“Thank you for sharing your stories,” he said at last. “Understandably, the prevailing emotion among all of you is frustration—”

“More like resentment,” Atticus scoffed, cutting him off. “If I could, I would haunt my brother’s every waking moment and drive him mad until he draws his last breath. If I must suffer, so should he. Neither of us will know peace.”

“I don’t know if what I feel is frustration… I’m disheartened. And lonely,” Helene said, her tone dejected. “If I was loved if I was worth remembering shouldn’t I have been given a proper burial? What does it say about me and the relationships I had, that I wound up like this?”

Her sentiments were echoed by Philemon. “I may have not been a soldier for long, but one thing our commander always drilled into us is that we were more than just a unit of soldiers. We were brothers. Family. I keep telling myself that my ‘brothers’ couldn’t retrieve my body and that’s why I didn’t have a proper burial; but I have this voice in my head that won’t shut up. What if my so-called family just didn’t care? What if they couldn’t be bothered to bring my body home for my real family to at least hold a proper funeral because it was too much of a hassle?”

Kallias, the fallen general leaned forward and locked gazes with Philemon. “Of course you’d have all these questions. I can’t answer them for you. But I’ll ask you this: you trained alongside these men, broke bread with them. You had time to get a feel of what kind of men they are. Using all that information, which situation do you find more plausible?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Philemon huffed. “I was a new recruit, barely three months into the military ranks when we were shipped off. I was promised glory, and all I got was a dagger to the neck and a sword to gut. I had dreams! Plans for the future. Now what?” He raised his hands up in frustration.

“Now you accept that you’re dead and there’s nothing to be done about it, boy. Your anger is nothing but a poison to slowly drive you mad while you serve your sentence,” Kallias pointed out.

Philemon scoffed. “Says the man who’s been stewing over the fact that his King didn’t honour him with a proper funeral.”

Hades clapped his hands, intervening before the confrontation got too heated. “Gentlemen, please remember that this is a safe space. Violence will not be condoned. Having said that; both of you are allowed to feel however you feel about the situation you are in. But Kallias is right in that you can’t continue to stew in your anger and let it consume you.”

“Why not? It’s not like we have anything else to occupy our time,” Atticus scoffed.

Hades grit his teeth. It’s not like Atticus was completely wrong. Before he could say anything more, Niko raised his hand. Hades motioned for him to speak.

“I’ve always been a man with a plan, always on the move. I loved being a sailor being at the mercy of the ocean and weather, and finding ways to overcome them with my crew. Now, I find myself in stasis. Not living, but it doesn’t feel like I’m truly dead either. I’m stuck, unable to move forward. I have no idea what to do with myself,” Niko lamented.

“What are we supposed to do for the next hundred years?” Kallias asked. “Matter of fact, I can’t even recall how long it’s been since I died. There’s nothing to do here but shuffle around the other side of the Styx and watch the lucky ones pass on. Some of the Shades out there are just whispers of who they used to be. They’ve gone mad… Is that what awaits us? Madness and the loss of our identities?”

“Retaining your sense of self is a struggle most Shades face. Many succumb to the despair of being unable to cross over and end up, as you put it, Kallias, mere whispers of the men and women they once were. Oddly enough, it’s those like Atticus who still cling to lingering attachments in the world of the living and harbour strong emotions who are able to hold on to their sanity, so long as they don’t lose themselves completely in their anger.”

The Shades shot him sceptical glances.

“You would encourage us to haunt the living?” Dorothea asked, aghast at the suggestion.

Hades shifted in his seat. “I do not encourage haunting the innocent. But let’s take Atticus’s case, for example. Do you believe your brother will be brought to justice for his crime?”

Atticus rubbed his chin. “There were only two of us hunting in the forest the day I died. One would hope that an arrow in my back would raise suspicion but my brother is a cunning bastard. He probably blamed my death on a bandit attack or some such story.”

“So you’re saying that, in cases where someone was murdered and justice hasn’t been served, you’d condone us haunting their killers?” Philemon asked. “But I was killed in battle an honourable death,” he added.

“And we died at sea. Should we rail against the mighty Poseidon?” Lysander mocked.

“I can’t haunt the illness that killed me. I loved my family and don’t blame them for being unable to bury me with an obol for Charon. And what about Dorothea? She died of old age, didn’t she?” Kleo asked.

“Old age and neglect. My sons left me to fade away,” Dorothea corrected. “I, for one, wouldn’t mind putting the fear of Hades in them by terrorizing them from beyond the grave. Them and those witches they married.”

Hades opened his mouth to speak, but the group spoke over him, already deep in debate about the best ways to torment the living from the afterlife. Their fear of him forgotten and bearings far lighter than when the session first began. Even Sophia, timid at first, joined in. Though she didn’t remember the man who violated her, she relished the idea of revenge even in death with a bloodthirstiness that rivalled Ares.

Kallias and the other women eagerly offered suggestions about what she should do to her abuser if she ever got her memory back.

“You should drive the rat bastard to madness make it so the only thing he can fuck is goats and pigs. And always in public, where he can be shamed and shunned by everyone,” Niko suggested.

“And how do you suppose I could get back at my sons and daughters-in-law? Perhaps I should wait until my grandchildren are older… before I torment them,” Agatha mused.

“How about minor and petty inconveniences? Like moving items from where they remember placing them,” Kleo suggested.

“Or switching out salt for sugar,” Dorothea giggled.

The hour-long session passed without Hades saying anything further. It wasn’t what he’d planned, but it was what worked for them. At least the Shades left in higher spirits and looking forward to the next session.

Hades returned to the waiting room to find Melinoë fiddling with an ornate-looking box about the size of his palm. A puzzle with pieces that had to be slipped in place to unlock it.

His daughter’s eyes swept over him, cataloguing every detail of his appearance. “Looks like you made it out in one piece. Was it a good session?”

“Yes. Not what I expected, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and more importantly, so did my patients. Do I have any others scheduled?”

A devious gleam lit her eyes. “No. But a messenger came to make an appointment on behalf of Mistress Echidna”

“No!” Hades declared, not waiting to hear the rest of the message.

“But—”

“No!”

Melinoë’s expression darkened. She set the puzzle down and crossed her arms.

“I thought you didn’t discriminate against clients seeking help. Why can’t mistress Echidna come here for therapy? Aren’t you all about helping all these all-powerful beings fix their twisted personalities?”

“In this case, I don’t mind discriminating. I will not invite the Mother of Monsters here. She despises our kind, for one. And if Zeus were to find out, he’d have a conniption. I’d rather not deal with another of his tantrums, so no!” Hades stated firmly.

Melinoë pouted. “This is your domain, Daddy. Uncle Zeus has no say in who you can or can’t invite here. Besides, Echidna hates the Olympians which we are not. We’re of Chthonic nature, just like her. Practically family.”

“We have stronger family ties to the Olympians than we do to her,” Hades pointed out.

“Whatever,” Melinoë clicked her tongue. “I bet you’re just terrified of what she’ll do to you for keeping one of her children as a pet,” she countered.

Hades rolled his eyes and walked past her desk into his office. “I have patient files to update. And Cerberus is family, not a pet,” he called out.