Chapter 4 The Prince Who Came At Midnight

• The courtyard filled before I could send for Iris.
• Athena believed private shame could be controlled, so she invited only family. Orion brought Paean. Melantha brought tears. Doron stood near the gate with Hermes's crystal hidden inside his sleeve.
• Then Hermes arrived in winged sandals, carrying a black ribbon.
• "A witness, as requested." He winked at me. "Also a terrible influence, free of charge."
• Athena's stare could have turned wine to ice. "This is a household matter."
• "Not anymore," I said.
• Doron raised the crystal. Melantha's fall played in light above the fountain: her hand forcing mine against her cheek, her glance toward the stairs, her deliberate leap.
• Orion went white.
• Melantha swayed. "That image has been changed."
• Hermes placed a hand over his heart. "You wound me. I may steal cattle, secrets, and occasionally a kiss, but I never alter a recorded memory. Bad for business."
• Paean looked at Melantha as if seeing her for the first time. Athena looked at me.
• "Why did you arrange this humiliation?" she asked.
• The unfairness hit so hard I forgot to breathe. "She framed me, and you are asking why I proved it?"
• "You could have brought the crystal to me."
• "Would you have believed it?"
• Silence answered.
• Orion reached for me. "Callista, I should not have pushed you. I was afraid for the baby."
• "Your fear always seems to bruise me."
• His hand fell.
• A midnight wind swept through the courtyard. Every torch bent toward the gate.
• Lysander stood beyond it.
• He wore a simple black cloak, but shadows curled around his boots like loyal hounds. He looked older than the boy I remembered, harder in the way grief makes a face hard. Beside him waited three silent guards and a carriage drawn by dark horses.
• His gaze found the red mark on my wrist.
• "Who touched you?"
• It was not a loud question. Somehow, it frightened everyone more.
• Orion stepped forward. "This does not concern you."
• Lysander crossed the courtyard and stopped in front of me. "May I?"
• Only when I nodded did he take my wrist. His thumb moved lightly over the bruise, and the carefulness of it almost undid me.
• "It concerns me," he said, still looking at the mark. "Callista asked me to court her."
• Melantha laughed too quickly. "She asked yesterday. Surely a prince does not build his future on the confused words of a sick woman."
• Lysander lifted his eyes. "I have built more on less."
• Hermes handed him the black ribbon. In the Underworld, courtship began when two people tied a ribbon around their joined hands before a witness. It promised nothing except honesty and the right to walk away.
• Exactly what I needed.
• Lysander held out his palm. "Callista, daughter of Athena, will you let me stand beside you while you decide what comes next?"
• Not belong to me. Not repay me. Decide.
• I placed my hand in his.
• Hermes tied the ribbon.
• Orion's sunlight burst across the stones. "She is still promised to me."
• "She ended that promise," Athena said unexpectedly.
• Hope rose, foolish and immediate.
• Then she added, "But I do not approve of this one."
• The hope died just as fast.
• Lysander's fingers tightened around mine. "Fortunately, Callista did not ask for your approval."
• Athena's spear appeared in her hand. Shadows gathered at Lysander's shoulders. For one breath, wisdom and death faced each other across the fountain.
• I stepped between them.
• "Enough. I will not be the prize in another contest."
• Both lowered their power.
• That small obedience steadied me.
• Lysander led me to his carriage. Orion followed to the gate, anger stripped raw across his face.
• "You don't know him," he said. "The dead keep secrets."
• Lysander opened the carriage door. "So do men who visit one woman while their promised bride lies unconscious."
• The blow landed. Even Hermes winced in delight.
• Inside the carriage, my strength finally broke. My hands began to shake. Lysander sat across from me, leaving space.
• "Do you want comfort or quiet?" he asked.
• No one had ever offered the choice.
• "Comfort."
• He moved beside me and opened his arms. I leaned into him. He smelled of cedar, cold stone, and pomegranates. His hand rested between my shoulders, warm and steady.
• "I imagined this differently," he said.
• "Me crying on your cloak?"
• "Me being charming enough that you forgot to cry."
• A laugh escaped me. His chest moved beneath my cheek when he laughed too.
• He asked whether I had eaten. When I admitted I had not, he stopped the carriage beside a night market and returned with honey cakes wrapped in paper. A prince could have summoned a feast. Lysander sat on the carriage step and split a sticky cake with me instead, licking honey from his thumb while I tried not to stare. For ten quiet minutes, no one demanded a decision from me. He told me Hermes had lost a race to a mortal child and bribed every witness. I laughed until my bruised side ached.
• At his guest house, a message from Persephone waited on the table. Welcome Callista, it read. If my son behaves like an idiot, send him home and I will correct him.
• "Your mother seems practical," I said.
• "She likes you more than she likes me. This may become a problem."
• He knelt to remove my dusty sandals. The prince of the Underworld, on one knee before me, treating my tired feet as if they were precious.
• I touched his hair. He went still.
• "Why did you never marry?" I asked.
• His face tilted toward mine. "Because I made one promise at seventeen, and unlike some men, I remembered it."
• Heat rushed to my cheeks.
• A guard knocked. He brought a bundle wrapped in gray cloth: the assassin's knife from three years ago, recovered after someone tried to sell it in the mortal market.
• Lysander unwrapped it. An owl had been stamped into the metal near the hilt.
• Athena's seal.
• He looked at me, all humor gone.
• "Callista," he said softly, "I think the person who put you to sleep came from your mother's house."