Danae took up the knife and scrabbled to her feet. ‘You have to help him. He’ll die if you don’t.’
The woman paused and glanced over her shoulder. ‘Ihaveto do nothing. You came here uninvited, trampled over my island and ruined a perfectly good lizard trap. Why should I help you?’
Danae opened her mouth, but words failed her. ‘Please,’ she repeated feebly.
The woman sniffed. ‘Your friend is not of this island, he’s not mine to heal.’
Rage flickered in Danae’s aching chest. ‘You won’t even see him? You would just leave Heracles to die?’
At the hero’s name something too quick to discern darted across the woman’s face. ‘Zeus’ boy?’
In her urgency Danae did not dwell on the strange familiarity of the question.
‘Yes.’
The woman seemed to wrestle with herself. Then she said, ‘Take me to him.’
The woman navigated the steep rocky slope with the ease of a mountain goat, Danae struggling to match her speed. When they reached the beach, they broke into a run, pacing across the ribbons of sun-crisped seaweed strewn about the shore.
Hylas stood and flexed his wings as Danae fell to her knees and checked Heracles’ pulse. Weak, but still there. Despite the heat of Hylas’ body against him, he was as cold as stone. She rubbed his arms, his chest, vainly trying to encourage some warmth into his skin.
She glanced back to find the woman had stopped in her tracks, staring at the winged horse.
‘Pegasus?’ she breathed.
The horse trotted over and nuzzled the woman’s hands with easy familiarity.
A prickle of jealousy furrowed Danae’s brow. ‘You know my horse? His name is Hylas.’
The woman’s eyes flicked to her, mistrust sharpening the angles of her face.
‘Did Poseidon think I would not recognize his steed? Did he put you up to this?’
‘I don’t know what –’
Heracles groaned.
The woman’s gaze snapped from Danae to the hero. She stared at him for a moment, before pacing forward and squatting down beside him.
‘By the Mother, he looks so like his father,’ she murmured and gently brushed his sea-slicked curls away from his forehead.
‘Can you help him?’
The woman loosed a deep, weary sigh. ‘When did he last take his strength elixir?’
Danae opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. ‘How do you know about that?’
The woman waved an impatient hand at her. ‘Answer the question.’
Danae recalled what Atalanta had told her in the Underworld. ‘I think about six months ago.’
‘Hm.’
‘Can you help him?’ Danae repeated.
‘Don’t know yet …’ For a moment, the woman’s eyes misted with that faraway look again. ‘But I will try. We’ll need to get him back to my hut. Help me lift him onto Pegasus.’
The unfamiliar name jarring through her, Danae moved around to Heracles’ legs and helped the woman lift him. But her body had finally reached its limit. She dropped the hero’s limbs with a groan and sank to her knees, ribbons of agony pulsing across her chest.
