My eyes are still fixed on the trees, mind blank with shock, when a peal of beatific laughter issues from Rhea where she hangs in the upraised roots. Aidon, released from her power, rushes over to me—his face drained of blood.

"Kore, Kore! are you alright?" He takes my shoulders lightly in his hands as his eyes range over me, brows knit together. "Kore?"

"I...I..." I can't rip my gaze away from the impossibility before me, can't even begin to form sentences.

"She's a Persephone Variant!" Crows Rhea.

No. There's no way.

There's no way.

But...

But it's the only explanation.

As I watch, a pomegranate falls from one of the trees, rolling across the floor to bump against my foot.

Automatically, I stoop to pick it up. It's warm, and something inside it is moving, pushing against the skin. Carefully, I break it with my nail—peeling it away to reveal a damp green king fowl chick. Aidoneus stares down at the newborn creature shivering in my hand, frozen as though under his mother's power once more.

Then he seems to catch sight of something, striding across the room and towards the table to kneel beside my toppled wine glass. Touching a finger to the spilt wine, he brings it up to his nose—and his nostrils flare, irises constricting to slits as he turns to hiss up at his mother.

"There's real blood in this."

And Rhea just keeps on laughing.

~*~

"Absolutely not."

"Kore, please—"

"If I'm as powerful as you say I am, than I should be able to protect myself. And I'll have my Guardian to help. I'm not giving up on going to university."

Aidoneus sighs deeply, running a hand through his hair yet again as he paces across my chambers.

"So be it, then. But I'm giving you a better model," he scowls over at the Guardian synthe where it bobs fretfully in the air. "And you'll have your own room. With extra security."

"Deal," I say, looking back down to the king fowl chick nestled in a heating pad in my lap and stroking the top of its head with a fingertip. His feather-leaves are fully unfurled and dried now, ready to soak up artificial sunlight. Every now and then, his eyes squeeze shut and he expells a single pomegranate seed. "And I'm taking Pompom with me, too."

He stops mid-stride, raising an incredulous brow. "The bird?"

"Mhm."

He laughs—a short bark of incredulity—before shaking his head.

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"At some point I'm going to have to practice saying 'no' to you, you know,"

I smile up at him. "But not today?"

"Not today."

Taking his leave not long after, my fiancé huffs purposely out of the room in a cloud of indignation. He has a lot to do, to prepare for our wedding the day after tomorrow. And still more to see to if he's really going to insist on a new Guardian and a solo room with extra security once I get to school. When I see him again, it'll be at our marriage ceremony.

His concern warms me, though. And it's probably not misplaced.

Once at University, there'll be no hiding what I am.

A Variant with the ability to accelerate growth. To create new lifeforms from old ones. A Variant that shouldn't exist. My husband-to-be and Hecate both insist I'll be the target of more than just passive ire at school—but Rhea scoffed at the idea. Once let down from her snare, it's like she became a different person. One who couldn't possibly be more thrilled to have me for a daughter-in-law.

But it'll be years before I'm able to forgive her methods, if ever. The violence. The verbal abuse. The dosing. All to draw my power out of me.

I lay awake in bed for a long time after that. No other day has ever given me so much to process, and I keep hoping that if I stay awake long enough I'll get more news of my sister. But it's no good. I ask Syn for updates every hour—even though he's promised repeatedly to let me know as soon he has new information.

When I do sleep, it's with the depth of total exhaustion. And when I wake, it's to find Pompom shivering in the crook of my arm, having crawled off of his pad sometime in the night.

I pass the majority of the day in anxious preoccupation, until finally Syn drags me to my closet wall-screen to look through the dress options designed for me by the house's Grand Couturier. I fall in the love with the very first one, deciding it needs no changes whatsoever before pressing "manifest." There'll be no need to try it on beforehand. The garment synthesizer's got every measurement from crown-to-toe, a full-body scan.

I'm halfway through my dinner when Syn perks up.

"Your sister is awake."

I drop my chopsticks.

"Can I speak to her? Get her on screen?"

He shakes his head. "I'm sorry Lady Kore. She has much to attend to, it seems. I'm sure she'll call in or send you a message the instant she's able."

"But she's alright now? She'll make a full recovery?"

"Yes. It very much seems to be so."

Relief—more invigorating even than Syn's artificial blood—washes over and through me. I take a huge, shaking gulp of air, releasing it slowly as tears warm the corners of my eyes.

"Thank Gaia," I breathe.

~*~

I have strange dreams the night before my wedding. Dreams of dark things—like roots—bursting up from the ground, twisting around me, entrapping me. But instead of being frightened, I writhe with pleasure and sigh as they drag me down into the dirt and darkness.

~*~

Syn wakes me gently—so gently that the dreams still linger as I open my eyes. Pom coos happily from a nest of my hair, breaking into chirps of protest as I sit up to wrap my arms about Syn's shoulders. The false flesh of his neck gives way easily to my fangs, like fresh fruit that's just ripe enough. The flavor and feeling of it has been different every day so far.

This morning, it reminds me faintly of blueberries and lilacs, and it's as soothing as it is enlivening. I have no idea what to do with myself while I wait for the big hour to arrive, and for some reason Syn's discouraging me from wandering. There's a conspiratorial air to him they makes me decide not to argue with him. If someone's trying to surprise me with something, I'm not going to ruin it for them.

So I spend my free hours engaged in my new favorite pass-time—pestering Syn with questions.

"Will I be able to take some of my plants to school with me?"

"A few. His Majesty's having a small solar hutch built for your bird...thing...which will be temporarily installed in your dormitory. There'll be room for some plants in there as well. "

A little thrill runs down my spine at the mention of Aidoneus.

"Excellent. And you're certain my sister still can't make it to the wedding—?"

"Yes, Lady Kore. Unfortunately her entire schedule is in chaos after what happened, and her security's more than tripled. There's no way she can manage an excursion."

It's the answer I was expecting, but that doesn't make it easy to hear.

"Ah, of course," is all I manage. Syn studies my face, eyes full of sympathy. But it's not long before I force myself out of thoughts of Eurydice's absence and turn them towards the asking of more questions.

After five hours that pass at the speed of a glacier, it's time to get dressed.