Chapter 2

A woman emerges from within a seething mess of shadow. Silver eyes stare back at me with undisguised interest, sparkling like the stars at my back. Her skin, the ever-shifting indigo of the night sky, is dotted with constellations. Hair, pitch black, roils in the air until it becomes part of the shadows themselves.

A goddess.

“Goddess Nyx!” Aunt Stheno shuffles forward on her knees. 

Aunt Euryale joins in. “Our most gracious, giving—”

“Hush,” Nyx says.

And both of them fall silent, eyes on the floor. Part of me thrills at seeing them where I was moments ago: subservient. Submissive. Cowards.

She strides forward, ivory dress swishing along the cave floor. Silver pins studded with delicate amethyst stones shine at each shoulder. A belt of matching silver, thin like a circlet, cinches at her waist. 

I lower my head, watching her from beneath my lashes. She’s the goddess of night, here in our home, and anything less than respect could see me attacked.

With a flick of her wrist and a thick tendril of shadow, she slides the table between us to the side. It knocks against the wall, but nothing breaks. I sigh in relief.

Then she stops in front of me but doesn’t touch. I’m glad; I can’t welcome it, not with the phantom grip of hands still in my hair.

“You’re Chloe, yes?” she asks in a husky trill. Her eyes rove from my dark hair down to my grimy feet.

“Yes. I’m Chloe. That’s me.” I snap my mouth shut, swallowing down all the nervous words wanting to spill out. “Sorry.”

She smiles. Her teeth are square like mine. My shoulders loosen from up near my ears.

“None of that, darling.” She leans closer, intent on me and me alone. “We are to be friends.”

“Friends?” one of my aunt’s echoes, disgust lacing her voice.

Nyx silences her with a look of utter fury. With her eyes narrowed and her mouth pursed tight, she’s older in appearance for a moment. As a protogenoi, or a god born of Chaos itself, she’s older than any god in the Olympian court. Old as the fates. Old as the Titans.

I shiver. “Friends?”

She nods, her smile warm.

“I’ve never had a friend before.” No, that’s not right. “Well, I’ve had animal friends but not people friends.” 

I’ve had my snakes, Stam and Atia. Then Amble and Brosian, the old gull couple. Sometimes the lizards if they’re feeling brave enough to come within a hair’s breadth and hear my chatter.

Her smile grows. “Consider me your first people friend, then.” 

I grin back.

“Goddess,” Aunt Stheno says. “You must force her to leave. She refuses!”

I glance back, mouth already open to protest. But she’s right; I don’t want to leave. I haven’t refused, not yet, but I will. 

These caves hold flashes of my mother. Traces of her jasmine smell. Scraps of an old scarf used to cover her eyes or glimmers of a discarded earring.

Besides, haven’t I learned my lesson about arguing with them? My scalp aches at the memory of their hands buried in my hair.

Nyx sighs. “If she leaves, it’ll be her choice to do so.”

Aunt Euryale lifts her head. “But—”

“Her choice,” she snaps. 

The shadows stretch close to my aunts, a tendril lifting to resemble a single finger. It jabs at their raised heads until they lower them again.

Good, let them have a taste of subservience.

“Nyx,” I say.

Her attention swings to me.

I gulp, but press on. “Why are they leaving?”

“We’ve made a bargain, them and I. In return for their help and cooperation.” She pauses, shooting them another glare. “I will award them coveted spots among my entourage.”

“And gold!” Aunt Stheno says, head down. 

Aunt Euryale joins. “Enough gold to buy everything we could ever want!”

Nyx rubs the bridge of her nose the same way my mother did to stave off a headache. “Yes, yes, you’ll get your gold when you fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“But why leave?” I ask. “This is our home.”

“My dear Chloe, this isn’t the sort of bargain one can do at home.” Her lips twist in a wry smile. “Few are.”

I rub at the back of my neck. My hand comes back damp with sweat. “What are they meant to do?”

She waves her hand, a graceful glide I’m sure would be an awkward flail on anyone else. “Dethrone Zeus.”

My heart plummets alongside my stomach. I swallow and taste ash like the hearth itself has filled my mouth. 

Dethrone Zeus, the god-king of Prasinos? The land may be peaceful according to my aunts’ stories and my books, but there are those who hate him. Despise him. My aunts included. And sometimes, when the sun dips beneath the horizon and I’m alone with my thoughts, I hate him too. 

He ordered my mother killed to prove his demigod son, Perseus, capable of becoming a god himself. Perseus embraced his human side, remaining mortal until his death by fire years ago. There’s no use wishing him dead, not anymore. 

But Zeus? Him I can wish dead. My mother is dead on his order.

Nyx hums. “You understand, don’t you? He’s hurt so many. Why, he ordered a simple mortal storyteller dead thirteen years ago. Any of us could be next.”

“He ordered my mother’s murder.” My voice is not my own. No, it’s something twisted, something angry.

She nods. “And who will it be next? One of your aunts?”

I look at them, cowering on the floor. Aunt Stheno keeps her head bowed but her shoulders shake. Aunt Euryale lifts her head, eyes huge in her narrow face. Her mouth trembles. 

“He can’t.”

“He can and he will.” She grasps my chin with an icy hand, yanking my head to face hers. “He can do anything he wants. Only with his death will any of us exiles find peace.”

“You’re an exile? But you’re a goddess.”

“Zeus cares not. I spoke against him once, many lifetimes ago.” Her eyes darken to molten gray. “Now I’m the worst sort of exile, not allowed to step foot into his grand city of Athansi, nor the Olympian Palace. He can do whatever he likes.”

She lets go. “Regardless, joining in on our bargain will be your choice.” She directs the next to my aunts. “And hers alone.”

“Perhaps we should tell her of her parentage, goddess?” Aunt Euryale asks. 

My parentage. Medusa, my mother, and the mysterious man she never named as my father. Gods, I never knew fathers were a thing until I happened upon the word in a book. 

And when I asked, she always went pale. She’d shut herself in a cavern, refusing to eat or sleep, until days after I asked. It didn’t take long for me to stop asking.

Nyx jolts, wisps of her hair ripping free from the shadows encasing her. Her eyes focus on the cave wall, pupils dilating to swallow her silver irises.

“Nyx?” I reach out a hand, hovering near her elbow. 

“My daughter calls for me.” She steps back, putting distance between us, and the shadows retreat from the walls to surround her in their embrace. “If you’ll excuse me, my friend.”

“Of course,” I say with a bow of my head.

“I’ll see you soon, Chloe of the gorgons.” 

She grins once more before the shadows surround her body. They fold in on themselves until she’s a ball of roiling darkness. The ball flies up, slipping through one of the narrow ventilation holes in the cave roof, and vanishes into the night sky in two blinks.

I lower my gaze, pivoting to face my aunts.

They stand, Aunt Stheno with a hand to her back and Euryale with a pained groan. “We need a better rug,” they say in unison.

I sidle away, keeping to the rounded walls with them in sight. Better to escape now before they can pester me more.

Stam twists against my neck. 

No. Not now. 

I raise a hand, holding her back. It’s too late; she’s already out of my hair, mouth stretched wide in a yawn. Her fangs hang down, threatening and adorable all at once. 

Aunt Stheno’s snakes lunge, snapping at the air. And the snap of their mouths closing rouses Aunt Euryale’s snakes. They hiss as a group, eyeing Stam with the narrow-eyed focus of predators. 

“Chloe!” Aunt Stheno snarls.

Aunt Euryale points to Stam. Her finger trembles. “Put that snake away.”

So much for making a clean escape.

I glance down at Stam. “Please go back to sleep,” I whisper, stroking a hand along her head.

Her tongue flicks out, scenting the air. 

The other snakes hiss again.

Stam opens her mouth, fangs bared. Lunges just once. 

Their snakes coil in on themselves, tangling in a fathomless heap on each of their heads with heads ducked away. 

Aunt Stheno shrieks. Aunt Euryale reaches for her snakes, stroking each while murmuring sweet nothings. 

In the chaos, I slip out of the kitchen. 

“Thanks, Stam,” I say once the flap of thick fabric covering my cavern flutters into place at my back.

My aunts grunt and shout in the kitchen, their footsteps remaining firmly in the space. Good. They haven’t chased after me.

I fall onto my bed. The ceiling is the same as always: pocked and rough. A spider lingers in one corner, web turning invisible when the light filtering through the ventilation holes dims. 

“Stam, Atia,” I whisper. My eyelids lower further with each blink. 

Stam is a glimmer of bronze, Atia an olive green, when they unfurl. Their solid black eyes gleam in the low light. As one, they swipe their tongues across my cheek.

“What should I do? I can’t stay here by myself.” 

The mainland is dangerous. My mother feared it, never leaving our islands. My aunts love it, yet warn me how dangerous the cities are each time they return from gathering supplies. Thieves abound. Worse, there’s always another demigod looking to prove their mettle by killing a fearsome monster. A monster like a gorgon. A monster like me.

I shiver, then pull my woolen blanket over my head until we’re cocooned in pure warmth.

Atia curls herself against my cheek, cool body a soothing balm. My eyelids drag lower still.

Stam flicks her tongue against my ear. 

I startle, curling a hand against the tingling skin there. “Stop being a menace.”

She hisses, the jagged one I’ve forever assumed a laugh. 

Stop being a menace.

What if I stopped defying my aunts in little ways? Getting back to the cave before dinner, not after. Cleaning the streaks of paint my fingers leave each time I return.

No, I can do better than that! 

I’ll clean, cook, and tend to their every need until they can’t imagine anywhere better than here. The floors swept spotless; the walls scrubbed to a well-honed sheen, and food cooked more decadent than even Aunt Stheno can manage. 

I’ll have to find what scant herbs the island grows to add more flavor to the food; our spice supply is sparse. 

Stam settles against my neck. Atia coils closer to her until they become a knot of scale on scale. Until I can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.

I fall into a sleep full of my mother’s laughter and brooms swishing against the cave floor.

“Come on,” I say, struggling to attach a handful of straw to the driftwood pole. 

It doesn’t talk back. Instead, the pole chooses this exact moment to snap clean in half. I throw it on the ground. 

Another crack. The tail end of one half hangs on by a sliver. 

I groan, flopping onto the stone floor. I lie back, throwing an arm over my eyes, and sigh. 

Of course our old broom broke precisely now. I’ll have to find another piece of driftwood, or worse, saw down one of the thin trees growing on our islands. 

Atia flicks her tongue over my racing pulse. Calm down, I imagine her saying. 

“I am calm.”

Stam weasels her way from my hair, gliding across my cheek in clear mockery. 

Later, after I dig another long piece of driftwood from our storeroom, I fasten straw to the end with a cord. This pole doesn’t snap, not quite brittle from the dry late-summer air just yet. 

Before long, I’m sweeping the floor in wide arcs. Aunt Euryale and Stheno rustle through their individual rooms, items thumping against the thick walls when I pass, but thankfully keep to themselves.

When the sunlight beaming from the cave opening and ventilation holes shifts to a breezy dusk, I sit back and truly look at all I’ve done. 

The walls shine, scrubbed clean of grime. The floors are a gleaming swatch of stone interspersed with the rough-hewn rugs. I beat them with a stick until no more dirt dared fall off. The odd nooks are dust-free. I stored my paints and sandals in my room, piled at the end of my bed.

Clean. It’s all clean. Even the kitchen is spotless; I scrubbed the wall near the hearth for close to an hour to remove traces of soot and stew.

My arms ache, my legs wobble, but I grin. 

“Aunt Stheno!” I holler into the main hallway. “Aunt Euryale!”

So busy packing, they’re late starting dinner.

Both poke their heads free from their caverns, snakes hissing more with curiosity than anything else.

I shove Stam back into my hair. She sighs but settles down. As parts of me, the exhaustion from cleaning our home weighs just as heavy on her and Atia.

“What!” Aunt Stheno shouts back. 

Aunt Euryale huffs, pulling a lumpy bag along when she leaves her room. “What is it?”

I gesture around the hall.

They both glance around, then turn to stare at me. 

“Is this a guessing game?” Aunt Euryale asks.

Aunt Stheno snorts. “Some game. It’s just our same old cave.”

“I scrubbed the walls,” I say. “And swept the floors. Beat the rugs. Cleaned every inch of the kitchen, hearth included.”

Their brows plummet low over their eyes. With a shared look, one I can’t read on either of their faces, they shrug. 

“About time you earned your keep,” Aunt Stheno says.

Aunt Euryale nods. “Very true!”

I nod along. “Yes, yes. And…?”

We can stay, I urge with my eyes. 

“Oh, put those away.” Aunt Stheno grunts, turning back to her room. “Whatever you want, you can keep to yourself. We have to pack!”

Aunt Euryale sighs. Her bag swishes across the floor when she pivots and returns to her room. Her voice echoes out. “And now she’s interrupting us when we’re clearly busy.”

My left eyelid begins a rapid twitch. Sweat dries on my back, sticking my dress to my dirt-covered skin. Dust tickles inside my nose, threatening to start another sneezing fit. 

I glance around, shoulders slumped. All this work, all this time, and they don’t care.

Faced with their complete indifference, my heart plummets. Those precious herbs I trekked across the islands to find, left in a small basket on the kitchen table—they won’t care about those either.

They’ll leave with Nyx, and I’ll be here. Alone.

Alone for the first time. Oh, they leave on supply runs to the mainland, using a ratty boat pushed along by splintering oars, but they always come back. Always.

Not this time. If I stay, I’ll be alone in my home. No aunts or mother. Just me. My snakes and the island animals will be my only company. 

How long before I go mad? How long until I forget the days? 

Worst of all, I’ll be the one risking my life on the mainland to find supplies. Men, demigods, gods, even other creatures—if anyone sees Stam or Atia, they’ll know. They’ll know and they’ll kill me just like my aunts warn.

Still, part of me hopes. Hopes until I’m sweating over the hearth, stirring in herbs and whispering prayers.

Turn out okay. 

Make them stay.

Gods, don’t make me leave.

Nothing happens. 

Aunt Stheno hears my whispers when she passes. She smacks the back of my head. “Stop that. There’s no point! No god in their right mind will aid a creature, let alone a gorgon.”

She’s right. Part of me keeps hoping, anyway.

I keep stirring while they bustle around me, grabbing pans and utensils to store in their bags. Why they’ll need either while working alongside Nyx, I don’t ask. But soon, they’re back in their rooms.

I put my head down, watching the food until the liquid is gone from the heaps of rice. Herbs, cut fine, fleck the rice and meat with mild greens. The scent is savory with a hint of sweetness; I mixed in drops of honey, more precious than gold on our barren islands.

“Dinner!” I call.

There’s a satisfying crush of them both trying to fit through the kitchen doorway at the same time. They curse back and forth before stumbling inside.

I dish the food into three bowls, sure to heap extra in theirs while mine is filled halfway. A fourth of the food remains in the pot should they want more.

They pull stools close to the table, settling down and tucking into their food. Watching them so closely, more of my rice ends up down my dress than in my mouth. 

When Aunt Euryale leans back, patting her stomach, I lean forward. “Good?” I ask.

She nods.

Aunt Stheno leans back from her second bowl. Lets loose a massive burp. It echoes around the kitchen, then the caverns beyond. “You added fennel.”

I hum, nodding. 

“But there was a hint of sweetness,” Aunt Euryale says. Her mouth purses. “Sugar?”

Aunt Stheno snorts. “No, no, not that sweet. Something more…natural.”

“Sugarcane?”

“No, you idiot. Not sugar!”

Oh no. I slump lower in my seat. Maybe if I leave now—

“Honey?”

Aunt Stheno snaps her fingers. “Yes! It was honey.”

Aunt Euryale nods. Then freezes. “She used honey.”

“The honey we like in our tea.”

They turn to me where I’m standing, one foot raised to flee. “Sit down!” they say in unison.

I do, pulling in my shoulders to appear smaller. “I was only trying to make it taste—”

Aunt Stheno snarls. “You know you’re not supposed to use honey.”

“First the candy, now our honey!” Aunt Euryale throws her hands up, narrowly missing Stheno’s ear.

“The candy was two years ago.” I snap my mouth shut, realizing my error too late.

Never argue back.

They go eerily still. Then walk around the table. With each step, I flinch. Clench my eyes shut. Grit my teeth. Wait and wait for an eternity.

A hand clamps down on my neck. The wide palm and clammy skin; Aunt Stheno. 

She drags me upright, towing me away from the table. I open my eyes, gasping for breath. Her hand is a vice grip around my throat. Aunt Euryale trails after us, her mouth turned down in a scowl.

I’m thrown in front of the hearth, a hair’s breadth away from the fire. Despite the stifling heat, I take deep breaths, desperate for air. Each gasp burns in my throat. The relentless heat stings my eyes.

“Learn this lesson well, girl.” Aunt Stheno leans down, snarling in my ear. “Disobedience will be punished.”

Aunt Euryale stops on my other side. She grabs my arms in a bruising hold, forcing them behind my back. 

Without my hands against the floor, keeping me propped upright, I sink closer to the flames. Only the hand on my neck prevents my face from being seared off.

The ends of my hair swing closer to the fire. I heave a breath. “Please, I won’t do it again.”

“Do what?” one of them says; I can’t tell which around the rushing in my ears.

“I won’t argue.”

She pushes me closer. The tips of my hair ignite.

I close my eyes but can’t stop the acrid scent of burning hair from filling my senses. My breaths stutter alongside my heart. 

“And?”

Another push. Another span of my hair lost to the flames. “Please!” 

“AND?”

“I won’t take without asking!”

Aunt Stheno spits. It lands on the side of my neck. The goopy wetness seeps through my hair, down onto one of my sleeping snakes. Stam. Don’t wake up, don’t wake up, don’t wake up—

“Not good enough. You don’t take. You steal.”

Stam uncoils with an ominous hiss from my hair, fangs bared and dripping with venom.