Hephaestus brushed his forehead, slick with sweat; "There's your problem," he says, pointing to the pile of bone and ash at the bottom of the reservoir; too much, he thinks, even for uncle's abattoir.

"Needs to be hotter," Hades murmurs; he alone seems unbothered by the heat, the only person not sweating in an underground foundry six feet deeper than any other.

Hephaestus frowns as he adjusts the coal-fires to burn higher; despite the blazing heat of his uncle's many furnaces, he feels a chill wondering just how much longer Hades' madness can burn.