didn't fully understand why his father was dead-set against him finding his mother. And if he couldn't get out of here, get back to escaping the Underworld as a whole, he never would.


There was no sense of time in the Underworld, at least not in the same way mortals calculated it. When Zagreus had commissioned a sundial it was eternally 7:48 despite his best efforts, and he'd learned belatedly that to work properly, a sundial needed a sun. Still, what he wouldn't give for the odd time-displaying device, if only as a welcome distraction from nothing.

Hades visited him once, and Zagreus, defiant, folded his arms and refused to say a word. After a moment of staring, his father had withdrawn just as quickly, leaving him to the dark.

In the meantime Zagreus continued poking and prodding at his confines, and while his efforts got him nowhere, it was at least something to do—he felt the need to be active almost like breathing, and for all his father had said there was no escape, he refused to concede until he knew for sure. Gradually, another thought came to mind. If he couldn't get out, he'd hold out hope for a rescue.

He had no idea how long he'd been down here, but he hoped it was long enough that those in the House were beginning to notice his prolonged absence. Even if Nyx were cut off from him, surely Chaos knew, or perhaps there was a new Fated Prophecy related to rescuing the Underworld's wayward son. Maybe, he even thought with a chuckle, Lord Hades himself would see reason and let him go, no harm (mostly) done.

Whatever happened, he hoped it was soon—his grasp on time was already loose, and Zagreus felt stifled in ways he hadn't since before his escape attempts began. He'd felt imprisoned then, he remembered, stuck with a job he hated and wasn't good at, and with no way to earn his father's respect. But even then, he'd had Achilles to confide in, Hypnos to joke with, Nyx to lend a sheltering hand. Here he had nothing and no one but himself for company; here, thrown in a cell, he was truly imprisoned.

Zagreus idly wondered how Orpheus had survived his stay in solitary. It had been quite some time before he'd managed to earn the diamond necessary to free him, but the court musician had seemed none worse for the wear, if relieved to be in the House once more. Perhaps he was too broken over Eurydice to dwell on his own state, or perhaps he'd let his consciousness go and drifted into dreams, only waking when sleep was impossible. He'd found more scattered music littered about the cell, so he knew Orpheus had kept busy to some degree trying and failing to compose. Maybe mortals handled stress differently than gods and demigods, even in death—Zagreus didn't know.

But he did know one thing.

He couldn't last down here, all alone.


In time, fear began to gnaw at him. How long had it been since he'd been cast down here? How long had it been since he'd last seen anyone? Blood and darkness, he'd even welcome his father's presence at this rate. At least that would be something to break this monotony.

Zagreus, by this point, had taken to counting—counting the number of steps from one end of the cell to the other, then the steps it took to make the trip backwards, and counting the number of seconds it took for any damage to the walls, floor, and ceiling to repair itself. He had taken up talking to himself, out loud more than not, if only to hear a voice break the silence. Once he had even tried singing, though it pained him to note he was no Orpheus when it came to lyrics.

After several imaginary chat sessions with his father, during which he tried and failed to convince even himself that he'd given up and should be let out, Zagreus resigned himself to his fate. He was just about to sit on the bed and try for sleep when the cell door swung open and his father approached, looking as contrite as it was possible for a Lord of the Dead to look.

"Father," Zagreus said. "Come to gloat at your prisoner?"

"Hardly," Hades returned. "I'm letting you go."

Zagreus blinked; of all the reasons that had presented itself to him for his father's visit, he had ranked this one at the lowest.

"Let me guess—you suffered the full fury of Nyx's wrath that even Lord Uncle Zeus was careful to avoid when Hypnos put him to sleep that one time. Achilles told me all about it," he added, remembering well the old tale.

Ordinarily Hades would have bristled at the mention of his brother, so the fact that he didn't made Zagreus guess he wasn't far off the mark. His father gave a grunt in response and took him by the arm, and before Zagreus could blink the world tilted again. When it righted itself he was in front of the River Styx, surrounded by all the denizens of the House. Mother Nyx stood closest of all, her features stern but pleased with the outcome, and Zagreus was never quite as conscious of the Night's power as he was now.

"Welcome home, child," she said, and drew Zagreus in for a hug. "Your father has seen reason, and has sworn by the Styx to never lock you or anyone else dear to you away in such a manner again."

Zagreus started at the thought of someone else being imprisoned in his stead, and was grateful she'd thought of it before Hades could force her hand.

"Should he break such a vow, years of silence await him," Nyx continued. "But this outcome was not reached by my doing alone. As vast as my powers are, it would not have been possible to both free you without cost and ensure his cooperation in future matters without help."

"We all pitched in, lad," Achilles said from the far end of the room. "Master Chaos alerted Nyx on one of her visits—apparently they missed your company, which is quite the honor—and once we all learned what happened…"

"We all got to work! Or, well, we all got to not working," Dusa chirped, floating freely around the hall. "We basically all went on strike until he gave in! Oh, Prince, I'm so glad you're back! Now I can start cleaning again!"

Zagreus was amazed at the amount of self-control it must have taken Dusa to not clean anything, and before he could respond he was nearly bowled over by an overjoyed Cerberus, who gave him plentiful licks from all three heads before settling down, putting a careful distance between him and Hades. "Good to see you too, boy. Hope you didn't trash the lounge again while I was indisposed," he said, giving the dog a scratch between one set of ears.

"He thought about it," Thanatos said, "but I had a better idea in mind. Now your father knows as well as I do what happens if I stop working, and as much as it would grate on Lord Ares if I took a vacation, the world needs Death to keep running, and we need to avoid a war with Olympus. So I borrowed the freshest Satyr sacks from the Temple that I could, and stuffed them all in front of your father's room."

Zagreus grinned, imagining the mess that would have made, before Hypnos chimed in. "But it gets even better! Turns out your father was in his room at the time, taking one of his rare breaks from work—okay, maybe he had a little nap courtesy of me—so until Cerberus was completely satisfied, he couldn't get out!"

"Who'd have thought locking Lord Hades in his room would be for the good of the House," added Meg, who was sipping at some nectar. "Things just weren't the same here without you, Zag, and your father knows that now too. I have to say, it was pretty amusing to hear him yelling at the dog from the other side of the door, especially since Cerberus ended up falling asleep."

At that Zagreus burst out laughing. "Please tell me Orpheus made a song about it. With a story like that I'm almost glad he locked me up."

"I did, indeed," came Orpheus's voice from the back. "Fortunately, I refused to sing until your return, so you can all hear it now, for the first time! That is—when you're ready, Prince Zagreus."

"After weeks of nothing a song would be just the thing to cheer me," the Prince of Hades said, and in due time the House of Hades was filled with song once more.

Soon after, from the direction of Zagreus's room came a piercing cry. "Hey! Helloooo!? Is anyone going to tell me what happened or am I going to have to move from my spot!? Please tell me the boyo's back before this skeleton gets angry!"

"Oh no, that must be Skelly," Dusa cried. "I'm on it, Prince," she chirped, floating down the hallway to let him know. Zagreus laughed; he had the feeling they'd forgotten someone. It was good to know the skeleton had his back too.

With Hades' binding vow to the Styx preventing him from taking such drastic measures again, Zagreus felt hopeful for the first time since he'd been imprisoned, and equally grateful for his friends looking out for him. Someday, he knew, he'd find his mother and learn what had gotten his father so desperate as to lock him up.

But for now he'd simply enjoy the company of those that loved him, and those he loved. Even when separated, Zagreus realized he'd never been truly alone.