“Oh, the mosquitoes?”
The girl cocked her head and looked at Danae as though she were an ignorant but adorable animal.
Danae didn’t know how she’d got here. The last thing she remembered was gazing at the night sky through the smoke hole in the roof of the Hunters Hall. And Polyxo, watching her. She shivered, then looked down and saw her black dress was gone and she was now clothed in an animal-hide tunic, like the women of Lemnos wore.
“How did I...where are my clothes?”
The girl laughed shyly and glanced up at Danae through her thick lashes. “You took off your dress last night because you were hot.” She gestured to Danae’s new tunic. “This will be better for the jungle.”
“Right,” Danae said slowly, disconcerted by the gaps in her memory. The wine must have been stronger than she thought.
Crawling out from the nest of furs, she saw the fabric surrounding her was bound to the roof of the hut and fell all the way to the ground, covering almost a third of the tiny room. The floor was strewn with dried fronds and part of a tree trunk bulged through the right-hand wall. She tried not to think about how high up they were.
She was relieved to see her dress and cloak were folded neatly in a corner and her bag lay next to them. She scurried over and pulled it toward her. Everything was there.
She shoved her seer’s clothing into her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
“Here.” The girl sat on her heels, holding out a woven plate. “I made you breakfast.”
Danae took the dish, broke off a piece of omelet, sniffed it, then nibbled tentatively. It was stuffed with the same violet flowers the mushrooms had been dressed in the night before.
“Mmm,” she mumbled as the flavors danced across her tongue. She shoveled the rest into her mouth.
The girl smiled indulgently, like a mother watching her child eat.
“Thanks,” Danae said through a mouthful. Then she frowned. “I don’t know your name.”
“Sofia. You’re Daeira.”
She must have told her last night. Thank the gods she hadn’t given her true name.
She set the empty plate on the floor and licked her fingers. “I should find the others.” Hopefully, one of the Argonauts remembered more of the night than she did.
Sofia slipped her silky hair behind her ears. “Most are sleeping, but everyone always gathers in the clearing when they wake.”
Danae moved toward the doorway. “Thanks for the omelet.”
She shuffled out onto the platform. Looking down, she saw a tangle of vines and branches but no obvious way of descending. The walkways only seemed to stretch between the tree huts.
“How do I get down?”
Sofia smiled, picked up a husk from the corner of the hut and dipped her fingers into the milky substance within. Danae recognized it as a nut from the tall trees on the beach. She recoiled as Sofia stretched out a hand, daubing her skin.
“You’ll need this first.”
She backed away, roughly rubbing the substance off her arm.
Sofia laughed, then proceeded to massage it over her own honey limbs. “Coconut salve. It protects us from the vines.”
Danae glanced down at her wrists. The welts were still visible from where the vines had bound her the day before.
Tentatively, she crawled forward and held up her arm, letting Sofia spread the salve over her skin. It felt cool and smelled sweet and creamy. She had a sudden desire to eat it. When Sofia reached her legs, Danae blushed, but Sofia didn’t seem to notice.
Once both their limbs were completely covered, Sofia placed the husk back inside the hut and grabbed hold of one of the many vines that trailed down from the canopy above.
“Watch first.”
She wound the vine around one leg then stepped off the platform. Danae peered over the edge as the girl glided down to earth, gripping the loop with her feet to prevent herself from falling. She landed on the ground with the grace of a gazelle, then looked up at Danae.
