Theseus collapses in the dirt, eyes locked on mine. His blood pours into the earth. I roll across the sand and kneel by my friend’s side. I flip him onto his back, ready to stanch the wound in his gut.

He chokes slightly, his eyes desperate, begging me to reverse this. The warm pool of blood beneath him stains my knees.

I stagger, reaching for the back of Helen’s throne before catching myself and cupping my hands behind my back.

“But even death couldn’t keep me away,” a very much alive Theseus says. His eyes lock on mine, face unreadable, before turning to my king and queen.

“I see that you are no less melodramatic since last summer, Theseus,” Helen says, frowning.

Apollo’s normally tan face has blanched. From the corner of my eye, I watch his hand inch toward the sword at his hip. The Spartan guards around us take notice, too. They straighten, eyes zeroing in on the god who doesn’t quite fit in. I silently will him to look my way, and his eyes flick toward me. I give him an infinitesimal shake of my head, praying to Tyche that the guards don’t notice my movement. His hand instead rests on his hip, just above the sword, and the guards relax. Slightly.

“Well, I’ve never quite been able to resist an audience,” Theseus says with a great laugh. His voice is different. I cannot place it. Deeper. Older.

“We are grateful you could make it.” Menelaus inclines his head. “I’m afraid that there are no more rooms available and you will have to share the megaron with some of the other kings.”

“You wound me,” Theseus says, but laughs again. “I take no offense so long as I can indulge in a cup of your finest wine.”

The mood in the room seems to lighten. A false light, if I have any say. After weeks of banquets, the kings have long grown tired of roasted boar and too-sweet wine. The songs are always the same, and by now the dancers are long tired and the guests bored with what little entertainment Sparta has to offer. We are a kingdom known for battle, not parties.

Never more evident is our lack of ability in entertainment than it is this evening. The night is filled with a simmering sense of false calm, made worse by the newest arrivals. The nervous trepidation of the gathered kings sets my teeth on edge.

Paris and Hector talk quietly with Achilles on the far side of the room, with Odysseus standing far too close to not be eavesdropping. Theseus cracks his cup against Agamemnon’s, making the great kings both roar with laughter as wine spills all over their feet.

With a nod to Dionysus to make sure he’s watching Helen, I cut through the crowd. Theseus’s dark hair reflects in the firelight from the hearth. I follow his bobbing, laughing head. He leads me in a circle around the room, quickly greeting each of the kings, then leaving. Muttering under my breath, I change course. I know where he will go next.

Theseus stops at the banquet table and lifts an overfull goblet of wine.

“Perhaps you should wait until after you’ve eaten,” I say, coming up alongside him. “We both know that you’re a lousy drunk on an empty stomach.”

“I ate before I arrived.” He lifts the goblet and drinks heartily.

Theseus, eyes blank and blood dripping in the sand, lays at my feet.

“It’s good to see you.” My voice trembles. “Alive.”

His fingers are bare when he lowers the drink, rings left in death. “Hades sent me to help you.”

“Theseus!” Menelaus beckons from across the room.

Theseus winks. “I’ll find you later.”

I watch his back, crossing my arms.

Apollo steps up beside me and I whisper under my breath, “What is he doing here?”

“I don’t know.” Apollo is still pale.

My stomach drops.

Apollo opens his mouth, but Theseus’s booming voice cuts him off.

“I am pleased that you remember me from last summer, Anassa.” The Athenian smiles up at Helen. “At Minos’s banquet, correct?” His eyes flick to me and back.

“How could I forget the prince who spilled his wine all down the front of my gown?” There’s an unmistakable bite to Helen’s words. She doesn’t trust him, either.

Apollo coughs and walks over to them. “Is your father, Aegeus, unwell, Prince Theseus?”

“My dear father died quite recently.” Theseus sounds the opposite of brokenhearted about it. His mouth is forced down into a frown, as though he would rather smile. Nothing in his face reflects the comradery that the pair built up last summer. “He fell from a cliff into the sea.”

Or he was pushed.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Apollo says, voice stilted.

Theseus shrugs. “A bit macabre, but I always felt that he was too old to spend so much time on those cliffs anyway.”

He walks away again, clapping Odysseus on the back. Apollo’s shoulder brushes mine. We stare daggers into the Athenian’s spine.

“Something is wrong with him.” Tension radiates from Apollo.

“I’m sure being dragged from death changes a person.” I twist a length of my chiton. I would know.

“Prince Hector,” Agamemnon booms, attracting my attention. He raises a new cup. “Join me for a drink.”

The Trojan prince’s face is unreadable as he walks over, steps slow and deliberate. As if he knows he walks into a trap. He claps the Mycenaean on the back and accepts some wine. “We’re not beginning negotiations already, are we? You must know that anything I say with a belly full of wine cannot be held against me. Though I think you may be far more inebriated than I.”

The surrounding kings all chortle. Nestor whispers something to Ajax. I shuffle closer to attempt to catch their words.

Agamemnon’s face flushes an ugly magenta. “I can hold my drink far better than any man here.”

“Say that to the wine staining your sandals,” Hector says, voice teasing yet sharp.

“That would be Theseus’s fault.” Menelaus’s deep voice cuts through the ensuing laughter. “I had my dear brother here call you over to ask of your father. Why did old Priam send you and not come himself? We are all kings here.”

Does the Trojan king not trust us? is what Menelaus does not ask.

My shoulders tense. Conclaves are infamous throughout history for stirring trouble. New alliances are formed, battles break out. A single wrong word and an entire kingdom could collapse.

“Our father—” Paris starts, but Hector cuts him off.

“Our father is older than any man here,” Hector says, looking each of the surrounding kings in the eye. “And governs five times as many people. He sent Paris to get a taste of rule, and I because he is not afraid to share the burden.”

“So what you’re saying is that he is afraid to leave his people behind?” Theseus asks from the other side of the hearth. There’s something off about his smile. Something wicked and twisted that I never noticed before.

I try to meet Apollo’s gaze again, but his focus is on the Athenian. Dionysus and Ariadne whisper in the back of the room. Their eyes are for each other, and each other alone. I watch as he brushes a lock of her black hair from her brow, the gesture tender. An unfamiliar ache forms in my chest.

“What my brother is saying is that,” Paris sneers, “our father is too busy to stoop to petty trade squabbles.”

Hector grimaces, gripping his brother hard enough on the shoulder to make the young man flinch.

A fervid whisper grows among the gathered kings and princes, making the hair on the back of my neck rise. Helen stands on the outskirts, and I slink between kings and envoys toward her.

Odysseus places himself firmly between Hector and Agamemnon—he must have a wish to meet with the god Thanatos—and raises his arms. “Must we bicker already? We will get nowhere with negotiations if we insist on petty squabbling.” He looks Agamemnon meaningfully in the eye. “Let us enjoy tonight at least before we descend into our animal counterparts.”

“What animal would you be, Odysseus of Ithaca?” Apollo asks, loud enough for all the whispering lords to hear.

“And I!” Dionysus raises a glass.

“I would be a crane, to fly myself far from this wretched place and back to my wife,” Odysseus replies, voice light. “I imagine you, Dion, would be a wasp, considering the way you gravitate to the wine.”

“A fair assessment of my friend. I imagine myself to be a python,” Apollo says, returning Odysseus’s laugh.

“A python would be more subtle with his movements.” Odysseus assesses the god I know so well. “Though much less fair.”

The mood has lightened, the other men moving from where they once crowded the hearth. Apollo winks at me above their heads.

I roll my eyes and refrain from telling him under my breath—as a god would be able to hear—exactly what animal I think he is. Something that meddles and puts its nose where it doesn’t belong.

Ariadne steps before me, cutting the god from my sight. She looks me over from toe to curly head. “Some new scars, I see.”

I blink. “I’m sorry. About your father, I mean.” I stumble over the words because, to be honest, I’m truly not sorry.

Ariadne doesn’t betray even an ounce of emotion, her face still. “Dionysus told me everything. What my father did. Who he supposedly killed.”

We both turn to look at Theseus, laughing with Ajax and Patroclus, who arrived with Achilles. Minos killed the Athenian. Or so I thought.

Theseus’s laugh is hearty and deep, so similar to the man I knew last summer, yet the way he holds himself, the way he speaks, still makes me itch to reach for my sword.

He looks over at us and grins. The smile is pointed and feral, making my heart hammer against my ribs.

“He’s changed,” Ariadne says with a frown. “And impossibly alive.”

Theseus’s father had yet to announce his son’s death, or at least word of it had yet to reach Sparta. Stories of Prince Theseus claim he’s still in Thebes; I can’t tell the truth without implicating myself. As if anyone would believe the story anyway.

If I close my eyes, I can still remember the sound of Minos’s death. The squelch of blood and bone. I shudder.

“Do not apologize for killing Minos.” She raises her chin. “I should have done it and cursed myself for all eternity as a kin-killer to stop the evil he was spreading.”

I’m saved from forming an awkward reply by Helen, returning from where she’d been conferring with her husband, greeting the Cretan princess with another hug.

“How is it that you’re even lovelier than last summer?” Helen holds the princess at arm’s length to look her over. “Rule suits you.”

“I am but a mere emissary.” Ariadne straightens her dress. “My sister Phaedra has taken Crete’s throne.”

Helen looks over Ariadne’s shoulder at me. “Have you two met before?”

I open my mouth to spill some bald-faced lie, but Ariadne cuts me off, raising her kylix. “Your Shield was kind enough to find me another glass. Agamemnon knocked my last one from my hand.”

Helen sighs. “He’s such an oaf.”

Absently, I nod. My thoughts are still on Theseus. Perhaps Hades truly did send him.

Paris’s gaze trails us as we circle the room, as well as the stares of Apollo and Theseus. I watch as Menelaus notes all three men and frowns. If he thinks that they lust after his wife, this could turn deadly fast. Wars have been started over less.

My throat is suddenly dry. “Perhaps we could show Ariadne your garden now?”

“A brilliant idea, Daphne.” Helen tugs on Ariadne’s hand. “Let’s leave this sorry lot behind. I’m much too tired of men.”

I follow the ladies into the growing night, entirely aware of the gods in Olympus watching our every step.