Risa was distracted, trying to find the source of the eerie light as she walked along step by step. It didn’t seem to be reflecting from anywhere… it was just as if it was there by magic. All of the other hallways had been lit in a similar way, enough light to always see no matter how far they were from an exit or window. Until now, it didn’t strike her as strange—

She froze as her hand suddenly chilled, and the sensation of the wall beneath her fingertips lessened. Her heart jumped at the sudden change and, a grin of excitement spreading on her face, she turned to see her hand fading into the wall.

“Yes,” she breathed, and slowly pulled her hand back to her chest as she turned her attention to the wall. There was nothing, that she could easily tell, that would distinguish it from the space around it. Risa stretched out her arm again, this time watching carefully as the wall ate her up, fingertips all the way up to her wrist inch by inch. Still in the wall, she waved her hand left and right, trying to distinguish the size of the portal. There were no distinct edges to it, but if she moved too far to either side it suddenly became… harder to move, as though the air was resisting her progress. Risa decided that this portal was far large enough to step through, and stuck her arm farther through, ready to follow when something grabbed her around the wrist, and tugged.

She went tumbling through the wall, a cry of surprising wringing from her as she lost her balance and flopped into the new space. Heart thudding in surprise and eyes painfully wide, Risa felt the wave of nauseous cold overtake her before she emerged on the other side of the wall. Before her, in all of its glory, sat the underbelly of the Underworld.

The room was expansive, loud, and filled with a mist that seemed to settle near the ceiling. Holding onto her wrist with an inhumanly strong grip was a young girl, still willowy and thin in her build; her hair was tied back tied, the thin black strands occasionally flying around her face. Her eyes were nearly as dark as her hair and were too large for her face, giving her a strangely distracted countenance.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” she said, voice far more confident than Risa would have expected from a girl her age. “How did you get in?”

Risa looked between the girl and the invisible portal behind her, gaping for words. “I… just… walked in?” Was she not supposed to use the portals?

The girl continued to watch her, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Regardless, she dropped Risa’s wrist, as though she couldn’t possibly be a danger in her current state of confusion. Which, Risa acknowledged, was probably true.

“Humans can’t use the portals. Can't even see them. How would you know to come in here if you can't even see the doorway?” The girl crossed her arms over her chest, looking Risa up and down as she waited expectantly for an answer. Risa opened and closed in shock as she tried to come up with an answer.

“My hand just fell through when I was walking by…” She had been expecting a portal to be in the stairwell, not here. She looked around once more over the girl’s head and realized that, while it was loud and busy in the room, there wasn’t a single other person present. The noises were coming from dishes washing themselves, the broom sweeping the floor on its own, and a whole matter of other chores taking care of themselves. With a gulp, Risa looked back to the girl in front of her. Was she the one doing all of this? “Um, if you’re busy, I can just go, I didn't mean to—”

“No.” The girl’s hand shot out once again and clasped onto Risa’s wrist, locking down on her. “You will stay until Leo comes.”

Shocked, Risa tugged on her arm in an attempt to free herself, but it was useless. “He doesn’t even know I'm here,” she argued. “Let me go find him and—”

“I already told him, he’s on his way.”

Was she really not supposed to go there? Leo hadn’t set any rules about where she could and could not go, absolutely nothing. She could have probably tried to find her way home, too, if she really wanted. She knew it was useless, having no idea how portals worked, but Leo hadn’t prohibited it.

“Leo never said—”

“I never said what?”

Risa spun around as far as she cold with her wrist being held when Leo walked in and cut her off, his movements through the portal so silent that she hand’t realized he was entering. He looked down on both of them with cold eyes, and Risa resented the little writhing fear in her heart. She had decided to be above that, to be better than that. Leo’g long hair was framing his face and his dark eyes glittered dangerously, so she ducked her head, looking away as a blush of shame crawled across her cheeks.

“What’s going on here?” He asked, voice quiet. No matter how many times she heard him speak, she still always expected his voice to be thunderous, to shake the room. It was more unnerving when it was quiet. The younger girl let her go, and Risa drew her hand back to her side.

“Leo, she isn’t supposed to be in here, but she just walked in, right through the portal—”

“Right through it?”

His voice changed. Not any louder, nor any more imposing, but somehow richer in quality; curious? Risa risked a look up at him to find him studying her carefully, and quickly lowered her gaze again as her blush changed from one of shame to embarrassment.

The young girl watched their interaction carefully, the anger seeping out of her. “Yes. Her hand came through first, and then the rest of her.”

“Now wait,” Risa countered before she realized what she was doing. “You pulled me though!”

“But you found the portal on your own?” Leo asked, refusing to be distracted from the point. “And we're able to go through without anyone around?”

Risa furrowed her brow as she thought, looking at Leo unconsciously as she did so. “Yes, I found it on my own. I mean, you have such a large castle and there are almost no actual doorways… how else would you get around? I just felt the walls until I went through.”  She nervously picked at a stray thread on the hem of her sleeve as Leo continued to think. Of course she could go through the portals, why was that strange?

The three of them stood in silence for a few more minutes, waiting for Leo.

Hey all! Thank you for reading thus far into Persephone's Heir!  As always, thank you for the subscriptions and comments, they really make my day :) This story was my nanowrimo project, so it is mostly written but not completed; i will make an effort to finish it in the next few weeks!

For those of you who have read Mail Order Leo, you might be excited to know that I'm working on a sort of followup story. I am maybe seven or eight chapters in, so once I am nearing the end of Persephone's Heir I will start posting that... Im a bit excited about it :3

Thanks for sticking through all of my on and off stories, hope you're enjoying this one :)