be some way to sneak Demos out. He looked like a Rottweiler-sized bird. All the windows in the jail were covered in bars. Even the gigantic window in my apartment were covered in steel bars.
We couldn’t exactly bend the bars if one of the monsters was capable without giving ourselves away. Cerberus usually hogged my bed in my apartment when I was in the jail because he was afraid Pavlina would eat him. He only ever came out if Hades visited, and he was out with us now.
“I don’t like this. Hades is handling this. You’re all going to get yourselves killed.”
Cerberus was like this nanny dog constantly protecting me from the monsters under my bed, except for Pavlina, who he feared. I had a feeling he was a snitch too. I didn’t know much about three-headed dogs from the Underworld, but every single dog I’d ever met liked to unload every secret they knew about their owner when they found out I could hear them. Man’s best friend, my ass. They’d sell you out for a butt scratch if they knew someone could hear. Your dog is sick of your shit.
“Cerberus, do you want Persephone to be home safe and Demeter out of the Underworld?”
“Well, yeah. Hades loves her, and she always slips me food under the table.”
“Then who has always protected her and is the best scout in the Underworld?”
Now, the three-headed dog was pouting. At the rate I was going, I would be surrounded by pouting monsters. Cerberus talked to me like herding and hunting dogs did. Their instincts and training gave them a job to do, and they were super serious about it.
“Demos has always been the best scout and has always protected Persephone. He’s never been caught or died on a single scouting mission, but he has died in service of my mistress.”
“Then doesn’t it make sense to send Demos instead of another scout who could get caught and die? If Demeter finds out we know where she’s hiding Persephone, she’ll either move her or kill her.”
“Oh, fine. But I’m saying right now I don’t like this, and when Hades comes back in here, I intend to tell him everything and confess my part. I’ll take my punishment, and all of you should too.”
Tryphon let out a low chuckle.
“Hades spoils you rotten. How is he going to punish you? Only scratch your butt for twenty minutes instead of an hour?”
“He’ll take away my favorite leg bone. I killed that intruder to the Underworld in a heroic fight, and it’s the last bone of his I have to chew on.”
“I’ll get your bone back, Cerberus. Now, do you know a way out of this jail?”
“Of course, I do. I know every inch of the Underworld.”
“Are you actually going to share it with us?” Kimon said.
Cerberus let out an enormous sigh and flopped on his belly.
“There’s a secret passage in the apartment River is staying in. It leads to a tunnel system to a back door at the prison. The code to unlock the door is TitansFall. It leads out to a forest, and it’s not guarded. Demos should be able to get out unseen, but it’s up to him after that not to get caught. You realize if he does, they will kill all of you, and Persephone too. We still don’t know what those collars do.”
“Then Demos won’t get caught,” I said.
I guess I was breaking a phoenix out of an Underworld jail. Game on, Demeter.
Chapter 25
River
E
veryone could agree Hades would be pissed when Cerberus tried to snitch on us, but they forgot one thing. Hades couldn’t hear him like I could. Cerberus could lead him to the secret passage and paw at it, but I was the only one here who could talk to monsters. If he guessed, I’d tell him precisely what we did and why in a way he would have to just accept it was done. Sometimes, it was better to ask forgiveness than ask permission. We were trying to save his wife and the entire Underworld.
The monsters were so afraid of Hades and his temper, and they didn’t want me involved in this at all. Kimon wanted to go down the passage with Demos to press the keypad, and they wanted Pavlina to babysit me while they did it. They would pull off some story they found the passage and snuck out while I was comforting Pavlina.
“Oh, shut the fuck up, all of you. I only just met Pavlina, but