A Touch of Darkness

Several weeks pass, and Persephone bonds with Hades. She realizes she is falling in love with him. He invites her on a date, promising that he will protect her from paparazzi.

Persephone receives an email with a threatening subject line; it contains intimate pictures of her and Hades on the balcony. Adonis threatens to release the pictures unless he gets his job back. She approaches Demetri about rehiring him, keeping Adonis’s threat secret and pretending she simply feels bad for him. Demetri remains firm in his decision. That night, Hades takes her to a restaurant he secretly owns. He asks Persephone to teach him how to bake at her home, and the two briefly part ways. Persephone, Lexa, and Jaison prepare the apartment for Hades. The four of them spend a pleasant evening baking and watching movies. Hades and Persephone retire to her bedroom, where Demeter appears. Demeter tries to teleport Persephone to her divine realm, but Persephone’s contract with Hades prevents her from being able to do so. Demeter strips Persephone of her glamour and swears that once the contract is fulfilled, she will never again enter the mortal world. Demeter leaves. Lexa enters the bedroom and learns that Persephone is a goddess.

Hades provides Persephone with the power to restore her own glamour. Lexa and Persephone discuss her divinity. Weeks pass, and Persephone is increasingly anxious, struggling to reconcile her feelings for Hades with the knowledge that she must complete her contract in two weeks or forfeit her freedom. When she arrives at work, Aphrodite is there waiting for her and reveals that she and Hades made a bet the same night Persephone made her contract with him: Hades must make someone fall in love with him within six months. Heartbroken that she was used, Persephone leaves for the Underworld.

Persephone scours the land of the dead for the Well of Reincarnation, resolving to use its waters to grow something and release herself from the contract. Cerberus the Doberman arrives and leads her to Tartarus and then into a beautiful grotto where a man is chained to a pillar. She gives him water, and he introduces himself as Tantalus; he claims that he often asks Hades for an audience but is ignored. Persephone realizes that he must have done something awful and must be unrepentant if Hades left him here. She is sympathetic to his pleas for food, but he knocks her under the water when she feeds him, and he starts to drown her. She escapes and runs into Hades, who threatens Tantalus with harsher punishments before teleporting him away.

Hades teleports Persephone and himself to his palace. Persephone confronts him about Aphrodite’s bet. They argue but engage in intimacy before continuing their conflict. Hades reveals that Persephone’s powerlessness came from her lack of worshippers, and he provided what she needed to claim her power. He further accuses her of choosing her mother’s happiness over her own, which he attributes to her lack of self-confidence. Persephone tells him that she loves him, but when he does not say it back, she uses her magic to restrain him in vines.

Persephone returns home, where Lexa comforts her throughout the night. The next morning, Persephone asks for help from Jaison, who is a programmer, in dealing with Adonis. He discovers that Minthe is Adonis’s informant. Persephone meets Adonis and Minthe in a garden and confronts them while Jaison hacks into their devices and deletes the incriminating photos. Minthe reveals her jealousy over Hades’s feelings for Persephone, as well as her knowledge of Aphrodite’s bet. Minthe insults Persephone, who turns her into a mint plant. She turns Adonis’s arms into plants and makes him promise to never touch a woman without consent again, swearing to turn him into a corpse flower if he does. As she leaves, she introduces herself as Persephone, Goddess of Spring.

Persephone travels to her mother’s greenhouse, where she confronts Demeter about hiding her away to prevent her from gaining worshippers. Demeter reveals that the Fates predicted that Persephone would become Hades’s bride, which led her to lock Persephone away. Persephone requests an apology, but Demeter refuses her. Persephone uses her magic to break through the glass of the greenhouse and teleports to her apartment.

Persephone graduates from college and works full time at New Athens News, teaching herself magic in the evenings. One day, Hecate appears at a coffee shop where Persephone is writing and asks her to return to the Underworld. She challenges Persephone’s perception that Hades used her and insists that he loved Persephone. Hecate directs Persephone’s gaze across the street, where Hades is waiting. The two reconcile, exchanging words of love before Hades asks her to split her time between the mortal world and the Underworld. She agrees, and they teleport away.

In this chapter, which is labeled as bonus content, Persephone visits Hades in his office, where she delivers the mint plant and explains that it was formerly Minthe. Hades coaxes the truth out of her, and she reveals that Minthe questioned her power and angered her. Hades then confirms that it was Minthe who lured Persephone to Tartarus. The two decide to plant the mint in the Underworld, and then they take a walk. Persephone expresses discomfort at being called Hades’s queen, but he promises that she will always be Queen of the Underworld, whether she loves him or not. Hades takes her to a grove of silver trees that he names the Grove of Persephone, a special place for her to practice her magic.