I start down the narrow staircase. “No.” It’s dark, the only light coming from faint runners on the floor. The air goes breathtakingly cold as I reach the end of the stairs. We’re fully underground now, and we don’t bother with climate control in the tunnels. They’re here for easy traveling or a last-minute escape route. They’re not here for comfort. She shivers over my shoulder, and I’m glad I took the time to throw the coat on her. I won’t be able to see her injuries until we’re back in my home, and the quicker that happens, the better for everyone.
“Put. Me. Down.”
“No,” I repeat. I’m not about to waste my breath explaining that she’s running on sheer adrenaline right now, which means she’s not feeling any pain. And she will be feeling pain once those endorphins wear off. Her feet are fucked up. I don’t think she has hypothermia, but I have no idea how long she was exposed to the winter night in that sad excuse of a dress.
“Do you often kidnap people?”
I pick up my pace. Gone is the spiky fury, replaced by a calm that has concern rising. She might be going into shock, which will be damned inconvenient. I have a doctor on call, but the fewer people who know Persephone Dimitriou is in my possession right now, the better. At least until I figure out a plan to use this unexpected gift.
“Did you hear me?” She shifts a little. “I asked if you often kidnap people.”
“Be quiet. We’re almost there.”
“That’s not really an answer.” I get a few seconds of blessed silence before she keeps talking. “Then again, I’ve never been kidnapped before, so I suppose expecting an answer about your kidnapper’s prior experience is just silly.”
She sounds downright chipper. She’s definitely in shock. Continuing this line of conversation is a mistake, but I find myself saying, “You ran to me. That’s hardly kidnapping.”
“Did I? I was just running to get away from the two men pursuing me. Your being there or not is immaterial.”
She can say that all she likes, but I saw the way she zeroed in on me. She wanted my help. Needed it. And I had been unable to deny her. “You practically threw yourself into my arms.”
“I was being chased. You seemed the lesser of two evils.” The tiniest of pauses. “I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
I wind my way through the maze of tunnels to another set of stairs. This one is nearly identical to the ones I just descended, right down to the pale runners on each stair. I take them two at a time, ignoring her faint oof in response to my shoulder jarring her stomach. Once again, the door clicks open the second I touch it, unlocked by whoever is on shift in the security room. I slow down enough to ensure the door is properly closed behind me.
Persephone twists a little on my shoulder. “A wine cellar. I don’t think I saw this coming.”
“Is there a part of tonight that you did see coming?” I curse myself for asking the question, but she’s acting so strangely unflappable that I’m genuinely curious. More than that, if she’s actually verging into hypothermia, keeping her talking right now is the wise course of action.
At that, her strangely cheerful tone fades down to almost a whisper. “No. I didn’t see any of it coming.”
Guilt pricks me, but I ignore it with the ease of long practice. One last set of stairs out of the wine cellar and I stop in the back hallway of my home. After a quick internal debate, I head for the kitchen. There are first aid supplies tucked in a number of rooms around the building, but the two largest kits are in the kitchen and in my bedroom. The kitchen is closer.
I push open the door and stop short. “What are you two doing here?”
Hermes freezes, two bottles of my best wine in her small hands. She gives me a winning grin that isn’t the least bit sober. “There was a snore-fest of a party in Dodona Tower. We cut out early.”
Dionysus has his head in my fridge, which is enough to tell me that he’s already drunk or high—or some combination of both. “You have the best snacks,” he says without pausing in his raiding of my food.
“Now’s not a good time.”
Hermes blinks behind her oversize yellow-framed glasses. “Uh, Hades.”
The woman over my shoulder jolts as if struck by a live wire. “Hades?”
Hermes blinks again and shoves back her cloud of black curls with one forearm. “Am I really, really drunk, or is that Persephone Dimitriou thrown over your shoulder like you’re about to role-play some sexy pillaging?”
“That’s impossible.” Dionysus finally appears with the pie my housekeeper left in the fridge earlier today. He’s eating it directly from the container. At least he’s using a fork this time. He also has some crumbles in his beard and only one side of his mustache is curled; the other is only a little crimped, as if he’s scrubbed a hand over his face recently. He frowns at me. “Okay, maybe not impossible. Either that or the weed I smoked with Helen in the courtyard before leaving was laced with something.”