Persephone walks the River Styx with a soul named Yuri and feels deeply uncertain about her reunion with Hades.

Sybil reveals that Apollo stripped her oracular powers after she refused to become his lover.

Hades forbids Persephone from writing about Apollo and warns her that he cannot protect her from another god.

Persephone publishes a scathing article denouncing Apollo, breaking her promise to Hades.

Hades abducts Persephone to the Underworld after the article sparks a furious public backlash against her.

Persephone interrupts Hades and Apollo's meeting; Hades offers Apollo a future favor in exchange for restoring Sybil's powers.

Lexa is critically injured when a distracted driver strikes her while she is crossing the street.

Hades refuses to bargain for Lexa's life, explaining that saving a soul requires the sacrifice of another soul.

Persephone secretly visits Iniquity hoping to find magic to save Lexa and encounters her newspaper CEO Kal Stavros.

Hades appears at Iniquity, destroys Stavros's proposed bargain with Persephone, and reveals he controls New Athens' criminal underworld.

Persephone finds Apollo in the pleasure district and bargains her time and company for his healing of Lexa.

Apollo heals Lexa, who survives removal from the ventilator, but the Furies immediately seize Persephone for breaking divine law.

Persephone drinks drugged wine at the solstice celebration, wanders into the Forest of Despair, and sees an illusion of Hades with Leuce.

Persephone unleashes devastating magic across the Underworld before Hecate and Hades subdue her and reveal the vision was Demeter's trap.

Hades offers Persephone an engagement ring at the Cypress Foundation gala as snow falls in August, and he declares war is coming.

A Touch of Ruin follows Persephone as she navigates a passionate but unstable relationship with Hades while trying to build an independent life as a journalist in New Athens. After defying Hades by publishing an exposé about Apollo's abuse of her friend Sybil, she is abducted to the Underworld and witnesses Hades broker an uneasy peace with Apollo to restore Sybil's powers. When her best friend Lexa is critically injured and Hades refuses to intervene, Persephone takes matters into her own hands, secretly visiting the criminal club Iniquity and then bargaining with Apollo directly, triggering a chain of divine consequences. The Furies punish her for breaking divine law, and Demeter engineers an illusion in the Forest of Despair that sends Persephone into a destructive magical rampage across the Underworld. Hades and Hecate subdue her, the truth about Demeter's conspiracy is exposed, and Persephone is forced to confront how much she still has to learn about being a goddess. The novel closes with Persephone stepping into her role as Hades' future queen, accepting his engagement ring at a public gala even as supernatural snow signals that war between the gods is coming.

The headline events driving Persephone's journey from doubt to destiny.

Antoni drives Persephone to work through a gathering crowd; she refuses Hades' offer of an aegis to preserve her independence.

Pirithous the janitor smuggles Persephone out of her office building hidden inside a garbage cart to avoid the crowd.

Lexa tours Persephone through the Cypress Foundation, revealing Hades' extensive charitable projects that Persephone never knew about.

Persephone, Lexa, and Sybil move Sybil out of Apollo's luxurious but colorless apartment and into Persephone's home.

Persephone confronts Hades at Nevernight after meeting Leuce; he explains he transformed Leuce into a tree after she betrayed him.

Hecate guides Persephone to create pomegranates using her magic, but they explode and coat everything in what looks like blood.

Demeter appears at Lexa's hospital bedside and questions how Persephone can love a man who let her best friend die.

Leuce tells Persephone about Iniquity over coffee, describing it as an underground club where illegal magical bargains are struck.

Apollo forces Persephone to judge a public musical contest between himself and the satyr Marsyas, intending to punish Marsyas for his boasting.

Persephone freezes the crowd with her magic and cuts Marsyas free from Apollo's henchman, severing the henchman's fingers.

Persephone spends an evening with Apollo at the Seven Muses club and hears him describe his grief over Hyacinth's death.

Lexa returns home from the hospital but is confused and asks why she is still alive, revealing her soul is broken.

Hades takes Persephone on her first horseback ride through unseen Underworld territory and asks her to marry him near a waterfall.

Lexa dies by suicide; Hades escorts Persephone to the banks of the Styx to say goodbye before Lexa drinks from the River Lethe.

Persephone befriends an amnesiac Lexa in Elysium at the Cypress Foundation gala, where a memorial garden is unveiled in Lexa's name.

While the central conflict between Persephone, Hades, and Apollo drives the plot, a rich layer of secondary events shapes who Persephone is becoming and what she stands to lose. Her daily life in New Athens grows increasingly chaotic as celebrity crowds force her into hidden tunnels and garbage carts, and a tour of the Cypress Foundation reveals a side of Hades she never knew existed. Her friendship with Lexa and Sybil anchors her to the Upperworld even as divine forces pull her away, and encounters with other gods such as Aphrodite and Apollo at the Lyre expose her to the full spectrum of Olympian power and cruelty. The revelation that Lexa's healed body houses a broken soul shows the true cost of Persephone's bargain with Apollo, setting the stage for a tragedy that cannot be undone. Hades' horseback-ride proposal and Lexa's farewell at the banks of the Styx mark Persephone's turning point from a girl clinging to mortal life to a goddess accepting her destiny. The novel closes with Persephone honoring Lexa's memory at a public gala, stepping forward as Hades' committed partner for the first time without reservation.

The world behind the headlines: friendships, revelations, and the cost of celebrity.

Hades is abruptly called away during an intimate moment with Persephone, leaving her feeling shut out and uncertain about his commitment.

Green vines erupt from Persephone's shoulder during a public lunch with Lexa, revealing her magic surges when she is emotionally upset.

Leuce visits Persephone at work and asks her to intercede with Hades for housing and a job, despite being his former lover.

Hades coaches Persephone in the Underworld to create flowers with her magic, telling her that her power is passionate and emotional.

Persephone realizes that her anonymous admirer is not Hades and notices Pirithous hastily hiding papers on his desk when she approaches.

Hades asks Persephone to marry him for the first time at Iniquity, but she declines and asks to see more of the club.

Hecate tells Persephone she is clinging to a mortal life that no longer serves her and urges her to create the life she wants.

Hades sends the Amazon warrior Zofie to guard Persephone after hostile crowds and professional punishments make the Upperworld increasingly dangerous.

Hades reveals that Apollo slept with Leuce as revenge after Hades refused to grant Apollo's desperate wish to die following Hyacinth's death.

Persephone confronts Hades at the solstice celebration for arriving extremely late and tells him to let her go if he does not want her.

Leuce confesses that she led Persephone to the Forest of Despair with drugged wine on Demeter's orders, exposing the conspiracy.

Persephone and Hades summon Demeter and Persephone forces her mother to apologize, sensing Demeter will seek terrible retribution.

Persephone tells Hades she is quitting journalism to launch The Advocate, an online platform where she will tell stories on her own terms.

After Lexa's funeral, Persephone moves out of her apartment, severing the last significant anchor binding her to a mortal life.

Persephone finds Pirithous' journal filled with surveillance notes about her, moments before he knocks her unconscious and binds her to a chair.

Beneath the dramatic confrontations of A Touch of Ruin lies a series of smaller but equally decisive moments in which Persephone learns hard truths about herself, the gods around her, and the life she is being called to lead. Early signs that her magic is tied to her emotions and that her anonymous admirer is not who she assumes set off a chain of growing unease, while Hecate's blunt advice to stop clinging to a mortal identity forces Persephone to reckon with who she truly is. Revelations about the deep history between Hades and Apollo, and the truth behind Leuce's role as Demeter's instrument, reframe every misunderstanding Persephone has had about her relationship. The solstice confrontation with Hades, the forced apology from Demeter, and the decision to launch The Advocate all mark Persephone actively choosing her path rather than being swept along by fate. The discovery of Pirithous' obsessive journal and her act of lethal self-defense show that Persephone's power is now real and consequential, not just symbolic. Together, these turning points trace the arc of a young woman moving from reactive anger and fear to deliberate, goddess-level authority.