Macaria had lived her whole life beneath the ground, and she wanted out. Tonight she meant to ask the one question no one in the underworld would answer. She stood at the edge of her mother's garden, inside the black stone walls of Gloomspire Castle. Flowers and small skulls hung from the hem of her silver gown. Her pale green eyes fixed on the woman kneeling in the soil. Getting here had cost her. In the halls above, her sister Melinoe walked the shadows, dragging cold nightmares behind her. Macaria had waited until Melinoe's whispers faded down a far corridor. Then she slipped past the throne room, where her father Hades sat with his silent men. She did not want either of them to hear this. Her mother did not look up. Persephone pressed a pale seed into dark earth. Even here, where no sun reached, flowers opened at her touch. Her flower crown had wilted at the edges. She always looked half-asleep in this place. "Mother," Macaria said. "What is love like? The kind you can choose." Persephone's hands stopped moving. For a long moment she said nothing. "Why do you ask that here?" she said quietly. "Because I feel like you." Macaria knelt beside her. "Not like Father. Not like Melinoe. She loves the dark. I don't. I want the world you came from. I want to feel warm." Persephone finally turned. Her eyes were wet. "The world above is bright and cruel and beautiful," she said. "There are people who choose each other, freely. No one dragged them. No one traded them." Her voice caught. "I never had that choice. Your father took me. I learned to love him and this place because that was my only choice." "Then help me have the choice," Macaria said. Behind them, a door groaned open. Torchlight spilled across the flowers. Hades stood in the archway, his black cape brushing the ground, the silver skulls catching the light. His amber eyes moved from wife to daughter. "You should be at practice with your sister," he said. His voice was low and old as stone. Macaria stood. Her heart pounded, but she did not step back. "I want to see the living world, Father. I want to walk where the sun is." Hades studied her for a long time. Something in his face shifted, softened. He looked at Persephone, then back at his daughter. "You are your mother's child," he said. "I feared this day." He drew a slow breath. "For six months of the year, she leaves me and rises to spring. When she goes next, you will go with her." Macaria's breath left her. She ran to her father and hugged him tight. It was permission. It was a door thrown open. In a couple weeks time Macaria would roam the living world with her mother. She could still practice her powers there if she wanted but for now she just wanted to feel the warm sunlight she only read about in books.

The weeks passed slowly, and then all at once they were gone. Macaria woke to find her father waiting at her chamber door. He led her and Persephone through the dark halls of Gloomspire Castle, past silent guards, up stairs she had never climbed. Her heart beat fast. Today she would finally see the sun. They stopped in a wide cavern. Roots pierced the ceiling and coiled down the walls. At the center stood a great tree, its trunk hollowed into an arching doorway. Weathered bark framed a passage of pale light. Persephone touched the twisted roots and smiled softly. "My mother planted this," Persephone said. "Centuries ago. It grows in both worlds at once. Step through, and you stand under open sky." Macaria stared at the light. It was warm. She could feel it from here, brushing her face like breath. Her throat tightened. Everything she had wanted lay one step away. Hades turned to his wife first. He cupped Persephone's cheek and kissed her goodbye. "Six months," he murmured. "I will count each one." Persephone pressed her hand to his chest, then stepped through the doorway. The light swallowed her, and she was gone. Macaria moved to follow. Her father caught her hands. He lifted them and kissed her knuckles, slow and gentle. His amber eyes softened. "Before you go," Hades said, "I have a gift." Macaria waited. She expected a hell hound, one of the fierce beasts that guarded his gates. Instead her father raised one hand and spoke a low word. Shadow pooled at his feet. From it rose a wolf, sleek and dark as smoke, with watchful eyes that fixed on Macaria. It padded forward and sat at her side. She blinked. "A shadow wolf, Father? Not a hound?" Hades almost smiled. "A hound would frighten the living. This one walks unseen when it wishes. It will guard you in a world I cannot enter." He rested his hand on the wolf's dark head. "My reach ends at that tree. Its does not. When you are afraid, it will find you." Macaria understood then what the gift meant. Her father was letting her go, and sending part of the underworld with her so she would never be alone. She threw her arms around him. "Thank you," she whispered. He held her a moment, then stepped back. "Go. The sun is waiting." Macaria took a breath and walked through the hollow doorway. The wolf moved beside her, silent as shadow. Warmth struck her all at once. Grass, wind, the smell of green things. She opened her eyes to a bright field and a wide blue sky. Persephone stood ahead, arms open, laughing in the light. Macaria had left the underworld at last. But she stood in a strange, living world she had only read about. She knew nothing of its people, or how anyone here chose love. Her search would begin now, with a shadow wolf at her heel.

Macaria stepped out from under the great tree. The bark closed behind her. She pressed both hands to the grass and felt it, cool and alive, springing back against her palms. She smiled. The underworld had no grass. She had only read of it. Now it grew warm under her fingers, and the sun touched her white hair. Her shadow wolf sat beside her, quiet and dark against the green. Ahead lay a sunlit field of wheat, golden heads swaying in the wind. Beyond it stood a small wooden cottage with flowers along its base. Persephone walked into the wheat, laughing, and threw her arms wide. Where her mother stepped, new blossoms opened in the grain. Then a second figure came from the far edge of the field. An older woman moved through the wheat toward them. A crown of golden straw sat on her neat brown hair. Her white and gold gown brushed the grain. She walked slowly, her eyes fixed on Persephone. "Mother," Persephone breathed. She ran to her. The two women met and held each other tight. Flowers burst up around their feet in a bright ring. This was Demeter, goddess of the harvest. Macaria had never met her grandmother. Persephone had spoken of her often, always with an ache in her voice. Macaria stood back, unsure. She did not know how these two loved each other, or whether there was room in it for her. The wolf pressed against her leg. She stayed near the tree. Demeter pulled back from her daughter and looked past her. Her gaze found Macaria. The old goddess studied the white gown, the flowers and small skulls tied at its hem, the pale green eyes. "So this is her," Demeter said. Her voice was steady. "Hades's child." Macaria's throat tightened. She braced for anger. Her father had taken Persephone by force long ago. Demeter had every reason to hate the underworld and all it made. But Demeter crossed the wheat and stopped before her. She did not scowl. She held out one hand, palm open. "You came up into the light," Demeter said. "You chose it. My daughter never got the choice." Her fingers stayed steady in the air. "Come. Eat at my table. Learn what warmth feels like." Macaria looked at the offered hand. She thought of her father's kiss on her knuckles, his sad amber eyes. She thought of the love she had come here to understand. Slowly she reached out and took Demeter's hand. It was warm and rough and real. "Thank you," Macaria whispered. Demeter's fingers closed around hers and drew her forward, into the wheat, toward the cottage. Persephone laughed and looped an arm through Macaria's other side. The wolf followed at her heel. Macaria had a place to begin. She had a family above ground now, and a door open to her. But she still did not know how love was chosen here. The learning would start at a stranger's table.