A Touch of Ruin

Persephone and Sybil join Lexa’s family and Jaison as she is taken off the ventilator. Lexa is still alive, but as Persephone exits the hospital, she is captured by the Furies, pale, eerie-looking women with wings who entwine her with snakes. Persephone and Apollo both appear in Nevernight before Hades. Hades says that Lexa chose to die, but Persephone intervened because she is afraid of pain. Persephone blames him for not providing emotional support while her friend was dying. She accuses Hades of no longer understanding how mortals fear losing the ones they love. She admits that Lexa was her anchor to the Upperworld, a supportive relationship she had apart from Hades that she could rely on if their relationship failed. Just when she was starting to establish her identity, he came along and upset everything, and now she doesn’t know what she wants. Hades says that she has condemned Lexa to a fate worse than death.

Persephone sprouts thorns from her body, and Hecate takes her to her cottage to heal her. Hecate thinks Persephone’s problem is that she is denying her true identity as the Goddess of Spring and future Queen of