She appears at my door, all golden hair and floating white dress.

   "You may leave your room now. I hope this experience has taught you a lesson."

   "Yes, Mother. I'm sorry."

   Anything she wants to hear, I'll say. Anything that will get me back to the meadow before another day goes by.

   All yesterday I was trapped in this room, watching the sun rise, and peak, and set. Staring out the window with nothing to do but repeat his name over and over and over. Hades, Lord of the Dead.

   The name he never told me. And I know why. Again, I picture Leda and her amorous swan, and a bitter taste fills my mouth.

   "I think I'll go down to the lake," I say, feigning indifference, "if that's all right with you."

   She stands aside to let me pass. "Yes. Thank you for letting me know."

   I stroll out the door and down the path, trying to look nonchalant.

   The air is stifling, full and floral, and I want to clear it away with a knife. I glance back. The house is out of sight, so I walk faster.

   Hades. Ruler of every mortal shade and one-third of all creation. I intrigue him, do I? My hands clench into fists.

We have some talking to do.

I burst past the plum trees into the meadow. Hades is sitting on the edge of his chariot, smiling. Then he sees my face and stands. Abastor looks over and flicks his ears warily.

   "I know who you are." My voice is as taut as an overstretched rope.

   "Good."

   How can he look so calm? He takes a step toward me; I take two back.

   "Good?" My fists tighten at my sides. "How can you say that? You never even told me your name, and now I know why! You were deceiving me! Letting me think you were some river god, just like Zeus with his little disguises. You were lying!"

   He shakes his head, but his eyes stay on mine. "I never lied to you."

   He walks up to me and takes my hand, trying to open my fingers. I yank my hand back.

   "Nothing is complete with just one side," he says, pressing closer. "You said so yourself. You stroked the earth as if you heard it calling from below. But now that you know who I am, you fear me, hate me, like all the rest of them. And you wonder why I waited to tell you my name?"

   Now his face is only inches from mine; his words, relentless.

   "I'm used to scorn. Gods and mortals alike shun what they can't see. They don't want to think about the fragile thread binding body to soul. They hear a sick woman's wail and they think of me. They bury a maimed soldier and they think of me. They call me lord of the maggot and rotting flesh. And you wonder why I waited to tell you my name?"

   He pauses, lifting a tender hand to my cheek. When he speaks again, his voice is suddenly intimate. "But I thought you, and you alone, understood. I heard you say it yourself: everything needs change. Life needs death to quicken against. Yes, I waited to say my name, waited for you to know me as I am. But how can you say I deceived you?"

I'm starting to melt toward his hand. I force myself to

turn away, gathering my anger around me like armor. Then I whirl back to face him.

   "Why don't you go try that smooth voice on someone else?" I say. "Fear? No! But if I'd known who you are, I would have seen the rest of it, too. You're not serious about me! No, a lord like you—with a third of all existence to rule—you need a real queen by your side. Someone who knows about power, and palaces, and the ways of mortals and gods!"

   I glance down at my bare feet, my simple linen chiton. Then I glare back up into his eyes.

   "There I was, just floating along on your charm, all innocent, not thinking beyond the next second by your side, the next touch of your hand. But as soon as I heard your name . . ." My voice drops low, a whisper of breeze in the storm's lull. "That's when I knew you'd never take me with you. And I realized that's what I wanted all along."

   How dare he smile? The storm whips up again. I step closer, my fist raised to pound on his chest, and now I'm shouting at him: furious, humiliated, devastated by my loss.

   "So you've been playing with me, that's all! Waiting for me to ripen, like a plum, until I was ready to kiss you—or more!—and then you'd be gone. As if I were a toy! A game! That's it, isn't it? Well, isn't it?"

   He doesn't answer, just grabs me. And then he's pressing into me, wrapping me in arms as strong as bronze, and his mouth is on mine, hot and hungry, filling me until everything else disappears—the meadow, my anger—and this is all I want. It's all I want forever.

"Persephone." His voice is soft and deep and endless. "I came here for one reason only: to ask you to be my queen."

   He runs a broad hand down my back, and when it's at the base of my spine, he pulls me even closer. He chuckles softly in my ear. "Do you know how hard it was for me to wait? I wanted to toss you in that chariot the moment I saw you and finish convincing you later."

   Yes, I think. Kiss me now; convince me later.

   He tilts his head so he can look in my eyes. "But I couldn't. You had to know me first as a man, not a god. Because you have to choose to come with me. Otherwise your power might not survive the crossing, and I'd be a fool to risk losing that. I want all of you."

   "My power?"

   I must look confused. He gently loosens his hold.

   "Let me show you something."

   He raises a hand and points at a tree by the meadow's edge. In front of my eyes, the tree turns brown: leaves shrivel and flutter and fall in piles, branches crack and shatter on the ground, the trunk collapses into fragments and dissolves into swirling motes of dust. A few seconds, and it's gone.

   Two brown leaves settle near my feet.

Hades looks at me carefully. "That's my realm. Death."

   I pick up one of the shriveled leaves and rub it between my fingers.

   "But you!" he says eagerly. "You have the opposite power, a bursting green energy, the power in the fresh shoot just starting to uncurl."

   I shake my head, but he keeps going.

   "Together, we make the cycle complete. And that means more power than either of us has alone. No, I don't need a sophisticated goddess, and neither does my realm. I need you."

   He lifts my hand and unfolds my fingers. The edge of the leaf is tinted with the slightest shimmer of green.

   "But that happens all the time," I protest. "It's just the vale! The power you want, the energy—that's my mother, not me."

   "Does your mother have these eyes?" he asks, his hand near my temple. I shake my head. "This lithe body?" The hand runs down my side. "This mouth?" His finger traces my lips. Again I shake my head.

   "Then I'll take my chances," he says. "Because you're the one I want."

   The next kiss sweeps the world clean away—his arms enveloping me, his breath filling me, the feel of his skin and his mouth and his beard and his hands. . . .

   "Come with me now," he murmurs in my ear. "Be my queen. I'll set a golden crown on your raven hair."

A crown? Me?

   He sees my expression and laughs. "Don't worry. Ruling is easy. I'll teach you." He pauses, then adds, "But there is one more thing I should tell you. When you come, there's no returning to Earth. It's forever."

   Forever. I don't like that word.

   "I don't see why," I say. "Hermes crosses back and forth when he wants."

   "Not when he wants; when he has souls to guide."

   Abastor snorts impatiently. Hades glances up. He puts his arm behind me and turns me firmly in the horse's direction.

   "Some things I can't control," he continues. "I can't come to Earth whenever I want, either. The rules stretched so I could fetch you home; they won't bend again." He starts guiding me toward the chariot. "And what's the need? We want to be with each other, forever."

   He's in total command, so sure of what he wants. So sure what I should do—

   No! This time I'm going to make my own choice. I stop and he has to stop with me.

   "I need time to think," I say.

   "Don't think too much." He leans in close so his soft voice fills me. He knows his power. "Come now."

   His words pull me in, his arms enfold me; my body is already saying yes. But somehow I reach deep and find enough brain to say, "Tomorrow I'll tell you yes or no."