turns out to be less sneaking around and more Dionysus throwing himself against someone’s house, moaning and dry heaving until the owner of said house emerges with a rusting sword and their brow furrowed menacingly low.
Thanatos sighs from where he’s hunched above me, both of us peeking around another house nearby. The stippled stucco bites into my hands, but I press closer to the wall, hoping the full moon’s light doesn’t give away our position.
“What are you doing?” the broad-shouldered woman says, lowering her sword when all Dionysus does is continue to moan and groan, flopping uselessly against the wall.
“Water,” he slurs, staggering to her, then to the side when she flinches.
“What’s going on?” a man’s voice shouts from the interior of the home. A lantern flickers to life, casting light across the doorway and the woman standing in it.
“Nothing to worry about. Just another old drunk rattling around in the dark,” she shouts back.
“Old?” Dionysus squeaks.
There’s a thud from the wall to my side. I startle, toppling forward, but Thanatos’ hand on my shoulder stops me from falling into view.
“Quiet!” yet another voice shouts. “We’re trying to sleep!”
“Trying to sleep? Trying to sleep, he says.” The man in the first house scoffs. “More like trying to sleep off all that cheap wine you drag into that leaning house of yours.”
Another thud, someone’s fist smacking against the other side of our wall.
Thanatos grunts. “For the love of—”
Dionysus leans to one side, then the other, face shifting into a grimace. “I think I’m goin’ to be sick.”
The woman curses, shoving him toward the garden at the back of her house. “Shut up, the both of you!”
She unleashes the old, grizzled dog from his leash as she passes. The one reason Dionysus had acted as a distraction, eyeing the dog more dirt than muscle and declaring he could handle himself just fine.
After watching him croon at Artemis’ dogs in the palace, I believe him.
He groans again, capturing the dog’s attention from where its snout points toward us, hidden in the shadows of the other house. “Oh no,” he says. “Not going to make it.”
The woman unleashes an entire sentence of curses, throwing his arm around her shoulder and dragging him toward her garden.
“You, too, dog,” Dionysus croons. “Come along.”
The dog tilts its head, attention flickering between us and the two of them. But seeing the stranger dangling off its master’s shoulder must make it decide, for it trots along behind the woman with a last glance back at us.
“Damn drunks,” the man in the first house says.
“You got that right,” the man in the second says.
The house lights flicker out, casting the homes back into gloom.
The moon lines everything in shifting light. Thatched roofs become swaths of silver thread to match the embroidery on Thanatos’ tunic. The stucco gleams, pebbles embedded in its depths shining like jewels. A small boat’s wooden hull shines smooth as glass.
Only Dionysus’ retching disturbs the quiet.
“Now,” Thanatos says.
He goes first, keeping his steps light and crouching close to the ground, down past where the longest windows peek, blank and dark, from the houses. With one hand, he waves me forward. With the other, he curls his fingers around the boat’s pointed stern.
I edge forward, grass muffling my louder steps. Grab the stern from him while he moves to the other end, lifting it with ease while I struggle beneath my half. It’s not terribly heavy, small as it is, but the shape sits odd and the wood smooth in my hands.
It tips in my grip, wobbling close to a stucco wall. Toward the first house, the woman’s house, and her sleeping husband in the windows beyond.
Thanatos rights it within a blink, holding it steady as I readjust my grip.
Once the boat becomes solid in my hands, it isn’t so difficult to find a good hold. I lift it to mid-waist, standing just out of sight of the window in the wall beside us, and creep backward. Thanatos follows, unable to stand with the window right there, but compensating for it with brute strength. Two long oars dangle from the crook of his elbow, dragging against the grass with a near-silent shhh.
Four more steps. Then three. Two.
One.
The dog emerges from the corner behind him.
I curse, overloud. My grip slips on the sleek sides. The boat rocks in my hold.
There’s a shuffle, then a grunt, from the window. “Another drunk?”
All the hair on the dog’s back raises in thick, wiry tufts. It bares its teeth, a rumbling growl penetrating the night.
Dionysus’ retching stops.
“Move!” Thanatos says, standing, the whites of his eyes showing.
I lift my side above my head, and shuffle backward as fast as my shaking knees allow.
Not enough. Even with Thanatos’ speed propelling me forward, the dog is faster.
Slobber dribbles from between its bared teeth, plopping onto the grass. Drawn by the growling, the man relights the lantern, showering us in yellow light. Worst of all, the woman rounds the corner, her rusty sword lifted in a white-knuckled hand.
“Run,” Thanatos commands, dropping his side of the boat.
When I stand there, mouth open while the dog, the woman, and the light all bear down on us, he grabs me around the waist and hoists me over his shoulder. My stomach presses against his sharp shoulder bones. My hands dangle perilously close to his bottom.
Even with the churning ache in my stomach, the shaking chasing away the numbness of dread, I shout. “Old man!”
Dionysus rounds the corner in a sprint, veering around the woman and the dog chasing us. He grabs the boat as he goes, holding it above his head while it wobbles dangerously, and outpaces the woman within moments.
The dog stops in its tracks, unsure whether to follow us or backtrack to follow him, and he uses its moment of indecision to sprint forward. He uses one foot to knock it clean over, back against the dirt with a dumbfounded look on its face.
Dionysus rights himself just in time to avoid the boat sliding straight from his unsteady grip. He urges us faster with a gasping command of, “run, run, run!”
We break into the scraggly brush leading to the beach. Thin branches from low-lying shrubs catch in Thanatos’ tunic, tearing at the hem. Sand shifts beneath his feet. He grunts, unstable, but doesn’t stop as the dog barks in the distance.
The woman’s shouting follows us all the way to the shore. All the way to dropping the boat into the saltwater, climbing aboard, and forcing ourselves forward despite the rocking contraption. Thanatos throws one oar to Dionysus, keeping the other for himself. As one, they plunge them into the water, pointing the boat west, out into the open sea. Then, building a steady rhythm between them, they ferry us away from the beach.
The woman stumbles into the water too late, the dog racing along the beach behind her. She curses some words I’ve not heard or read before, but is helpless to follow unless she wants to swim by the light of the moon.
She doesn’t, though her dog is ready to do so before she snags it by its collar.
We catch our breath after the beach becomes a distant line in the distance. Thanatos leans forward, pausing his rowing to lean his forehead against his knees. “That was…”
Dionysus crows a laugh, rowing halted. “Ridiculous!”
I join his laughter until my stomach aches. “Fun, though.”
He pouts. “I wouldn’t say being called an old man twice in one night fun, dear girl.”
Thanatos’ teeth gleam silver-white when he grins, returning to rowing. “You are old.”
He squawks. “I’m immortal, not old. There’s a difference! And you’re older than me, besides.”
I flick my gaze back and forth between them, grinning. “You’re both ancient compared to me.”
With a look around the sea, the winter air crisp in my nose, I add, “I’ve just turned eighteen this winter.”
Dionysus perks up. “That means we must hold a party for you.”
He passes the time rambling about the merits of a party to celebrate my age, talking at length of the silks and decorations and liquor to be served as if we’re back in his father Zeus’ grand palace.
Too soon, the boat hits shore, the midday sun beaming down on us from between clouds. Yet with the winter breeze rolling across the realm, the heat isn’t anywhere close to unbearable, and we’re barely parched when we step foot on the islands.
Still, I lead the way to the freshwater river snaking between the two islands. Dionysus spends long minutes washing his tunic, then pants, wringing both out until the dripping water runs clean. Thanatos looks around, brows furrowed in thought, but says nothing as I lead us further.
Brosian and Amble raise their heads as I pass, having moved their nest yet again, and I wave at them with a smile. They croak a response, then curl back into each other to settle down for a nap.
Minutes later, we stop outside the caves. The gorgon caves, the place I spent most of my life, though that time is distant and hazy in my memory now. Months gone, my mother’s memory faded that small bit more, and my aunts lost to me. Strange how, despite everything else changes, the islands remain the same.
Only Thanatos clearing his throat breaks me from my thoughts. “Chloe?”
“Right, sorry. Come on,” I say.
I point Dionysus toward the kitchen, knowing he’ll throw a meal together within an hour, likely something including my aunts’ hidden stash of wine.
Thanatos follows me through the cave halls, a hand on his sword hilt, his shadow near invisible in the dim light. My aunts probably took the oil for the lamps when they left, though I’ll have to search for it later if we have any hope of staying here long term.
I’m not fond of darkness after my time in the dungeon. Even our time traveling was brightened by the moon and stars.
One deep breath, then we’re in my old room, smelling of dust and stale linen. The familiar grooves of the stone, the slant of the ceiling, the solid lines of the bed; all of it is the same as when I left. Same in a way I’m not.
But there’re key parts missing: the faded quilt my mother made, the scrap of red ribbon tied around a bedpost, my spare clothes littered across the floor. The pieces I brought to Nekros, the ones I left behind in Nyx’s palace, foolishly thinking I’d return.
I won’t. She’s no friend of mine, not anymore.
Though I’ll miss those scraps and the snippets of memories attached, they’re just things.
“Chloe,” Thanatos says, or maybe breathes.
Glancing over my shoulder, I find him running a hand over the grooves on the ceiling slanting toward my bed. Etchings, clumsy and lopsided, of seagulls and lizards, and my mother’s snakes and blindfolded eyes, carved hastily after her murder.
The etchings refine in time, the shapes evening out and the lines growing steady. As I aged, I stopped carving as much, but I didn’t stop altogether.
Scenes of glittering rooms, what I imagined the Olympian Palace to look like based on my storybooks. Glimpses of a Titan battling a god, their faces undefined. Aggressive Stam, poised to strike, and sweet Atia nestled in my cupped hand.
Most of all, eyes.
All sorts of eyes. Small, beady, narrow, wide, gleaming. Always open. Always guesses of what my mother’s looked like beneath her blindfold. Her stone turning stare couldn’t kill me, not in the way it could mortals, but she could freeze me in time until some god took mercy.
Thanatos tilts his head, fair hair rustling against the stone wall. “Your mother?”
I nod, throat tight. “I never—” I falter, biting my lip. “I never saw her eyes. She was so careful to keep them covered.”
“She was a good mother?” he asks.
“The best.”
His stare goes unfocused. “My mother…”
He trails off, throat working in a harsh swallow.
“She wasn’t kind to you,” I finish. “Ever?”
“When I was young, before her and my father started tearing each other apart, maybe. But even then, there were three of us children, two with powerful abilities, and just one of her.”
I stay quiet, unwilling to break the memories dancing across his expression.
“My father—Erebus was always scheming, always planning the future despite the Moirai having laid his fate long ago. Neither of them had time for us, not unless we did something wrong and needed punishment.”
His eyes focus. Shaking his head, he turns from the wall, swiping a hand across the back of his neck. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. I like learning more about you.” My face burns, but I meet his surprised stare, unwilling to look away from whatever builds between us each time we’re alone.
“Even the unpleasant things?”
“Especially those.” I shrug. “Good things don’t shape us the way the worst do.”
His smile goes crooked. “I suppose there’s some truth to that. But what of love? It’s good, isn’t it? And it shapes everyone powerfully once they’ve felt it.”
He steps closer, breath fanning across my face. Our sandaled toes touch.
“Well,” I say, more to stall than anything. “It depends on the sort of love.”
“Toxic or kind, good or bad, or some gray in between, I believe it shapes us, regardless.” He leans closer, our noses a hair’s breadth apart. “Don’t you feel it?”
“Feel it?” I ask. Our lips brush with each word, shooting electricity down my spine and raising the fine hairs on my arms.
“The good sort of love.”
This nebulous emotion building between us from the first time we noticed one another, truly noticed—is it love? Not the fond sort I feel for Dionysus, nor the begrudging kind I once felt for my aunts, but something different. Something full of his kindness and consideration, my focus and passion. Something unnamed until now.
I love him.
And I don’t know if he leans forward or I do. All I know is his lips, chapped but gentle against mine, and the warm slide of his arms around my back. Then the delicious heat from his skin where I rest my hands on his forearms, then his neck.
Kissing isn’t gross.
Kissing is—
Kissing—
I lose time in the give and take, the push and pull.
Distantly, there’s a clang of metal on stone.
Thanatos pulls away, eyes never leaving my face. “Dionysus dropping things.”
“Never mind that,” I say, or maybe gasp. “Come back.”
He does, arms tightening their hold on me, never close to bruising. “Of course, dearest.”
Another length of time, endless but gone too soon. A clang of metal, closer this time. Footsteps padding closer in a slap of leather. A cleared throat, soundly ignored.
The poke of a knife against my back.
We break apart with my gasp.
Thanatos’ eyes are darker than ever, his lips red and kiss swollen. “Why’d you stop?”
“Because of me,” a voice says from behind me, pressing closer with the knife. My skin breaks, droplets of blood dripping down the knife.
Thanatos snarls. “Stheno.”