My covers weigh me down like a shroud. But the outer world keeps insisting on its existence: I can hear carts clanking outside, and servants bustling somewhere down the hall. I pull the covers over my head. Why does the world of death have to be so damn purposeful? I wish I could rot in peace.

   It's no good. I'm going to have to get up and face it. Them. Everyone who saw me yesterday making my—what was it Hades called it?—my "grand entrance."

   I told him, didn't I? I told him back in the vale that I wasn't queen material, and he looked right into my eyes and said it didn't matter. Ruling is easy, he said. I'll teach you, he said.

   And then he throws me into the throne room like a fish to sharks.

   Now he can see what kind of queen he brought home. Not someone dignified and regal like my mother; no, he's got a bumbling girl who can't even walk a simple path. Some immortal I am!

   I groan out loud. Queen Persephone the Hilarious, that's me. I can see it now. Everyone will smile politely when I pass, then turn to each other, whispering and covering their mouths to stifle their giggles. Oh, this is going to be just great.

   I sit up in the dark, gathering my covers into a huge, padded cocoon with only my face and feet poking out. I shuffle over and open the shutters. Then I plop back down on the bed and look around.

   Grand. Elegant. Imposing. Queenly. Nothing at all like me. Nothing like home.

   I wriggle out of my cocoon. As I reach for a chiton, I realize I'm humming. What is that tune? I can't quite place it . . . something about green grass and water and—I stop cold. Of course! It's the Lethe's song.

   The Lethe, River of Forgetting. Put in a toe and you might forget what you had for breakfast. Put in your leg up to the knee and there go your weaving patterns. But step in all the way, dunk your head under, and you come out dripping, sleek, sopping, and gone.

   I hum a little more. That doesn't sound so bad right now: forgetting. Maybe I could wade in just a little, up to my ankles, and make yesterday go away.

   But as I fasten a girdle around my waist, waves of pictures sweep over me, and I realize there's so much I don't want to forget. Hades' hands lifting me into the chariot. And my friends—maybe the only friends I'll ever have, since everyone here is too busy bowing at my feet to get to know me. And the vale: dark green leaves on gnarled branches, purple drifts of irises by the lake, my courtyard (how small it was!), and the lemon tree near the overhang shading my loom . . .

   That's it! The loom I passed yesterday on my way to the throne: it's already strung and waiting just for me. My name is carved on it, after all, and that silver yarn basket isn't something a servant would use.

   My mother never taught me to rule, but she did make me weave for so many hours, my hands take over and I don't need to think, or analyze, or worry as long as the shuttle is moving.

   It's too bad the Lethe can't be measured out to my liking. As it is, I'm stuck being me, no matter how much I mess up, and I might as well figure out how to make this my home. I'll start by weaving some new covers for this bed, something with a cheerful pattern, not so regal.

I tie my hair back and throw open the door.