In the night-time, the face of the earth was coated in a darkness so complete that Hecate could well imagine herself in the confines of the Underworld.

When the goddess walked in Zeus's realm she was given a wide berth by mortals and immortals alike. She glowed a little like her sister the moon, a beautiful luminosity that clung to her white limbs and hid in the folds of her many skirts. Her dogs, her faithful companions, snuffled at her heels.

She walked boldly amongst the tombstones and down the shadow-ridden paths of the night, her whole body swinging and swaying her many folds of fabric as she increased her pace. Her silver jewellery jangled on her fingers, on her wrists and at her throat. Her headpiece twinkled in the reflected light of the stars. Hecate laughed freely out into the icy night air, rejoicing in her power and the quiet peace of the darkness. Wild abandon played in her eyes.

Her dogs howled.

She had visited Persephone that afternoon. The woman was thriving, particularly with the doting attention of her mother and her stomach was slowly attaining that characteristic roundness of a healthy pregnancy. They had spent the late hours of the day plotting the child's nursery and Hecate had filled her in on the realities of an immortal child.

"She won't be little for as long as human babies," Hecate had reminded her queen. "She will be a toddler for a few weeks, maybe, until the immortal soul begins to mature. She'll speed through her infancy. She'll take a few months to mature into adolescence and then… Who knows? If her essence is youthful she will stay that age forever, in her main manifestation at least."

Persephone had laughed and tenderly ran her hands over her belly. Her eyes had sparkled with a combination of nerves, devotion and excitement.

"I don't mind," Persephone had assured her. "We'll cherish it all."

The wanderlust had struck Hecate by the time the moon had risen and Persephone had decided on a restful evening alone with her mother. Hecate could never sit in one place for long anyway. There was a great deal of meaning behind the fact that she was goddess of the crossroads – she held keys to decide the way between a great turning point in a mortal's life and she was forever moving on, finding a new direction, seeking the open road.

So she had left. There were plenty of disgruntled spirits hanging around the graveyards that night, which she sent on their way. Hecate also warded a young woman returning home late who had prayed for protection from the goddess as she made quick progress through the narrow streets of her village. She would make it home safely that night; Hecate's magic would assure it.

Hecate was buoyant. A princess for the Underworld at last! Her friends would make outstanding parents. She giggled, imaging Hades trying to plait his daughter's hair and teach her to ride or introducing his daughter to his servants. She could easily picture Persephone as a mother, wonderful and nurturing, teaching her daughter the subtle beauty of both the darkness of the Underworld and the world above.

There was so much to be done! Hades was swamped in administration of his realm, worrying about the other items that could bind Thanatos on top of everything else. Hecate winced. She'd made one of those items herself and had voluntarily surrendered it to Hades after the little incident with that repellent mortal king. She grinned to herself to remember him forever shoving a rock up a hill for eternity. That puke deserved his punishment, when it was finally meted out to him.

So Hades was probably too caught up in ensuring the safety for the baby and the rest of his subjects to give proper consideration to plan for the baby's actual birth. Thankfully, Hecate would ensure that the poor babe was not neglected in her father's thoughts, especially since her mother was away.

Hecate was so caught up in imagining the little baby's throne and speculating who she would look more like that she ran into someone at the gates of the Underworld. She stopped short and her dogs growled softly at the body she'd bumped into.

"Sorry," Hecate spluttered. "I wasn't watching…"

Her apology disappeared when she recognised who she'd stumbled into. Her dogs raised their hackles and she did nothing to stop them.

The nymph Minthe stared at her with wide, disconcerting eyes. Hecate knew she'd been a lover of Hades hundreds of years ago for a short period of time, before Hades realised how far infatuated she was with him due to an arrow from Eros and commanded her to leave the Underworld when her duty was done. She'd been released from service and forcibly removed from his realm. Minthe was well-reputed to be pining eternally for Hades, whether he had been married or with someone else.

Now she was standing at the Gates while Persephone was away? Hecate didn't like it.

"My apologies, goddess," Minthe sank into a bow and her eyes widened in panic. "I should have moved."

"What are you doing here?" Hecate was straight to the point. The stupid immortal shouldn't have been able to step through the door to the Underworld of her own volition.

She was a beauty – Hecate could not lie about that. But she was a beauty in the same way that Persephone was a beauty and that grated at her. She had luscious, dark chocolate hair that fell in droves all the way down to her waist. A slim, rounded figure. Rosebud lips that parted to reveal her perfect smile. Those eyes, dark as the perfect night, full as a pregnant moon, that could swallow up even the most resolute of immortals.

Minthe kept her head bowed but Hecate detected the hint of smugness in her tone.

"I was sent to serve as punishment, my Lady, for sins in the realm above. I have offended the great almighty Zeus and he has decreed – "

"Zeus?" Hecate cut off her transparently false admittance of her shortcomings. "Zeus gave you your ticket back down here?" Hatred, hot and thick, swirled around her in a noticeable aura. Her dogs barred their impressive teeth at the nymph.

But Minthe was not perturbed. She appeared solemn, penitent and outwardly regretful.

"Hopefully this time I shall serve adequately and atone for my sins."

Hecate scowled. She barked an order to her animals and they snapped at her heels as she spun away, into the mist, away from the aggravating nymph.

She transported herself immediately to Hades. True to form, he was amongst the Dead Chronicles. She tapped angrily at the shut door and barely waited for his permission to enter. The King of the Underworld had his head bent low over some scroll and Hecate flicked the paper aside so he would focus.

"I do wish you'd be more careful," he admonished her. "This is important."

"Is it the list of new servants?" she fired back at him. "Because there's one name on there you'd recognise – Minthe."

Hades frowned in confusion.

"She completed her service several hundred years ago," he stared at Hecate's furious glower. "I had not ordered her to return."

"Well, she's back and knocking at your gates, my Lord." Hecate felt like slapping the stupid immortal over the head. He was still calm, observant – it was so much like Minthe's earlier reaction that she wanted to scream. "You might want to check who walks in and out of here."

"She has not approached me."

"Hades…"

"No, Hecate." Hades shook his solemn head and straightened the scroll so he could resume his perusal of it. "There is no discussion required over this matter. She will serve her time away from me. If she harasses me she will leave. It is a simple matter."

Hecate's eyebrows nearly flew from her face.

"A simple matter? Hades, your pregnant wife is sitting in the world above!" She gestured furiously to the ceiling. "How about how she feels when word gets back to her that your old mistress is back in town while she's out for a few months? If rumours start that you are not faithful to her…"

"What rumours? There are no rumours, Hecate. You can go directly and tell her yourself that there will be no issue –"

"That's not what people around here and up there will think…"

"Why?"

"Well, if Zeus and Poseidon are anything to go by-"

"I am not my brothers."

Hecate knew she'd crossed a line. Hades's voice had gone deathly quiet and sharper than any weapon forged in any realm. His eyes were like flint – dark and cold. He stared her down and she felt the shrinking sensation of the force of him, the untold power he had at his fingertips, which she often forgot about save when he drew these lines out for her.

Hecate felt the slim, icy finger of fear on her neck and swallowed.

"Hades… I know you, I'm not saying you are." She tried to sound reasonable. "But I'm trying to put out a fire before it starts here. I just spent the whole afternoon with Persephone talking about plans for your daughter. I don't want anything to go wrong for your baby, your wife and your new family… That's all."

"You honestly believe one nymph could accomplish anything like that?" Hades was flaky, still full of that rage and awesome power and the steel in his question was evident. Hecate balled her fists in an effort to hide their slight tremble.

"Minthe is trouble, Hades. You know that. And you know what the rumour-mill is like around here and especially up there. You could be impeccably mannered and nothing could go wrong and people would still drag your name in the mud, just like they did when Persephone first fell down here."

She'd hit a mark with her logic and soft reasoning. Hecate watched the cold light in his eyes dim and then he was shrugging her away.

"It is not her fault she is the way she is. I will expel her from my sight publicly, to squash the imaginings of those around us. There will be no issue here, Hecate. Minthe cannot undermine my devotion to my wife and child. There will be no question of it."

Hecate bit her lip, frustrated still by his attitude. What he failed to comprehend was that it didn't matter what he did, people would spin it into a story that could easily hurt Persephone, no matter what the truth of it was or how much she trusted her husband. To him the whole scenario was a minor annoyance, not worth his time or vexation.

"With your permission, I will tell Persephone of this," Hecate told Hades and he just nodded his assent. Understanding herself to be dismissed, Hecate turned and allowed the shadows to swallow her up.

Hecate had her own dwellings within the Underworld – an eerie 'dreamspace' of sorts that was both in the realm and outside the walls of the conventional realm. It was pure magic – straightforward and simple – the oldest weave of blood-spells and witchery she knew had gone into the very foundations of the walls and floors so that no one she did not want to enter could even imagine her place.

To most visiting immortals, they appeared to be in a strange woods the likes of which didn't exist in Zeus's realm. The trees were gnarled and thick, a deep russet-black colour with white and pale grey leaves that trembled even as there was no wind. Underfoot, there were many dirt paths that criss-crossed over and over again in symbols that no one else could understand. A sheen lit the walls of this incredible place, like a much hidden moon glowing nearby. There were earthly tables made of small braches of shrubs folded over hundreds of times to support the weight of the goddess's vials and potions and ingredients and spell books and whatever else she required.

A polecat raced by in the gloom.

"Oh, don't even start, you," Hecate hissed at the animal that had once been a sorceress called Gale as it disappeared into a blackberry bush to hide.

Hecate stalked her way to the centre, where a magnificent round pool shimmered, glowing negligibly in the darkness with some hidden magic. In the very heart of this mysterious pool was a short waterfall that trickled so softly the sound of running water was barely perceptible.

What could be heard were the mutterings of those who passed close or directly through Hecate's dwellings on their way to far-off places. The Epiales – those who brought nightmares to the dreams of all – could be discerned going about their dark deeds. The Oneiri – the dream spirits – were also close by and whispering to themselves either the happy manifestations they were about to gift to those asleep or the false and misleading information they were about to impart in the person's slumber. Frogs croaked, concealed in the greenery. Reptiles rustled through the trees or along the paths. The footfalls of ghosts, so barely perceptible, seemed to echo here in the mystical realm of Hecate where her necromancy pierced through the eternal doorway between life and death. It was like a soundtrack that played persistently but very quietly in the background, so low and ringing so constantly that one barely noticed it, even if they were a rare visitor and unused to the eccentric place.

There was a visitor in the dreamspace, hidden and unseen from most eyes. Hecate rubbed her hands and clicked her wonderfully long, black fingernails together.

"Overworked, Thanatos?" she called out and then Death materialised from out of the gloom. Her dogs cowered before the powerful entity but Hecate was undaunted.

"How are you fairing after the day off?" she asked him, referring to his recent entrapment. Thanatos did little except to grip his scythe tightly so that the edge gleamed with an almost malevolent shine. He had no response for her.

Hecate sighed. She waved her hand and a spindly, vine and silver throne wove itself from the trees to support her as she sat and spread her skirts wide until they fanned nicely from her hips. Another twist of her fingers and a fire roared to life. She held both of her hands out to it and her gaze became lost in its dancing tongues of flame.

Hecate sat like that with Death and her dogs for a very long time, lost in worry.