22
" Athena: "What makes you human? What’s different about you
from every other creature out there?”
“We can think?” a boy wearing a loose button up shirt and khakis called
from the front row.
“We have emotions?” a girl asked, pushing her glasses up the bridge of
her nose with her pinkie.
“We’re self-aware? Like, we think about thinking and time and stuff?”
Gods, when had college kids become so uncertain? All their replies ended
with an upward lilt like they were asking a question instead of supplying
an answer.
After a couple of students gave faltering answers, I [Hades] called from the back
of the room, voice strong and certain, “They can lie.”
Athena jerked her head toward me, panic flashing in her eyes as she
scanned the rows of students. When her gaze locked on mine, the color
drained from her face. “Class dismissed. "
― Kaitlin Bevis , The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus, #3)
25
" Cassandra caught my quizzical look and shrugged. “Problems adjusting. You just missed the latest of the new souls. It would seem none of us are quite as good with people as you are.”
That was an understatement. With any luck, Cassandra hadn’t caused any psychological scarring with her “Yeah, you’re dead, get over it” speech. She wasn’t a people person. Ordinarily, I greeted the new souls and took special care to deal with any “adjustment problems.” I enjoyed that part of my work. It was one of the few good deeds I could credit myself with. But as much as I’d love to tell myself otherwise, I wasn’t settling in the souls out of the goodness of my heart. Just lack of better alternatives. The other gods had difficulties relating to humans. But those difficulties were nothing compared to the problems the humans in my court had relating to each other. Souls lose something the longer they’re dead. They forget what it was like to worry, to be scared, to be human. Just yesterday, I’d caught Cassandra telling a frightened new soul I’d gone through a dark phase back when Dante passed through, but not to worry. I hadn’t gone off my meds for centuries.
Fucking Dante. "
― Kaitlin Bevis , The Iron Queen (Daughters of Zeus, #3)