As they traveled through the shadows, Persephone held her husband close, and her hold only grew tighter as she began to feel his body tremble. A feverish heat radiated off his skin, though his clothes were wet and freezing, and he groaned, pressing himself closer to her. Before her eyes, the shadows parted, and the piercing sound of a dish breaking reverberated around her.

"Fates, Thanatos, how many times do I have to tell you that I don't like you sneaking up on me through the shad—wait…Persephone...? It's—it's really you! He...he did it..." A melodic voice, that one; a handsome singer's voice. Persephone felt a smile tug at her lips; their small retinue had evidently shadow-walked into Apollo's kitchen while he was making breakfast.

"Phoebus," Persephone greeted, slowly taking in the odd image of her half-brother. He was wearing an open bathrobe, bright red boxers, and a pair of...plushie deer slippers? She arched a brow. "You're looking well." Beyond that, he still looked very much the same as he had since she'd last seen him: golden haired and beardless, with sun-kissed skin, and the eternally youthful face he'd mistakenly believed would win over her affection, all those years ago.

"Thank you," he said. "You...you as well, sister."

Hades groaned once more against her and her gaze shifted down. Dawn's warm, morning light was beginning to peek through the windows, and Persephone could see that Hades' skin was flushed, with beads of sweat beginning to form on his forehead. Suddenly, Apollo was next to her, his lips pursed. After a long moment, Apollo sighed. "Ixion's wheel," he cursed, "is he trying to kill himself?"

A bird cawed. "His sister, more like. Hail, Far-Striker," Odin said, taking off his hat.

"All Father," Apollo said, nodding his head in the direction of the old man. "Seems I ought to have prepared for guests."

Thanatos stood next to her. She could sense that his gray eyes were gazing down at her husband with deep concern. "You're the only other active god in the city that I know. And Lord Hades is—"

Suddenly and violently, Hades began to convulse in her arms, and she felt his great weight being lifted from her embrace by Apollo wordlessly. She watched then, paralyzed, as her husband's body went rigid on the dining table where Apollo placed him; she swallowed the immense pain in her throat as she saw his back arch and his legs spasm. She couldn't speak; she felt like a young woman again. She was Stella Porter, helplessly watching the man she shouldn't love get gunned down in front of her like a dog.

A heavy, familiar hand pressed onto her shoulder. "My lady…"

She found her voice. "What's happening to him, Thanatos?" She ground her teeth together, feeling tears well at the edges of her eyes. Her voice sounded broken, but she could speak.

"I don't know—"

"It's just a seizure," Apollo answered, placing a pillow underneath her husband's head. "All we can do now is wait for it to let him go."

"Seizure?" Odin asked, taking a seat at one of the kitchen island barstools. He plucked out his glass eye and wiped it down with a handkerchief, before popping it back into his head. Persephone tried not to grimace. "Seems rather odd that a god of your uncle's prominence and strength would fall victim to such a thing, even after shortly waking—"

Next to her, Thanatos exhaled. "It's a...long, complicated story, Odin."

"Suffice it to say, too much Ambrosia and trauma over a short period of time," Apollo finished.

All the while, her husband continued to convulse. Foam started forming at the edges of his mouth, and Persephone tore her eyes away from him, unable to look any longer. She cried out, clutching her chest; she could still hear him wheezing. Thanatos' arm curled around her shoulder, pulling her into an overly-familiar embrace. Overwhelmed, she allowed it. "My lady, Hypnos gave me his blessing to help you sleep...if you'd like to, I could—"

Darkness surged into the room, engulfing the early morning light of Dawn. "Dammit, uncle, you're going to bite your tongue—"

One of Odin's birds squawked, and the sound made the hair on the back of Persephone's neck stand on end. "We need to wake him up," Odin said, whistling. "He's releasing too much power; he'll lead the horde right to us."

Persephone gasped as a tendril of smoke and shadow burned across her skin and swept through her hair. From the shadow's dark touch, she could hear and feel Hades' thoughts: Zagreus, Zagreus, Zagreus, over and over again, and the agony and rage she felt behind the mantra of their son's name made her tremble. The fury she had seen within him earlier was burning, fiercer than ever, charring him from the inside out. Reaching into the smoke that surrounded her, Persephone sent forth a spark of her power, in an effort to soothe him, and she hissed as she felt his rage only burn hotter in response. The apartment groaned; the overhead light fixture swayed; and Dawn's light turned into ash and shadow within the room. Hades, she begged, turning back to face him, my lovestop this.

"Uncle! "

Hades' back arched and then slammed down hard onto the table, whereupon his eyes opened and the darkness in the room returned to him. She saw the uneasy rise and fall of his chest and began to walk towards him. "My lady…" Thanatos warned, his tone uneasy. She pulled away from Death, and he did not dare to hold her back.

Abruptly, Hades sat up, swaying slightly as he moved. "Where...where is my son?" he asked, his words coming out rough and slurred. "Where...is Zagreus?"

Persephone heard Death gulp loudly behind her. "At home, Lord, in the Underworld, where it is safest for him—"

On shaking legs, her husband stood, and the fire burning in his eyes frightened her. She reached a hesitant hand out to him, beckoning him to come back to her, to stop running; to stop hiding. "Aidoneus, my love, please..."

"Thanatos," he hissed, looking past her, towards Death. "Have you known this entire time?"

There was a dark challenge in her husband's ask, as if he already knew the answer. Death sighed, gentle and despondent. Persephone looked between the two gods—the two men—Death and his Master, and fear gripped her.

"The boy is no king, my lord," Thanatos said, his gray eyes solemn and downturned. "He knew what bringing you and Queen Persephone back would ultimately mean for himself, and he's embraced it—"

In an instance of savage ferocity she had never before witnessed in her husband, Persephone watched as Hades launched himself across the room at Thanatos, piercing Death in the heart with his black blade, Stygius. "Hades! " she shouted, aghast. He did not turn to look at her, and she could feel the oppressive force of his rage pulse off him in burning waves. Next to her, Apollo crouched, hiding behind his small sofa.

Forced to his knees, Death grabbed the handle of Stygius, attempting to push it out, but Hades held the sword firmly in place. "My lord…please..." Thanatos wheezed, coughing up ichor. "The...Olympians…" cough, "are...needed. You...are...nee—ack! "

"I am not an Olympian," Hades said, twisting his sword. It was sadistic; it made her sick. Beloved, what have you become? she wondered, feeling unmoored and lost. Thanatos cried out as Hades twisted Stygius once more and, snapping out of her trance, Persephone rushed forward. I will not see you fall like this, she thought. Quickly, she grabbed Hades forcefully by the waist, startling him, and pulled him rearward until he fell back on her against Apollo's leather sofa. In the commotion, she could hear one of Odin's infernal birds cawing.

"Let me go," Hades snarled, gnashing his teeth and kicking out his feet. She placed her palm over his chest, feeling the wild, panicked beating of his heart, and pushed her power into him. "My love," she told him, whispering into his ear. "My love, my love…" Still, her husband writhed and protested, attempting to send out flames of smoke and shadow—and wailing, forlorn, when he found that he no longer had the strength for it. "My love, I am here. Do not carry this burden alone. I am here." Hades' chest rose and fell raggedly, and she could feel his fingers twist into the fabric of her clothes, pulling on her tightly.

"Our son is dying," he gasped, turning his head back and forth. She held him and locked eyes with Thanatos, who nodded stiffly in response as he clutched his wound. Zagreus, Persephone thought, blinking away hot tears. Their beautiful son. "After...everything—everything I've done," Hades wheezed, still struggling against her grip, "he will burn into smoke and ash." The anger she felt in him boiled and twisted, morphing into grief, and she kissed his temple, trembling as she let his emotions envelop and overtake her for the briefest of moments. Grief, anger, rage, guilt: they were scalding and overwhelming, and Persephone shuddered at the knowledge that this was how he felt, every moment of every day. It was a poison, and he was being consumed by it, utterly and completely. Hades...

"Is there anything we can do?" she asked, pressing more of her power into him, as soothing a balm as she could make. He shuddered and groaned, and she felt his feverish hand clasp the top of the one she had placed on his chest, entwining their fingers. She pressed her head against his; he was trying. Through the rage that ate away at him, twisting him into someone she barely recognized—he was trying.

"No, my lady," Thanatos said, moving to sit next to them on the floor. From the corner of her eye, she could see Apollo and Odin watching the three of them warily. "It is the nature of the pact. Lord Hades exchanged his life for your son's; thus, he cannot regain his life without your son's being taken—"

Hades cried out in her arms, a wretched shriek of agony that tore from his throat and left her shaken. Persephone swallowed hard; she could not follow him into this abyss, no matter how much she wanted to join him in his grief. She had been there before, and its dark road had only served to lead them here. She shut her eyes, kissing his head. She would be his lifeline instead; she would not—could not—let him drown in despair. She felt something wet fall onto her arm, and she knew then that he was weeping, and that knowledge alone nearly broke her resolve. Thanatos continued, "Zagreus still lives, but he's grown steadily weaker, and will only continue to do so as—"

"I understand," she said, her voice coming out much sharper than she'd intended. She sighed, opening her eyes and softening her tone: "We will need to see him, before…"

Thanatos peered at her, uncertain. His gray eyes darted down to Hades—who had calmed, but whose breathing still rattled from his throat, unsteady—and then back to her, and she could see both remorse and shame haunting him. "Of course, my lady. When you and his lordship are…ready."

Dawn's warm, soothing light gently illuminated the room, and against her palm, Hades' heart beat strong...and frantic. "Breathe with me," she said, whispering into his ear.

"W-what?" he asked, coughing. And, Fates: his voice sounded different then, like a mortal man's, like Logan's, and she held him tight, because as Stella Porter, she had watched him die. "Breathe with me, Hades," she told him, pulling their entwined hands up to her mouth. She kissed his knuckles, felt him nod and faintly say, "...Okay." She inhaled slowly, and he followed her, held his breath with her, exhaled with her. She repeated the motion, again and again, blocking out the low murmur of voices coming from Thanatos and Odin and Apollo. "...Now, beloved," she said, keeping her voice low so that only he could hear, "we will save him."

He shuddered, wrapping their entwined hands with smoke and shadow, and she felt the power in his touch. How? the darkness asked her. She did not know the answer to that yet, but their son was still alive—and she intended to keep him that way. "Together," she said, kissing his cheek as his breathing finally began to steady. His racing thoughts flowed through her: the pact, the Fates, Ananke

"Yes. And you and I, Aidoneus," she told him, holding him close as he shivered. "United."

Persephone felt him squeeze her hand gently. Her lover's touch, familiar, yet changed. "Together, then," he said, speaking softly. His words were for her, and only for her. She shut her eyes, kissing the top of his head as she felt the warm rays of the sun caress their skin. It was a new morning, and they had found each other: she would never let go of him again...or their son.