me alone, sensing I needed space. I barely noticed when she started cooking, not until she shoved a bowl of soup in front of me. “Enough,” she said, her tone stern. “You’ve been sitting there all day. Tell me what happened at the market.”
She lowered herself into the chair across from me, and I had to concentrate on her face. Her direct gaze was a little startling; worry wasn’t something she usually expressed, definitely not for me anyway.
But she was right; I needed to snap out of this shock.
“I saw Xander,” I said quietly. “He’s the crown prince of the Underworld.” Hearing the words from my own lips didn’t make them feel realer.
Riley’s brows shot up, her mouth forming an O. “Golden boy gladiator?” She let out a whoosh of breath. “I did not see that coming.”
Perfect, beautiful Xander. Leader of House Ares. No one could have guessed this.
“That’s why he left?” she said, putting it together. “To come here?”
“Seems that way.”
She shook her head, lost for words. “Now, I understand why you couldn’t speak.”
That only scratched the surface. When I saw Xander, it felt like someone kicked me in the stomach, knocking the wind out of me. Like someone was playing a cruel joke.
Riley placed her hand over mine, and I looked up. She used a boy to hurt me; the last thing I expected was her empathy.
“Maybe you can ask Petra about him.”
I nodded.
Petra was supposed to visit tomorrow night for dinner. She had connections inside the Hallowed Castle. If anyone knew anything, she would.
32
I repeatedly told myself I wouldn’t bombard Petra with questions about Xander. I planned to play it cool, wait until after everyone ate, and then casually bring it up. But the moment she walked inside, all of that went out the door. She hadn’t even hung her coat on the hook before I confronted her.
“Why didn’t you tell me Xander was the prince?”
Caught off guard, it took Petra a second to process the question. She carefully set the large bag of food she was carrying on the table, then peeled off her coat. “Nice to see you, Sheridan.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Without thinking, I leaned into give her a quick hug. “Nice to see you, too. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes flared; and it dimly hit me that in all the time we’d spent together, I had never hugged her. But Petra didn’t make a big deal of it. Instead, she turned to greet my sister. “Hello, Riley. There’s a letter from your mother inside of my bag.”
Riley’s expression lit up, and she went to retrieve it.
“As for your question,” Petra said, turning back around. “I assumed you already knew. After all, he’s your boyfriend.”
“Was.” I emphasized the past tense.
“Oh.” She tried to look sympathetic, failing miserably. “Sorry it didn’t work out.”
“I bet.”
I couldn’t even blame her. Petra watched her mother get burned before her, then ended up trapped in the Underworld as a result of her last relationship. She would probably always be jaded.
“And no, Xander never mentioned it,” I said, noticing the way she refused to make eye contact. “He kept his identity a secret.”
“How did you find out?” She began emptying the contents of the bag; a roasted chicken that smelled heavenly, along with several other containers of food.
“I saw him in passing, at the market,” I said, without thinking.
She snapped to attention, her voice rising several octaves. “What were you doing there? On Zeus’s grave, I’ll have Grey’s head—”
“Relax, I was perfectly safe, and I happened to be searching for a gift for you.”
“A gift?” That seemed to appease her enough to calm her down. “That’s sweet, but unnecessary, Sheridan. The only gift I want is to break your curse.”
I pressed my lips together, noticing the way she steered the conversation to a new subject, trying to dodge all talk of Xander. Riley was no help either; she was curled up next to the stove, fully engrossed by Selena’s letter. Somehow, I needed to get Petra to tell me everything she knew.
“I’ve been fed too many lies,” I said, evening my tone. “About you, about everyone. This is important to me, Petra. I need to know the truth.”
She removed the last item from the bag—a large bottle of enchanted wine—then set the bag aside. “I only recently discovered he was back,” she admitted, meeting my gaze. “But I don’t know why. That boy fought so hard to escape his title, the hollows, and his entire life in the Underworld. He stood