Free The Deep End of the Sea by Heather Lyons

darts over, slinging an arm around my waist to help me balance. “It appears you’re going to have to do a bit of rehab over the next few weeks in order to get reacquainted with walking. Oh, I could just strangle Athena for this.”
    “Line forms to the left,” Hermes says quietly. “But you’ll have to stand behind me.”
    The impulse to lean over and kiss him for such steady loyalty is nearly irresistible, which leaves me even more embarrassed and confused. He is my friend. Why are such thoughts bedeviling me right now?
    “Let me do some calling around tonight.” Persephone bumps her shoulder against mine. “I want to make sure we get the best.”
    Once I’m seated (and blushing far too much over needing help to walk over to the table), Hades hands his wife a glass of wine. “Athena has gotten away with far too much over the ages. It’s disheartening how my brother coddles her idiotic whims. I wish you’d let the Assembly know about this sooner, Hermes. How are we ever going to get everyone under control if actions such as these are left unresolved? We cannot have our members running rampant, cursing people simply because they feel like it. Our positions in the heavens are too precarious nowadays to have such missteps.”
    Persephone thanks her husband for her glass. “Too many poor souls have suffered abuse at the hands of our kind.” Her elegant fingers curve around the stem. “Some have perished before we can right their wrongs; others have gone too far into madness and truly become the monsters they were forced to evolve into. And that is something we cannot have happening, especially in today’s modern world. Hermes, you know our stance on this. I must side with your uncle—I am sorely disappointed Medusa’s case was not addressed earlier.”
    Those blue-green eyes of Hermes’ slide knowingly toward me before refocusing on his aunt and uncle. “Trust me when I say there is no one sorrier than I that it took so long to come to light.”
    I cannot let them fault him for this, not when he’d held his tongue out of respect for my wishes. I clear my throat nervously. “It wasn’t his fault. Hermes wanted to talk to the Assembly for quite a long time now. I was the one who begged him not to.”
    Persephone sets her glass down, her brow furrowing. “Why?”
    I toy with the napkin on my lap, debating how I ought to phrase my answer without outwardly insulting the deities in front of me. As generous as they’ve been, I do not trust them yet. But my response is not necessary, as Hermes is the one to answer. “Why wouldn’t she be leery? Look at what our kind has done to her.”
    Hades grunts as he butters a roll, anger flashing in his dark eyes. I tense in my seat; is he mad that I’ve spoken without permission? This is the Lord of the Underworld, after all. For all I know, he could find much offense with me and banish me to a punishment worse than Athena’s in some hidden corner of his realm.
    Hermes continues, “It was a miracle she even allowed me in her temple, and then, once I was there, to continue coming back.”
    I haven’t been able to blush in millennia, but here I am, doing it again in less than five minutes.
    Hades studies me as he quietly munches on his roll. His gaze is even more intense than his wife’s or nephew’s, so I keep my attention focused on the food on my plate. Only, my stomach in far too many knots, so actual eating is out of the question.
    Persephone picks up her fork. “Did he bully you into letting him?”
    My eyes fly up, every muscle in my body on high alert. Do they think I have been abusing one of the Assembly? I go to protest, but Hermes laughs delightedly.
    “Of course I did.”
    “It’s a wonder you didn’t turn him to stone immediately.” Amusement sprinkles Persephone’s words, but all I can hear is yet another reminder of how people are dead because of me. Or how I could have harmed the most important person in my life at any time.
    The control