Elpis smiled at him. Smiled with a vivid, fervent brightness that was nothing like the tremulous glow she chanced in Allegra's company. This was a smile that curved like a scimitar, burned like a wick, and was hard as bone.
"I'm the word that changes the world," Hope said in her new soft, suffocating voice. "I can do anything when not afraid."
And who'd have thought that this, this was the consequence born of pressing her power unto Death? The withering and suffocation of fear, of awe, of worry and disappointment. Hope had lashed in a fit of mortal anger and in return...in return...
She laughed at Hephaestus' surprise because, oh, it was too hard not too. And she laughed because it was funny, because it hysterical to have had the answer available all this time and only now realize how well that answer fit. Like stumbling through a dessert, unaware that you were circling a lake the entire time. Elpis laughed and laughed, and laughed, and put her small--but not so small, not anymore, not like before--hands over her mouth to smother the outburst until it lessened into manageable giggles.
"You're so very, very clever," she finally said. "But also so very, very not." Elpis tilted her pretty head, calmer and still smiling. "But you should now; you're always making nice, nice gifts for people--people you don't even like that much. Admit it, you don't, you don't. Yet you make what they love--and so will I!" Her face was breathtaking in its open joy. "I'm going to give Allegra the best kind of heart, the nicest, nicest matching sort of heart. And, oh, oh, do you know the best thing about it, the very, very best thing? She'll love it. Because she already does, you see, she loves this heart more than anything."