He can only stare at her. Hythlodaeus - jealous? Preposterous. All that ridiculous teasing had been simply that: teasing. His friend had never made any suggestion they meant a single word of it, although Hades acknowledge he likely would have passed over it anyway with the amount of nonsense that came out of their mouth.

"That cannot be right," he says flatly. "In all the centuries we knew each other, Hythlodaeus never once made mention that he felt anything deeper than friendship. He knew such comments would incite a reaction from me. It grew to a point where I would try to ignore him to deny giving him a reaction at all."